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' .~ 8 <br />'PART IV. Mitigation Formula for Phase~II of the Cheyenne Water Project <br />in Wyoming <br />Recently at a time when key personnel were absent from the office, FWS <br />was requested to review the Cheyenne Phase II Water Project, to deter-. <br />mine if,a Windy Gap approach could be used to break the stalemate in <br />the Section 7 consultation process. The project was similar to Windy <br />Gap in that local major impacts on endangered fishes were so small as <br />to be undetectable, therefore only the effect of the project on the <br />basin-wide recovery of"the fish had to be mitigated. <br />The project would deplete about Iq,500 acre-feet per year from the Upper <br />Colorado River Basin, The project's fair share of the cost of the <br />$20,000,000 conservation plan was computed in a manner similar to Windy <br />Gap: _ <br />Cost Factor = Water Depletion~of Pro sect <br />Present'Flow Depletion at Cisco <br />Cost Factor = lq,500 acre-feet per year <br />' 2,300,000 acre-feet per year <br />Mitigation Cost = 0.9% X $20,000,000 = $180,000. <br />~~ <br />Unfortunately, this figure was quoted in a letter from Department of <br />Interior to the city of Cheyenne, Wyoming. <br />There are some problems with this figure. First of all, the Cheyenne <br />Project removes water from the Little Snake River, which flows into the <br />Yampa River, wj~ich flows into the Green River. The Green River joins <br />the Colorado River below the Cisco gage (_see attached map). There <br />would 'be no logical correlation between water use in the Green River <br />Basin and depletions at the Cisco gage. <br /># ~_~... <br />