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. into the Recovery Plans, and subsequently, in Implementation Plans." Surveys of native fish in the San Juan River during 1987-89 indicated to FWS that more Colorado squawfish occurred there than had previously been known. The discovery of young of year squawfish provided additional evidence that suitable spawning habitat was present throughout the lower reaches of the San Juan River, This information, considered new by the FWS, was the basis for reinitiation of formal consultation on ALP,6 The FWS biologists concluded that the San Juan River population was more critical to the survival of the species than had been perceived in 1979, viewing that population and its habitat as "essential to recovery," On April 16, 1990, the Recovery Team concluded that the San Juan River should be included in the Recovery Plan objectives for removing the species from the list of endangered and threatened species, ln May 1990, the Service released the draft "jeopardy" opinion on the effect of ALP on the Colorado squawfish. The release of the draft opinion altered planning for all water development in the San Juan River Basin. The Draft Biological Opinion on the Animas-LaPlata Project The ALP draft opinion stated that the project was likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the Colorado squawfish and that no reasonable and prudent alternatives could be implemented in a manner consistent with the purposes of ALP. Reclamation circulated the draft opinion to agencies and other water users in the Basin, including the Indian tribes. The FWS described the cumulative impacts of water depletions in the San Juan River Basin in the following statement in the draft opinion: Since the Service believes that most years the river is already at or below the threshold for minimum flows whereby the fish could survive in the river, any further depletions to the river system could render the San Juan River unusable by the Colorado squawfish. Thus, the draft opinion appeared to establish a biological conservation standard for future diversions in the Basin, a matter of substantial concem to all of the Tribes of the Basin, The Section 7 consultation which led up to the draft opinion involved primarily Reclamation and FWS. There were few, if any, discussions with Indian tribes. There was also very little focus on the makeup of the environmental baseline against which the effects of ALP on other projects would be measured, For example, the full depletions ofNIIP, 238,000 acre-feet per year, less than what the Navajo Nation had been advocating, were counted in the baseline, but the draft, 6 Critics of the Service, including Tribal representatives, later contended that the "new information" obtained from the fish surveys merely confirmed what FWS had concluded in 1979 that there was a small population of squawfish in the San Juan River, the loss of which would not jeopardize the more viable populations in the Green and Colorado Rivers. Service officials disagree. 14