BOARD01685

• Board Meeting Date: 1/27/1999
• Description: WSP Section - Colorado River Basin Issues - San Juan Recovery Program - Status Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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Colorado Water Conservation Board
Department of Natural Resources
721 Centennial Building
1313 Sherman Street
Denver, Colorado 80203
Phone: [phone]
FAX: [phone]

MEMORANDUM

TO:

Colorado Water Conservation Board Members

FROM:

Randy Seaholm ~
Chief, Interstate Streams Investigation Section

DATE: January 26, 1999

SUBJECT: Agenda Item 18m, January 27-28,1999 Board Meeting-
San Juan Recovery Program - Status Report

IMPLEMENTATION OF FLOW RECOMMENDATIONS

At the December 15, 1998 Coordination Committee Meeting, the Coordination
Committee adopted the flow recommendations contained in the, "Flow
Recommendations for the San Juan River, Draft Report" dated December 4, 1998,
The Biology Committee agreed to provide written responses to written comments
on issues pertaining directly to the December 4 report and the comments of the
peer reviewers, The written comments and responses will be part of the official
record, The states of Colorado and New Mexico have since submitted their
written comments on the December 4 report, The Coordination Committee will
consider approval of a final flow recommendation report in early 1999 and review
them again in December 1999, as the resolution recognized that the San Juan
River Recovery Implementation Program was a continuous process of adaptive
management.

The flow recommendations as structured in the December 4 draft report still allow
for approximately 122,000 AF of future development, in addition to the 57,100
AF for the modified version of the Animas-La Plata Project (ALP Lite),

The recommended peak flow of 10,000 cfs would exceed normal bankfull
conditions, estimated to be around 8,000 cfs, without any clear documentation
indicating whether this good or bad for endangered fish habitat. Furthermore,
there was no documentation whether or not peak flows of this magnitude would
cause any property damage.

STACKING COORDINATION COMMITTEE WITH FEDERAL
AGENCIES

The U,S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses the Section 7 consultation process to
require other federal agencies to participate in the San Juan Recovery Program,
The Service has added the Bureau of Land Management as a participant with
voting rights on the Coordination Committee and is currently seeking to add the
National Park Service as voting member on ~e Coordination Committee, These

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Bill Owens
Governor

Greg E. Walcher
Executive Director, DNR

Peter H. Evans
Acting Director, eWeB