7416

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7416
• Author: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
• Title: Flaming Gorge Aspinall Joint Operations Study December, 15, 1988-Draft.
• USFW Year: 1988.
• USFW - Doc Type: Denver, Colorado.
• Copyright Material: NO

Further, the Colorado River Basin Project Act of 1968,82 Stat.
886,43 U.S.C. SS 1501, et gen., contains a Congressional
declaration of purpose and policy which states, in part:
"This program is declared to be for the purposes, among
others, of regulating the flow of the Colorado River;
controlling floods; improving navigation; providing for the
storage and delivery of water of the Colorado River for
reclamation of lands, including supplemental water
supplies, for municipal, industrial, and other beneficial
purposes; improving water quality; providing for basic
public outdoor recreation facilities; improving conditions
for fish and wildlife, and the generation and sale of
electrical power."
Rescheduling of releases at Flaming Gorge may have some impact on
the operation of the Aspinall Unit if the requirement for
spinning reserve is shifted to one of its three units. This may
limit the availability of one Aspinall Unit generator if it must
be taken out of day-to-day operation and reserved to meet
spinning reserve requirements for Western. The economic impact
of this has not been evaluated by Western but there are some
economic costs involved. How these costs are to be addressed, if
at all, may be the subject of a protracted policy and legal
actions.
The rescheduling of releases from Flaming Gorge may also have
some impact on how energy is managed throughout the system.
Loads may have to be increased on some power lines and there
could be costs associated with repairs to power transmission
lines in Western Colorado and Eastern Utah.
Western, the Bureau and the Service feel operational flexibility
(compromise) holds much promise for keeping electrical generation
impacts to a minimum at Flaming Gorge. Planned field tests in
1988 to investigate operational flexibility have been postponed
because of a dry conditions throughout the basin. The tests were
to examine the effects of ramping rate, duration, frequency and
timing of releases on the rare and endangered fishes habitat.
The field tests have been rescheduled for the summer of 1989;
information gained from the field tests will be considered in
development of the final recommendation for flows below Flaming
Gorge.
One final conclusion can be drawn from the recent action of the
Bureau, Western and the Basin States when they were faced with
the problem of low runoff. These agencies moved swiftly and
positively to restrict releases to conserve storage in the upper
basin. The quick response demonstrated that a great deal of
flexibility existed in modifying reservoir operations when it is
in the interest of the upper basin states.
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