BOARD01872

• Board Meeting Date: 9/27/1999
• Description: Colorado River Basin Issues - Interior Department's Indian Water Rights Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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(2) The Mancos Project constructed between 1941 and 1950 which consists of the Jackson Gulch
Dam and Reservoir, an offstream storage facility near the West Mancos River; the Inlet Canal;
and the Outlet Canal. Project lands extend downstream from the reservoir about 10 miles.
Facilities constructed by Reclamation furnish supplemental water to an established agricultural
area and provide a domestic water supply for Mesa Verde National Park. The project was
approved by the President on October 21, 1940, under the Water Conservation and Utilization
Program Act of August II, 1939 (53 Stat. 1418).

(3) The Florida Project was constructed between 1961 and 1963. Florida Project planning
investigations were initiated as part of a Public Works Project from appropriations made
available under the National Industrial Recovery Act of June 16, 1933, with construction
authorized by CRSP. The Florida Project supplies an annual average of25,740 acre-feet of water
for the irrigation of about 19,450 acres of land. The project provides full service irrigation water
to about 5,730 acres and supplemental irrigation water to about 13,720 acres ofland. The
Southern Ute Indian Tribe is entitled to 2,000 acre-feet of Project water under the original Project
and 580 acre-feet under the 1986 Settlement Agreement and 1988 Settlement Act.;

(4) The Hammond Project was constructed between 1961 and 1963. The 3,933 acres of
Hammond Project lands lie in a narrow strip 20 miles long along the southern bank of the San
Juan River opposite the towns of Blanco, Bloomfield, and Farmington, New Mexico. Most of
the Project's irrigation supply is diverted directly from the natural streamflow of the San Juan
River. When necessary, natural stream flows are supplemented by storage releases from Navajo
Reservoir. The project was authorized as one of the initial participating projects ofCRSP by the
Act of April II , 1956 (70 Stat. 105). Contracts for construction were awarded in 1960 and 1961
and the project was completed in 1962,

In 1968 the Colorado River Basin Project Act (CRBP A) authorized several additional projects as
CRSP "participating projects" including the Dolores Project which increases transbasin
diversions to the San Juan Basin and provides 25,100 acre-feet of water annually to the Ute
Mountain Ute Tribe. The Dolores Project was constructed between 1977 and 1997.

3. THE EFFECT OF ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT (ESA) SECTION 7
CONSULTATION ON THE EXERCISE OF INDIAN WATER RIGHTS

Background

In the late 1970's, the FWS began to raise with Reclamation and the BrA its concern for
conducting formal Section 7 consultations on a number of water projects in the San Juan River
Basin, including ALP, NIIP, and the Dolores Project. A major focus of the FWS concern was
the Colorado squawfish, the largest minnow in the United States, which had become endangered

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