BOARD01677

• Board Meeting Date: 7/26/1999
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

The only significant discussion on the draft 2000 AOP was on language describing the
releases from Lake Powell and their relationship to the Grand Canyon Protection Act.
Reclamation's proposed language indicates that the Grand Canyon Protection Act modified the
Law of the River. The states have been opposed to the inclusion of this language. The final
resolution of this issue is uncertain.

Coordinated Facilities Management Project: The Coordinated Facilities Team
continues to work on the next revision of Phase 1. Coordinated Facilities Water Availability Study for
the Endangered Fishes of the Upper Colorado River Basin. Although Leo Eisel has moved from
McLaughlin Water Engineers to Brown and Caldwell, the original team remains unchanged.

A draft of the above mentioned document has been reviewed by the Executive Committee
members, and the Study Team is currently incorporating these into the next revision. Interviews
with various water entities to discuss the list of possible alternatives have been conducted by Leo
Eisel and Jim Lochhead. Plans for a September Meeting to collect feedback from the general
public are underway. The Executive Committee has agreed to review all possible alternatives.
The list of these alternatives for obtaining the 20,000 af of water (in no specific order) is
provided below:

. Gunnison Transbasin Diversion
. Conjunctive operation of Green Mountain Resrvoir
. Conjunctive operation of Ruedi Reservoir
. New off-stream storage
. . Expanded Coordinated Reservoir Operations
. . ..Remove Shoshone call
. Reduce channel constraints
. Variations on Ruedi pumpback
. Eagle Pine
. Biological Opinion Alternatives
. Other propositions

The next meeting of the Executive Committee is September 3,1999. The Board Staffwill
continue to keep the Board updated on the progress and findings of this study.

Water Rights for Native Fish Habitat Protection: At your May meeting you directed
staff to dismiss the endangered fish recovery base flow applications for the Colorado and Yampa
Rivers. Motions to dismiss were filed by the Attorney General on June 14 and the motions were
granted on June 16. . You also requested that staffbe prepared to file new water rights
applications to assist in the recovery of the four Colorado River endangered fish species by
January 2000. These applications are to be based upon state law, i.e. that the flows, data and
methods used to prepare the applications be designed to "protect the natural; environment to a
reasonable degree," rather than upon protecting endangered fish habitat.

We have discussed this issue with staff from the DOW staff and with John Mumma and
have been told that it will take three years for the DOW to complete its research and make
recommendations. The DOW is developing a new method for ascertaining the range of optimal
flows for protecting Colorado's warm water native fish species. The Division intends to

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