Memorandum Agenda Item 16d 05/16/2000

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group, and a delineation of the decision making process. A "Charter" describing the concepts 1111 on how these and other activities will be conducted should be complete in June or July. However, even after the Charter is complete many of the details and issues associated with land acquisition and management most likely will not be resolved until an actual program is in place. Another point to be aware of is that there is considerable concern in Nebraska over potential third party impacts that could result from the program. The work completed to date indicates that little to no net adverse impacts to the local community and economy are expected. Some Nebraskan's do not agree and have had a second set of experts look at the conclusions of the study. Hopefully, we will be able to resolve these issues and questions by the end of June. • The Technical Committee is in the process of reviewing an important draft document that was just completed by the Fish and Wildlife Service(Service). The purpose of the document is to identify the environmental and species parameters that should be measured/evaluated to determine if the program is having the desired effect. As you might imagine there is some disagreement over what activities should and should not be included in this effort. This a very important issue because ultimately the information obtained will be used to make critical species and habitat management decisions, and the information may be used in the future to evaluate the success/progress of the program. Clearly, the methods and scope of data collection can influence the conclusions that one might draw. Colorado is currently pushing for a more broad and flexible look at how to best benefit the species. At this time the Service is focusing on flow and riverine habitat as the means of benefiting the species. • A drafting committee has been established to begin assembling all the individual work products completed to date so that we have a"single document" that will describe the • proposed program. This group will also identify items that have been overlooked or still need to be completed. IV. Environmental Impact Statement(EIS)Analysis At the last three states meeting the Service provided a very general verbal description of the No Action Alternative(no Program)that will be included in the EIS. A number of people were quite concerned with the description of the No Action Alternative. Some people felt the description sounded a little like a threat rather than an alternative. This should not come as a surprise because to a large degree Colorado has elected to be in the proposed program because the only other option(no action alternative)could be much worse. For example,the Service indicated that individual Endangered Species Act consultation would occur, and that mitigation of impacts to offset 417,000 acre-feet of flows would be needed(versus the 130,000-150,000 acre-feet if we have a program). A few examples of projects in Colorado that would likely need consultation include Chatfield reregulation, Aurora conjunctive use,Northern Water Conservancy District Recharge Project, and others. The Service also indicated that individual land owners who are involved with federal programs such as the conservation reserve program and/or price supports may need to undergo individual consultation or forfeit federal supports. We will ultimately be commenting on this and other alternatives when the draft EIS is released. At this point we should not be overly concerned about the verbal description of the No Action Alternative. The three states also learned more about the Services concern over sediment management. The Service is concerned that a large amount of the program water will be released from Lake 411 McConaughy and that this water will have very little suspended sediment. The Service is concerned that the release of this program water might cause erosion in the critical habitat 2