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. meeting was held November 1, cooperating agencies and the public were allowed to provide brief oral comments regarding Reclamations draft final "No Action Alternative" dated October 2005. Reclamation will meet with their regional office and legal counsel to further discuss the draft final and the latest comments and various interpretations of Reclamation's obligations to downstream water rights. Reclamation will then finalize the "No Action Alternative" description. Future EIS meetings will focus on formulation of Action Alternatives and discussion of modeling issues that must be resolved in order to evaluate the impacts of the proposed actions. . GUDDlsoD DaslD PD~: During the September Board meeting, the Colorado River Water Conservation District indicated a desire to start a Programmatic Biological Opinion process for the Gunnison Basin. The River District reiteriated this request during the last Aspinall Unit Operations process. Staff is not opposed to this process, but also is of the opinion that it is not necessary to put the current EIS process on hold. Reclamation agreed to take this request under further advisement. The Board may recall that a PBO process for the Gunnison has been discussed off and on over the last several years, but neither Reclamation nor basin water users have been overly supportive of initiating such a process. Staff will keep the Board posted on the latest round of discussions on this matter. UnloD Park Suffers ADother Setback: On Oct. 19 the Union Park reservoir, died a political death before the Colorado Water Congress when it voted unanimously to shelve its consideration of the proposed reservoir. . Update on MerIdlau Lake Reservoir Rehabilitation: The Upper Gunnison Water Conservancy District completed itsre\!abilitation of Meridian Lake Reservoir on schedule, closing the outlet gate on Oct.20. As of the date of this report, flows in the Slate River at the gage above Crested Butte were 34 cfs. The decreed amount of the Board's instream flow water right on this reach of the Slate River will drop from 23 cfs to 12 cfs on December 1. As provided in the District's augmentation plan decree (Case No. 03CWI07), the CWCB may request a winter mitigation release from Meridian Lake Reservoir at any time from October I through April 30 when conditions would pennit the releases to flow to the affeeted ISF reach. 2005 IDstream Flow Appropriation_Escalante Creek: On Jan. 25 the CWCB formed its intent to appropriate instream flow water rights on two segments of Escalante Creek (Case Nos. 05/04/ A-Q 16 and 05/04/ A-Q 17). Both of these proposed instream flow appropriations were recommended to the Board by the BLM and were uncontested. On April 28, 2005, the Board Staff received a written request from the BLM asking to delay fmal action for these two segments to address a private landowner's questions regarding these proposed instream flow appropriations as well as BLM's planning process for the area. At the May 2005 CWCB meeting, the Board delayed taking final action on Escalante Creek to allow opportunity for the BLM staff to address the landowner's questions. The BLM staff felt that the landowner's questions were sufficiently addressed and that it was appropriate for the Board to take final action on these instream flow appropriations. At the Sept. 2005 meeting, the Board took fmal action and requested the Attorney General's Office to file a water right application with the Water Court. Shortly after, Staff received a call from Mr. Dick Miller (the landowner referred to above whom owns significant land holdings in the Escalante Canyon) requesting a meeting to discuss the Board's instream flow appropriations. On Oct. 17 Staff met with Mr. Miller and learned of his ranch's operations and it's irrigation practices. Due to Mr. Miller's concerns, Staff has delayed the filing of the water right application with the Water Court to receive documentation from Mr. Miller describing several undecreed water uses to be included in the application and filed during the 2005 adjudication year. . 23