Laserfiche WebLink
Executive Summary <br />This report examines the economic impact of critical habitat designation for four fish species <br />endemic to rivers in the Four Corners region of the American southwest, so-called because <br />Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah all touch one another at one point in this grid <br />land. The report focuses on impacts to an area comprising 10 contiguous counties in the Four <br />Corners region that would be affected by actions taken on behalf of the designated fishes. <br />Impacts to the 10-county region aze then projected for a subset of the region comprising four <br />Native American tribes. Impacts to the tribal subset aze apportioned using two different <br />approaches: on the basis of tribal population, and on the basis of tribal employment. <br />This report is a supplement to an earlier study, "Economic Analysis of Critical Habitat <br />Designation in the Colorado River Basin for the Razorback Sucker, Humpback Chub, <br />Colorado Squawfish, and Bonytail." The overall results of this study aze quite similaz to <br />those of the earlier study: At a qualitative level, the total economic impacts represent a small <br />fraction of the baseline level of economic activity for the dcfined regions. <br />The Endangered Species Act requires that the economic effect of critical habitat designation <br />be computed separately from the total effect of listing and designation. The method of <br />apportioning the total economic effect on the basis of designation alone is provided in the <br />eazlier study, which determined that the effects of designation of critical habitat for the listed <br />fishes was 10 percent of the total economic effect. <br />To determine the total economic effect, a baseline projection "without fish baseline" <br />(WOFBA) was constructed for the regional economy that includes planned development <br />projects, and an alternative projection "with fish" (WF) that considers the effects of critical <br />habitat designation on selected sectors of the economy throughout the study period. The WF <br />projection includes impacts from projected actions taken on behalf of the fishes, including <br />water flow maintenance and habitat protection. Direct impacts in the WF projection occur in <br />v <br />