BOARD01476

• Board Meeting Date: 3/16/2004
• Description: ISF Section - Final Report to the Board re: Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, Gunnison National Forests - Pathfinder Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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Final Reoort

Aoril 2004

Executive Summary
Pathfinder Project Steering Committee Report
Strategies for Instream Flow Management

The Pathfinder Project is a pilot program that through its involvement with an array of
stakeholders representing State interests, local water managers, water users,
conservationists, and water resource managers working on a Steering Committee has
developed strategies for instream flow management. The Steering Committee has
worked to define a process that seeks to utilize "tools" (strategies or actions) that can
provide for instream flows or protect existing instream flow regimes on National Forest
lands in Colorado.

This process for instream flow management is meant to provide for instream flows that
can meet federal resource management objectives on National Forest System lands.
The Pathfinder Project Steering Committee recognized that there are several key issues
that cause concern for stakeholders when the Forest Service attempts to provide for
instream flows relying solely on its own authorities for National Forest lands. Three of
those concerns or issues that were considered in specific detail during the stakeholder
meetings are:

. lack of Forest Service reliance on the State's Instream Flow Program as
administered by the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB);
. The conditioning of special-use permits by the Forest Service with "bypass"
flow requirements to provide for instream flows; and,
. Adherence to state water law and recognition of privately held water rights and
the State's ability to adjudicate water for instream flow purposes.

The process outlined by the Pathfinder Project Steering Committee seeks to address
these key issues within the framework of existing federal and state statues, regulations,
laws, and pOlicies and by focusing on cooperative and coordinated strategies, that when
applied, could potentially provide the necessary instream flows to meet Forest Service
resource management objectives or to sustain resource values on National Forest lands.
Much of the controversy related to these three key issues revolves around the
application of "bypass" flow requirements (conditions) on special-use permits (whereby
the Forest Service requires that a quantity of the decreed diversionary water remain in a
stream on National Forest lands). Therefore one of the primary objectives of the
Pathfinder process was to develop a list of "tools" that could be utilized by the Forest
Service in a cooperative process working with state agencies, water managers, water
users, and other interested parties to achieve instream flow protection instead of a
possible decision by the Forest Service to act unilaterally and impose bypass flow
requirements on special-use permits.

These tools are to be implemented in tiered fashion. The tools identified by the
Pathfinder Project entail 27 possible actions or strategies. Some provide for direct
instream flow protection, others are more indirect in their outcomes, but when a part of a
larger strategy can collectively achieve instream flow protection. The first tier of tools
generally focuses on the more cooperative strategies or existing conditions analysis that
are less controversial, while the second tier of tools involves greater coordination and
may involve negotiated agreements to be implemented. Key in these first two tiers of