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Executive Summary <br />The Endangered Species Act (Act) provides for the designation of critical habitat necessary <br />for the survival and recovery of endangered species. Both the administrative actions of listing <br />a species and the designation of its critical habitat can affect economic activities dependent <br />upon resources utilized by the species. The Act requires that only the incremental economic <br />impacts of the critical habitat designation be determined. Thy incremental economic impacts <br />of proposed critical habitat designation for four endangered Colorado River Basin fishes - <br />the razorback sucker, the bonytall, the humpback chub, and theColorado squawfish -are <br />presented in this report. <br />~~ <br />~_ <br />Economic Methodology <br />The study region encompasses Arizona, California, Colorado, N Mexico, Nevada, Utah, <br />and Wyoming. Economic input-output (I-O) models were cons ted for each State and for <br />the seven-State region. A computable general equilibrium (CGE) -model also was developed <br />for the seven-State region. The models are aggregated to 20 representative sectors in the <br />economy. The time frame chosen for the study, 1989 through 2020, reflects the time period <br />projected for the recovery of the endangered fishes. <br />Linkages between the biological requirements for recovering the endangered fishes and the <br />economic activities in the region were assessed and these formed the basis for the economic <br />analysis. The biological requirements include adjustments made in the operations of Federal <br />reservoirs in the Basin andlor mitigation of nonflow-related activities along the river 100-year <br />floodplain. The effects of recovery efforts on future water depletions in the basin were also <br />taken into consideration. The impacts of these possible changes on current and prospective <br />economic activities were then estimated for each State, the region and the national economy. <br />Estimating the economic impacts of the proposed critical habitat designations poses <br />formidable challenges because many impacts will result from future Section 7 Consultations <br />iv <br />