Letter April 11 2008 Concerning Comments of the SOuthwester Water Conservation District in response to Notice of Availability of Draft San Juan Public Lands Land Management Plan and Draft Envrionmental Impact Statement

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April 11, 2008 Page 9 other, less rigid guidance may be the basis of cooperative arrangements, is unclear. With these specific standards as the default provision, the likelihood of developing consensus to allow the development of water projects on SJPL is severely limited because there is little incentive for those opposed to water development to consider creative, alternative strategies. For example, because brown trout spawn in the fall, with their eggs incubating over the winter, and rainbow trout spawn in the spring, with their eggs incubating during the summer, the default provision potentially imposes a year round limit on activities that might "disturb" trout populations. Therefore, the Plan's framework provides little incentive for those opposed to water development to pursue collaborative strategies that might result in acceptable outcomes for all involved. The inflexible standards in the Draft Plan are even stricter than those in the current Forest Service Management Plan and contradict the Draft Plan's statement that disputes are not to be resolved "through unilateral action on the part of the USFS or BLM." Draft Plan at 102. The habitat guidance in the Draft Plan, therefore, negates the SJPL Center's expressed preference for collaborative approaches to habitat protection. Further, no scientific basis is provided for the Draft Plan's habitat guidance. See Volume 2, p. 252. The Final Plan must delineate the underlying technical foundation for the Draft Plan's numerical standards for habitat protection criteria and define the relationship among the "rules ". The "rules" appear to be based on different habitat models, i.e. A.2.1, on the R2 Cross methodology; A.2.2 on the PHABSIM methodology and A.2.3 on an undefined methodology. It is unclear whether all these standards need to be met, or only one. Any conditions that must be met by potential permittees for water facilities must be clearly stated, together with their supporting bases. A second "stick ", which belies the Draft Plan's statements supporting a collaborative habitat approach, requires the SJPLC, to enter Statements of Opposition in many water rights cases, even if the SJPLC agencies do not own any water rights affected by those applied for, to protect SJPL habitat resources. Volume 2, p. 107, C.9 This could lead to additional and unnecessary SJPLC statements of opposition in cases where neither the USFS nor the BLM owns a potentially affected water right. A similar guideline, proposed for the White River Plan, provided, "file statements of opposition to water rights that injure or have the potential to injure national forest water rights or resources." It was overturned as inconsistent with the collaborative approach to water management. White River Amendments at 4. Accordingly, the more aggressive approach proposed for the Draft Plan is certainly inappropriate. Pursuant to the SJPLC MOUs with the State of Colorado, no statements of opposition should be filed unless one of the SJPLC agencies owns a specific, potentially affected water right. A third "stick" is set out in the Draft Plan, Volume 2, p. 107, statement C.B. The SJPLC would appear, under this statement, to be monitoring, without authority, the use of all Colorado water rights. The statement should be amended to read that all BLM and Forest Service water rights will be used beneficially.