BOARD01567

• Board Meeting Date: 5/1/1975
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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the opportunity to convert their land to residential purposes, if that
is the requirement, or move their watet rights downstream, because they
would be required to make up the loss of the Crystal River resulting
from their agriculture.

I think this board is well aware that agricultural return flows start
in July and will continue on through, peaking, probably some time in
September and October, and doubling over the rest of the year and below
the point of diversion, and that the injury to the present landowner
would occur not so much at the headgate, but the lack of a maintenance
of regimen of the stream below, where the return streams are coming now
from agricultural, and that is one of the principal things that concerned
my board. Thank you, Mr. Stapleton.

Mr. Stapleton: Do members of the Board have any questions?

Mr. Sherman: Rolly's statement was that it was difficult to understand
the recommendations of the Division of Wildlife, which made the initial
recommendation for the minimum stream flows. Rolly, I wish you could
detail the inquiries that you have made with that division to resolve
or answer the questions that you had.

Mr. Fischer: Harris, we had the benefit of a wildlife biologist visit
with our board in January. Subsequently the regional director, Mr. Marv
Smith, came by my office and gave a more lucid explanation. The original
presentation by the biologist, however, was one of a certain amount of
scientific language, which was difficult for some of my board to under-
stand, and indeed difficult for me to understand. Upon intertogation,
we were not able to get satisfactory answers in laymen's terms. Sub-
sequently, I have had one of our consultants start to look through the
literature and inquire of our consulting biologist who has not gotten
back to us yet. I have started to take a look at the minimum stream
flow request from a political standpoint as to how these things are
arrived at.

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Now, Marv Smith was able to tell me about the requir.ement for flooding
the stream back up to approximately historic level and resulting growth
of certain kinds of food chain. Well, the kinds of life that are in
the food chain that live in the grassroots and that sort of thing wh~ch
can then grow in the water. This was a good explanation, something I
could start to understand. We, however, have not really received it
inside the river district board nor have we had the kind of layman
language presentation that my board can learn from as to how do you
determine, say, by the sagging tape method that you need a certain amount
of water, in terms of cfs, or do you go riffle and pool method. How do
you do this so it can support life?

I started to come back to perhaps the consideration that the recommenda-
tions are not made on an objective scientific basis, that is, it takes
three flushings every two years up to the grassroots level with riffle
and pool, a quarter of a mile apart, but that there is a certain amount
of esthetic consideration which is subjective in the eye of the beholder.
~o~, .w~at I have done here now, is ramble, but, this is the background

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