BOARD00312

• Board Meeting Date: 3/21/2006
• Description: ISF Section - New Appropriation Recommendations in Water Division 4
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

t

Man:h 7.2006
21250 F Rd.
Delta, CO 81416

Rod Kuharich. Executive Director of ewes
1313 Shennan Street, Suite 721
Denver, CO 80203

Dear Director, stafT, and Board members,

On behave orlhe Ragged Mountain Water Users Association, we would like to
once again express our concern for your intended filings for instream flows on stream
segments that are tributary to the North Fork of the Gunnison. We gratefully
acknowledge your postponing of these filing until 2006. This has allowed many users in
our area (0 file on undecreed uses anddas much as possibleuany uses that they expected
to need in the future. Yet at this time. we feel these filings are unwise and unhealthy for
the Ragged Mountain community, the North Fork Valley and the State of Colorado for
three reasons.

.

I. Biological data is insufficient
2. Water availability study inadequate with erroneous assumptions
3. Not responsive to community input

.

If this appropriation is being forwarded based on the recommendation of the
CDOW, we question the evidence used to determine this as critical habitat. Data we have
reviewed is confusing. There has been limited study in this area. There was a 1976 study
below the Reservoir at the confluence of the Anthracite and the Muddy. Another study in
1978 at the confluence of the East and West Muddy Creeks recorded suckers. dace,
minnows, and colloids. We are assuming these are white suckers, bluehead suckers,
speckled dace, and fathead minnows as these are the species mentioned as needing
critical habitat preserved. The mottled sculpin is also listed as needing habitat, but there is
no mention of its presence in data. On the U.S. Fish and Wildlife list of Threatened and
Endangered species. we tind Ash Meadow dace, Clover Valley dace and Foskett Dace.
We are unclear if these are the speckled dace in this ri\'Cr segment. There is another study
in the data that references a location 50 feet lower than the c1e.,ation given in this '78
study as the elevation at the contlucnce of the East and West Muddy Creeks. \Ve are
unsure if this is the same location or if this study is 00 Williams Creek or some\\'here
within the Paonia Reservoir. Finally, what purpose is served with ISF on a segment
where stream tlow is at severe degradation level (below 12.2 cfs bern'een 4% to 34% of
the time bern'eeo 1991 aod 2003. The minimum stream flow was below 12.2 cfs in II of
13 years between 1991 and 2003. (No data was available in 1998) (See chart I). ISF's
will not change this reality. If this recommendation is based on the request of the State
Parks Department to enhance the recreation opportunities in the Paonia Reservoir, the
proposed ISF will never change the level of the water in the Reservoir. The Fire
Mountain Canal and Reservoir Company and the Ragged ~lountain Water Users store