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impacts. Unlike the Section 7 Agreement for the Upper Basin Program, this MOU does not make any distinctions between depletion and non-depletion impacts. This MOU has a lower threshold for minor depletion impacts - total annual depletions cannot exceed 3,000 acre feet over the seven year research peri- od, and provides no explicit assurance that the progress to date will be sufficient for depletions up to that threshold. During at least the seven year research period, a host of additional "conservation measures" not yet implement- ed by the San Juan Program can be imposed on new water projects subject to Section 7 consultation that could limit their yield. This MOU suggests that the reasonable and prudent alternative for the first 57,100 acre feet of ALP depletions also covers all existing, baseline depletions, but it does not clearly insulate existing water projects from the imposition of addi- tional conservation measures. After the seven year research period, this MOU contemplates a much better understanding of the flows needed for fish recovery and of the basis for making determinations of suffi- cient progress, but still allows for the imposition of additional conservation measures that might limit water project yields. This MOU also anticipates anoth- er agreement on flow shortages once the flows needed for recovery are better established. Such a later agree- ment is anticipated because the water from Navajo Reservoir for mimicking natural flow patterns has been projected to be far less available as water development in the San Juan subbasin approaches its limits under interstate compacts. The biological opinions issued under this MOU can be re-re-opened for a number of reasons. They could be re-opened if the issue of flow shortages cannot be resolved after the seven year research period. While both the ALP biological opinion and this MOU dis- claim any effect on tribal or other water rights, the ALP opinion and any others dependent on its reasonable and prudent alternative could be re-opened if the assertion of tribal water rights frustrate that alternative. The withdrawal of a governmental party from the San Juan Program that was central to its implementation might also trigger the re-opening of these opinions. After this MOU was signed by all but the Navajo Nation, a Section 7 consultation was completed on Blocks 7 & 8 of the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project (NIIP), which may illustrate how such consultations on large depletions will initially be conducted under the San Juan Program. These blocks of the NIIP would have increased its depletions from the 133,000 acre feet per year already in the ALP baseline by another 57,000 acre feet to a total of 190,000, and would have increased the selenium loading of return flows from the project. While Navajo Reservoir could be operated to supply both the new depletions under Blocks 7 & 8 and about 300,000 acre feet almost every year to mimic natural flow patterns during the spring run-off, flows in the mainstem during the fall and early spring would have dropped from 300 to 185 cubic feet per second, and there was no flexibility left in the operation of Navajo Reservoir to offset even half of the Block 7 & 8 depletions. The reasonable and prudent alternative was to reduce the allowable depletions for two existing Navajo Nation projects already in the ALP baseline, to allocate the sav- ings of 16,420 acre feet to Blocks 7 & 8, and to limit the total depletions of the NIIP to about 150,000 acre feet and not increase the overall baseline depletions until at least the seven year research period for the San Juan Program was completed. The u.s. Bureau of Indian Affairs also agreed to help fund that research and to 59