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<br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />entire case be dismissed with prejudice, We received notice June 21, 2003 that the case has been <br />appealed, On September 10, 2003 the States of Colorado, Utah and New Mexico filed an Amici <br />Brief in support of Wyoming's Response Brief and suggesting the loth Circuit Court of Appeals <br />affirm the District Court's decision, The appeal is scheduled for hearing on March 8th at 1:00 <br />pm, The AG may provide additional information on the appeal at the Board meeting. <br /> <br />Flaming Gorge EIS: We understand from some cooperating agencies that there are significant <br />concerns related to the proposed Action Alternative, The Action Alternative is described as <br />operating Flaming Gorge Dam with the goal of achieving the recommended flows as often as <br />possible while maintaining all authorized uses of Flaming Gorge Dam, Some cooperating <br />agencies feel that the action alternative as modeled and when combined with other actions by <br />Reclamation, are sufficient to severely jeopardize hydropower production at Flaming Gorge <br />Dam, Changes in monthly water release patterns and restrictions in hourly releases in the Action <br />Alternative indicate that the Flaming Gorge power plant will be bypassed in 50% of the years <br />and bypassed and spilled in 29% of the years, The Action Alternative therefore fails to meet the <br />purpose of the proposed action by failing to adequately maintain all authorized purposes, <br />Apparently this is do to the fact that the Action Alternative assumes that water released from <br />Flaming Gorge must meet all flow targets in Reach 2 at the recommended frequency, magnitude, <br />and duration, Since approximately one half of the annual flow volume in Reach 2 comes from <br />the Yampa River, the ability to meet Reach 2 flow recommendations using Flaming Gorge is <br />limited, <br /> <br />White River Flow Recommendations: In August 2002, the USFWS released a draft report for <br />White River flow recommendations in Utah and Colorado, This report consisted of two studies, <br />one concerning high flows for channel maintenance, and the other involving base flow <br />recommendations, This report was rejected by the peer reviewers and sent back for further work. <br /> <br />A second draft of the base flow recommendations was released in October 2003, The peer review <br />also found problems with this new study, but it was accepted with minor revisions and is <br />currently being finalized, Reviewers identified shortcomings in the study's methodology that <br />they felt invalidated the results and made it unreasonable to derive any real flow <br />recommendations at this time, More studies are recommended, but in the interim period, <br />reviewers felt that the current flow regime, particularly the base flows, should be maintained for <br />the protection of the adult Colorado Pikeminnow, which is currently doing well in the White <br />River, <br /> <br />Agency News <br /> <br />Compacts Imaging Update: We have finished imaging the historical UCRBRIP materials, the <br />Colorado River Operations files, many of the CRSP projects, and much of the Rio Grande basin <br />materials, All materials that are completely imaged may be accessed via Program Manager, <br />searching by subject name or file number, We have posted our filing index on the Web to help <br />with this process, <br /> <br />You can log into Content Manager and look around to see what the imaged files look like. Just <br />go into the Water Supply Protection section, enter a file number, and see what comes up, <br /> <br />Our imaging staff and temporaries will be finishing up other sections' materials soon, and then <br />can devote their time to our section's materials, there is light at the end of the tunnel. <br /> <br />### <br /> <br />31 <br />