BOARD01037

• Board Meeting Date: 1/27/1999
• Description: WSP Section - Colorado River Basin Issues - 15-Mile Reach and Yampa River Endangered Fish Instream Flow Applications
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

warrants additional review. This new perspective is based upon hydrology calculations .
assembled by the Bureau of Reclamation in connection with the Recovery Program's
Grand Valley Water Management Project. However, there does not appear to be much
support for pursuing the recovery flow water right application.

If the Board wants to consider proceeding with the baseflow application and
withdrawing the recovery flow application, we may need to evaluate the practicality of
that course further. This is because we designed the two applications to serve a single
function and our experts did not indicate whether there is a biological basis to believe that
the baseflow component might have independent utility. In addition, the Board adopted a
single set of determinations addressing both components at the December I99S meeting.

Progress on the development of a Yampa water plan are moving slowly, too.
Water users from the Yampa Basin are following the reports from the IS-Mile Reach
discussions closely. They have expressed the expectation that, if their plan for the
protection of water supplies and fish recovery flows provides similar assurances without
relying on instream flow water rights, the Board will give similar consideration to the
withdrawal of the I99S water rights applications. This seems very reasonable.

Recommendations: I recommend that the Board defer further consideration of
the 1995 Yampa River applications based upon the uncertainty that they may yet prove
essential in the protection of existing and future water supplies under the ESA.

I also recommend, however, that the Board approve a conditional decision to
withdraw both of the 1995 water right applications for the IS-Mile Reach and that .
implementation of this decision be delayed until it becomes reasonably clear (through
discussions with the FWS and other interested parties) that:

I. the 1995 water right applications will not be a necessary element of the
biological opinion for the IS-Mile Reach,

2. the measures proposed by the FWS to support a favorable outcome in the
pending consultation (i.e., one that effectively protects existing water supplies
and approximately 120 KAF of future water development opportunities) can
reasonably be implemented, and

3. our partners in the Recovery Program will remove the IS-Mile Reach water
right element from the RIPRAP.

I believe the CWCB Director could be charged with making the decision to
proceed or delay action as the IS-Mile Reach discussions progress unless the Board
wishes to retain that discretion.

xc:

Henry Maddox
Recovery Program Management Committee
IS-Mile Reach Strategy Group

L:/boardmemlJan99/18(k),doc

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