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. . . 5. discussed it at their recent meeting and Biology Committee members were given until June 28 to submit additional comments (especially regarding "where do we go from here"). Tom Iseman asked for an additional week to submit comments and Bob Muth agreed. The Biology Committee will discuss the comments at the end of July, then the Program Director's office will revise the synthesis document prior to the Biology Committee's August meeting. The Program Director's office is still working on a summary of the land acquisition budget. >Bob Muth will get the Committee an update on where we're at on acquisition at Thunder Ranch and Hot Spot. Gunnison River Basin a. Flow recommendations - Bob Muth noted that Tom Pitts posted comments on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service document regarding proposed resolution of minority concerns. Since the Service worked with the "minority opinion" group for many months, other members of the Biology Committee asked for additional time (until July 15) to provide comment on the revised recommendations and a list of uncertainties. Tom Pitts said he posted the water users' final proposals yesterday, which recommend moving ahead, recognizing the uncertainties, and committing to research needed to resolve the uncertainties. Leslie said CREDA would like to have had more uncertainties resolved before beginning the EIS process. Bob said that unless the Service hears compelling reasons why the revised recommendations aren't appropriate, the Service plans to move ahead to finalize the report. Tom Iseman encouraged the Service to carefully consider the comments submitted by other members of the Biology Committee. Bob emphasized that both the original and the revised recommendations are equally based on biology, specifically the assumption that if you transport sediment out of the system, you will create and maintain habitat for the endangered fish. b. Estimation/identification of future Gunnison River depletions - Tom Blickensderfer said he's still trying to get information from CWCB. >Tom will post additional information to the list server and/or Management Committee as soon as possible. Brent Uilenberg said he discussed this with Eric KuIm and they recommend that Tom Blickensderfer, Randy Seaholm, Tom Pitts and Eric KuIm meet and have a strategy session and develop a proposal. >Tom BJickensderfer will schedule that meeting. Brent suggested just working to agree on a depletion number rather than trying to specify now who's going to deplete how much from where. c. Aspinall EIS process update - Tom Pitts asked if Reclamation can begin the modeling now and Brent said they're working on it. Tom asked if there's anything else we can be doing now. Brent said they've taken the public scoping process (conducted 3 years ago) as far as possible at this point; and they've used the model to analyze the original and revised flow recommendation as well as the Park Service reserved water right. Brent said he thinks the reserved water right case may get resolved more quickly than he previously anticipated. Acceleration of Recovery of Razorback Sucker and Bonytail- Bob Muth discussed the revised document from his office "Estimated time lines for recovery of razorback sucker and bonytail: rationale for estimates." Survival rates of stocked fish are one uncertainty. If our estimated survival rates are correct, we might get to recovery targets a little earlier than anticipated. Many of the uncertainties will be answered through monitoring stocked fish (there will be a workshop to develop the monitoring program at the end of August). At this time, the best estimate for reaching recovery targets are those outlined in the draft recovery goals. Bob said that consistency between the Utah and Colorado stocking plans will be discussed at the August workshop, also. Bob said that until we have fish in the system, we can't verify survival rates, and we won't know if accelerated stocking would be helpful until we verify survival rates. Tom 63 6.