9367 ‎(2)‎

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9367
• Author: Colorado Water Workshop.
• Title: Proceedings
• USFW Year: 1992.
• USFW - Doc Type: Colorado Water Workshop July 22-24, 1992.
• Copyright Material: NO

Endangered Species Act
Panel Discussion

Moderator: Fred Wetlaufer, Member, Western Colorado Congress

Question: I have some comments that I would like to make. The first
is about the Endangered Species Act. It smacks of totalitarianism to
me, in terms of the penalties and the lack of economic consideration.
I would submit that if we used incentives as opposed to penalties that
we would harness the human potential and that would work wonders in
terms of saving species. Secondly, will the Endangered Species Act
stop the overall decline of species by itself? I submit that it will
not. Patrick said that the problem was the human ability to
accelerate the demise of species. Therein lies the problem. I do not
hear anyone stressing that basic problem. Population is a terrible
term, but we as ranchers we are always faced with the fact that we
cannot overgraze, or over utilize our property without consequences
and we deal with that. I do not think we are dealing with that. I
would submit that humans are an endangered species, not because their
numbers are -decreasing, but because their numbers are increasing.

Question: I have one question for Bill. Where does all this excess
water that Dave Miller talks about come from?

Bill Trampe: Ed, I am not sure.

Question: My name is Jimmy King. I represent the community of Ship
Rock, New Mexico, which is located about thirty miles west of
Farmington, just downstream from the Navajo dam. Janice mentioned the
San Juan River several times. There have been large flows of water
from the Navajo Dam released recently that wiped out many of our
diversion dams along the San Juan River towards Ship Rock all the way
down to Enice, Utah. There are many people in my community who live
by cultivating farmlands. Does the Endangered Species Protection Act
have any financial assistance available to repair these diversion dams
for us so that we can continue irrigating our farmlands? How soon,
where and when? Right now the water levels have been high and they
wiped these dams out. There is no money available to rebuild them.
There are four or five chapters that live near the San Juan River who
have passed resolutions stating this problem. We have seen it coming.
They still went ahead with it and like Patrick said, it is the law.
If it is going to be law, is there money to help rebuild some of these
things. That is what I am here for. I want to find out what we can
do to keep this from happening again. Are there any plans to rebuild
the diversion dams?

Janice Sheftel: Thank you for bringing that problem to our attention.
It is not something I had heard about. I realize that there have been
increased reservoir releases to determine flows that would be best for
the Colorado Squawfish. I was not aware of the conflicts, however,
I do not know if the Service has money two help in such matters. We
will be glad to investigate what the action of the flows has done.
I did not realize there was a problem. I think those who are involved

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