BOARD00607

• Board Meeting Date: 11/22/1999
• Description: Directors' Reports
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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permits and other Corps decisions. The Corps wants to provide applicants with an expedited 90-day
review of its actions, beginning with reconsideration at the district level, before allowing review at the
division level.

The next meetings of the WSWC will be held in conjunction with the biennial Water Policy
Seminar in Washington, D.C. on March 13-14, at the Crystal City Marriott. The October 2000 meeting of
the WSWC is being plarmed for a site in Colorado, so please let Hal or me know if you have ideas or
concerns.

White River National Forest Plan: Following our discussion at the September meeting, we are
collecting instream flow water rights information for the White River National Forest and have provided
the DNR with a preliminary draft. We are also conducting a comprehensive evaluation of potential
concerns related to water rights and water development opportunities. The Colorado Water Congress has
established a subcommittee to examine and comment on the Draft EIS being prepared by the Forest
Service that will underlie revisions to the existing forest plan; Dan McAuliffe, Randy Seaholm and Dan
Merriman are participating in their discussions. Of particular concern are proposed by-pass flow
requirements and timber management plans that could significantly affect water availability.
Approximately 200 water-related special use permits issued by the Forest Service could be affected by
these proposals. The Forest Service is accepting comments on the Draft EIS until February 9, 2000 and
we plan to bring draft comments for formal consideration by the Board to you in January.

Roadless Area Meetings: On October 19, the Forest Service published a Notice Of Intent to
prepare an environmental impact statement and to initiate the scoping process for a proposed rule
protecting roadless areas on National Forest System lands. The Forest Service will hold scoping meetings
throughout the U.S. November 16 - December I, 1999. A meeting is scheduled in Denver on November
18 at the Embassy Suites in Denver from 6:00-7:30 p.m.

Proposed Forest Planning Regulations: On October 5, the U.S. Forest Service published
proposed plarming rules in the Federal Register. The new rules will guide land and resource management
plarming for the National Forest System. USFS proposes this rule to describe the framework for National
Forest System planning; to make "sustainability" the foundation for that plarming and to establish
requirements for implementation, monitoring, evaluation, amendment, and revision ofland and resource
management plans. According to the USFS, the intent is to simplify, clarify and otherwise improve the
planning process; to reduce burdensome and costly procedural requirements; and to strengthen
collaborative relationships with the public and other government entities. The comment period on the
proposed regulations ends on Jan. 4, 2000. We expect to leam more at the workshop we have plarmed for
Monday morning before our meeting and to discuss comments we should coordinate with the Department
of Natural Resources to protect Colorado's water interests.

Federal Reserved Rights: On October I, the Idaho Supreme Court determined the United States
holds federal reserved water rights to all unappropriated water flows within several wilderness areas and a
national recreation area. The Idaho Supreme Court concluded that Congress intended the Wilderness Act
of 1964 to reserve all the unappropriated flows within wilderness areas in Idaho and that" application of
the state prior appropriation regime to the Wilderness Areas would thus clearly defeat the congressional
purpose of preserving the wilderness character of the Wilderness Areas." The Court also concluded that
the United States is "entitled to the entire amount of unappropriated waters constituting the natural flow in
the Wilderness Areas and is not required to quantify...the amount since the entire amount is necessary to

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