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<br />charged with examining. The Tribes replied that numerous Federal actions, including acts of <br />Congress, have recognized their rights and put everyone in the West on notice that these rights <br />may be exercised. They assert that to leave those rights out of the baseline has the effect of <br />allowing primarily junior rights to be exercised to the exclusion of tribal rights, thereby violating <br />the Federal trust responsibility for the protection ofIndian natural resources, <br /> <br />Another concern of the Tribes is that because of Federal legal constraints on the use ofIndian <br />natural resources, the exercise of almost any Indian property right triggers Section 7 consultation <br />because of the requirement for Federal approvals, while non-Indians developing their own <br />private property are not required to go through the same process, The FWS asserts that new <br />water uses in the West almost always involve some Federal approvals, such as for Clean Water <br />Act Section 404 permits from the Army Corps of Engineers, These approvals also trigger <br />Section 7 of the ESA and that the funding of Indian water resource projects triggers Section 7 <br />consultation in essentially the same way that does Federal funding of other projects. <br /> <br />The Reasonable and Prudent Alternative and Recovery Implementation Program <br /> <br />On March 4, 1991, Reclamation proposed an Rl'A for ALP that included the following six <br />elements: <br /> <br />I. An initial depletion of 57, 1 00 acre-feet per year (much less than the 154,800 acre- <br />feet per year for the entire ALP), <br /> <br />2. Seven years of research to deterIPine endangered fish habitat needs. <br /> <br />3. Operation of Navajo Dam to provide a wide range of flow conditions for the <br />endangered fish. <br /> <br />4. A guarantee that Navajo Reservoir will be operated for the life of the project to <br />mimic a natural hydro graph based on research results. <br /> <br />5. Legal protection for the Navajo Reservoir releases through the endangered fish <br />habitat to Lake Powell. <br /> <br />6. A commitment to develop and implement a San Juan River Recovery <br />Implementation Program (SJRRlP). <br /> <br />The FWS issued its final biological opinion for ALP on October 25, 1991. It concluded that the <br />full ALP would likely jeopardize the existence ofthe Colorado squawfish but that with the RPA <br /> <br />17 <br />