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Colorado. Long Draw is one of numerous high mountain water storage facilities on tributaries of the headwaters of the Cache la Poudre River. Construction of the Long Draw Dam was completed in 1929. The expansion of the reservoir almost thirty years later caused water to back up onto 390 acres of additional National Forest land and required Water Supply and Storage Co. (WSSC) to obtain authorization for the use of that land, which it did in 1973. That permit . expired in 1976 and the Forest Service issued a series of short term renewals until 1980 In 1980 the agency issued a new permit, which was amended in 1981 to extend its life until December 31, 1991. The 1981 amendment acknowledged that future permits would be subject to conditions imposed by the Forest Service. In 1991 the special use permit was extended until July 31, 1994, to allow for analysis of the environmental impacts of issuing a renewal of the land use authorization. It is this environmental analysis and the renewal of the authorization that is the subject of this litigation. In 1986, Congress designated the segment of the Cache la Poudre River from Poudre Lake to the confluence of the river and Joe Wright Creek as a wild river pursuant to the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Several fish species are native to the Cache la Poudre River and its tributaries. The water supply from the La Poudre Pass Creek is vital to several threatened and endangered species and is a habitat for the greenback cutthroat trout. WSSC stores water in the Long Draw Reservoir to be released for downstream municipal and agricultural use by its shareholders. Under the original permit, the gates of the Long Draw Reservoir were typically closed from November through March or April each year. During this period, all native flows of the La Poudre Pass Creek are captured in the reservoir, and no water is released to the Creek downstream of the reservoir. As a result, La Poudre Pass Creek is effectively dried up during the -2-