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<br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />3 <br /> <br />Service Concerns <br /> <br />The Service has three primary concerns with the Colorado River water rights: <br /> <br />(1) the water rights do not reflect the flows that the Service has <br />determined are needed to recover the endangered fishes. For example. <br />the base flow filing is for 680 to 810 cfs during several aritical <br />months while the Service's flow recommendation is for 810;rto <br />1630 cfs. <br /> <br />(2) The size of the carve-out was determined without regard to its <br />potential impact to the fish. The Service does not believe that a <br />100,000 acre-foot carve-out can be justified biologically at this time <br />or that 100.000 acre-feet are not needed to accommodate development in <br />the foreseeable future. <br /> <br />(3) The recovery water right would not be administered until the carve-out <br />is used up, which could be decades. A water right does nothing to <br />protect the flows, needed by the fish unless and until it can be <br />administered. <br /> <br />Many important details about how the carve-out would be distributed and how <br />the water rights would be administered were deferred to the settlement <br />negotiation process which commenced after the filings were made. While the <br />Service had these reservations (and voiced them numerous times to the Board). <br />the Service supported the Board's action to.,move forward with the filings. <br />The Service believed that if the rights were adjudicated without further <br />compromise they would provide some value to the fish so long as the monthly <br />distribution of the "carve out" and the modifiable component were based on the <br />biological needs of the fish. However, over the past 2 years. it has become <br />clear there is strong opposition to the rights and whatever value the rights <br />had would be lost during the settlement negotiations. Over 50 parties filed <br />"statements of opposition" against the rights in spite of the extensive <br />outreach effort by the Board to develop an acceptable policy on instream water <br />rights for the endangered fishes and to involve the water community in the <br />process leading up to the filings. In addition. during the settlement <br />negotiations water users raised many serious objections to the rights. . The <br />scientific validity of the Service's flow recommendations were and continue to <br />be challenged even though the recommendations withstood extensive peer review <br />and were reviewed extensively by the Recovery Program: In addition. proposals <br />were made to increase the size of the carve-out. to remove all limits on how <br />the carve-out would be distributed over the year. and to make the rights <br />"conditional" and require that the Service prove that the water was needed on <br />