Recovery Implementation Program for Endangered Fish Species in the Upper Colorado River Basin

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• Matters came to a head in 1983 when the Service released a document styled a draft "conservation plan" for the three endangered fish species in the Upper Colorado River Basin. This document, as with earlier biological opinions, was premised on the judgment that there could be no further depletions whatsoever to the Upper Colorado River system without jeopardizing the continued existence of the fishes. It suggested that pre -1960 minimum flows be maintained, including very large flushing flows. This would have effectively prevented Colorado from achieving any further water project development even though it is entitled to about 1 million acre -feet of additional annual depletions under the relevant interstate compacts. In light of these problems, the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, the Colorado Water Conservation Board, and Colorado water users suggested a joint effort to seek solutions satisfactory to all. The result was the execution of a memorandum of understanding between the Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the states of Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah in which it was agreed to seek ways to meet the requirements of the Act without conflicting with state water rights systems and the use of water apportioned to a state pursuant to interstate compacts and decrees of the U.S. Supreme Court. The MOU was premised upon a willingness to try to avoid conflicts between the Act and the exercise of vested state water rights. • Pursuant to the MOU, negotiations to develop a recovery program were commenced and continued for about three years. The agreed to program, which was published in September, 1987, was followed by the January, 1988, execution of a Cooperative Agreement between the states of Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Western Area Power Administration. It provides that the parties: 1. Agree to participate in and implement the Recovery Program .... The parties also agree to participate in the Recovery Implementation Committee which will established to oversee the implementation of the Program. The Program provides for a broad range of measures to manage and recover three endangered fishes and to manage the razorback sucker, while providing for new water development to proceed in the Upper Colorado River basin. 6. All parties to this Cooperate Agreement recognize that they each have statutory responsibilities that cannot be delegated, and that this cooperative agreement does not -3-