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Last modified
8/11/2009 11:32:57 AM
Creation date
8/10/2009 4:11:17 PM
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UCREFRP
UCREFRP Catalog Number
7857
Author
Wigington, R. and D. Pontius.
Title
Toward Range-Wide Integration Of Recovery Implementation Programs For The Endangered Fishes Of The Colorado River.
USFW Year
1996.
USFW - Doc Type
\
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<br />would enable storage of water upstream at Green Mountain Reservoir, which then <br />could be released to improve fish habitat and generate hydropower along the <br />way. <br />? Under the biological opinion for Ruedi Reservoir on Colorado's Fryingpan <br />River, the BOR is making deliveries of about 20,000 acre feet per year out of <br />this reservoir to the fish habitat in the Grand Valley and has entered both <br />short and long term lease agreements with the CWCB to legally protect the <br />instream use of those deliveries. The Colorado Division of Parks, the CWCB <br />and the FWS have just negotiated a similar lease agreement to protect the <br />instream use of up to 2,000 acre feet of storage water per year released from <br />Steamboat Lake to fish habitat on the Yampa River. In both cases, the storage <br />water leased for the fishes had not been contractually committed to other <br />project purposes. <br />? A river operation and management plan is being actively considered for the <br />Yampa River in Colorado. Under this plan, storage releases from the <br />enlargement of a fairly small, off mainstem reservoir could augment both the <br />CWCB's recent baseflow filing and new, junior water development within the <br />allowance left by the CWCB's converse instream flow right. Another <br />interesting feature of this plan is that the Colorado River Water Conservation <br />District would voluntarily retire a number of senior conditional water rights <br />that it holds in the Yampa River Basin, which would materially improve the <br />relative priority and legal strength of the CWCB's instream filings. <br />Restoration of flood lain habitat. In offering a broader perspective on <br />quantifying the flows needed for recovery, Stanford emphasized the importance <br />of re-connecting and restoring highly productive side channel and floodplain <br />habitat for the listed fishes and recommended that a set of hypotheses about <br />the function of such habitat in a riverine ecosystem be tested. This element <br />of the Upper Basin Program faced some difficult questions about how much <br />direct and continued manipulation of floodplain habitat was needed, whether an <br />objective should be to construct and operate what were essentially engineered <br />ponds to grow out and augment fish populations, and whether the restoration of <br />floodplain habitat without continued direct management would benefit.non- <br />native fishes more than the listed fishes. <br />After nearly two years of deliberation and review, a working group of program <br />scientists reached agreement on a framework for floodplain restoration that <br />recognized that the augmentation of fish populations in grow-out ponds would <br />be conducted under another program element (discussed next). A set of <br />hypotheses about the natural function of floodplain habitat and about the <br />response of non-native fishes to the restoration of such habitat will be <br />initially tested by: selecting floodplain sites from a comprehensive inventory <br />of the Upper Basin, acquiring access or ownership of such sites, reconnecting <br />them to the river by removing levees, and monitoring the response of both <br />native and non-native fishes. The method is to re-connect selected floodplain <br />sites sequentially and temporarily and compare the biological response in <br />similar, naturally occurring habitats. Some hypotheses will also be tested at <br />more controlled floodplain sites to which the program already has access. <br />Fish refugia and population augmentation A major element of the Upper Basin <br />Program is to bank genetic stocks of the listed fishes in refugia, and to <br />experiment with the artificial augmentation of wild populations and re- <br />stocking. One threshold issue was what stocks should be placed in refugia and <br />managed as broodstock, before a series of studies confirming their genetic <br />distinctions were completed. Twelve "presumptive" stocks of the squawfish, <br />humpback and razorback were conservatively identified in the Upper Basin based <br />on their geographic distribution, movement, and spawning sites (no presumptive <br />bonytail stock was identified in the Upper Basin because it is so rare if not <br />extirpated in this basin); guidelines for managing the genetic diversity of <br />captive and wild stocks were peer reviewed and accepted; and a "hatchery <br />10
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