BOARD01439

• Board Meeting Date: 7/26/1999
• Description: WSP Section - Colorado River Basin Issues - San Juan/San Miguel - Dolores Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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United States Department of the Interior

FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE
New Mexico Ecological Services Field Office
2105 Osuna NE
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87113
Phone, [phone] Fax; [phone]

July 14, 1999

Cons. 2-22-91 +241
Cons. 2-22-92-F-080
Cons. 2-22-99-F-381

To:

Navajo Area Director, Bureau cf Indian ,A,ffairs, P.O. Box 1060, Gallup,
New Mexico 87325

From;

Field Supervisor, New Mexico Ecological Services Office, Albuquerque,
New Mexico

Subject;

Biological Assessment for Completion of the Navajo Indian Irrigation
Project

This responds to your request of June 14, 1999, for our concurrence with your finding
that the completion of the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project (NIIP) may affect but is not
likely to adversely affect the. endangered Colorado pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus luc/us)
and razorback sucker (Xyrauchen texanus), and is not likely to adversely modify or
destroy designated critical habitat within the San Juan River basin for the two
endangered fish species.

The principal purpose of NIIP is to irrigate 110,630 Navajo-owned acres in northwestern
New Mexico, generally south of Farmington on an elevated plain above the San Juan
River between Highway 44 of the east and the Chaco River on the west. The
development of the project has occurred and is planned for completion in blocks of
approximately 10,000 acres each. A previous consultation addressed the potential
effects of the construction and operaIion of Blocks 1 through 8 on the Colorado
pikeminnow and razorback sucker (Cons. 2-22-91-F-241) with a Biological Opinion
issued by the SeIvice on October 26, 1991. That consultation was reinitiated at the
request of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1994 to address the effects of the eight
agricultural blocks on the newly designated critical habitat for the endangered fish, with
a Biological Opinion issued on January 12, 1995. The biological data and information
provided in the consultation documents formulated for the previous consultation and its
reinitiation are included herein by reference, with updated, corrected, or additional data
submitted in the June 11, 1999, Biological Assessment. The following information
concerning the proposed action and your analysis of effects is taken from the June 11,
1999, Biological Assessment that was furnished with your request for concurrence.

Completion of NIIP, as proposed, will entail the addition of three more blocks of

RECEIVED
JUl 19 1999

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