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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The Jensen Unit of the Central Utah Project was authorized for construction in the 1956 CRSP
Act. Construction has been completed and Red Fleet Dam is the major storage facility with
storage capacity of26,000 acre-feet. The project can provide a yield of about 22,600 acre-feet
annually for irrigation and municipal and industrial needs,

The Vernal Unit of the Central Utah Project was authorized for construction in the 1956 CRSP
Act and construction was completed in 1962. Steinaker Dam is the major storage facility with a
capacity of 38,200 acre-feet. The unit provides irrigation supply for about 14,700 acres of non-
Indian land.

Three other CUP units were originally authorized under CRSP, The Upalco and Uintah Units
which were to provide storage and supplemental water supplies to both Indian and non-Indian
lands, and the Ute Indian Unit which was to provide primary water to the lands on which the
Tribe deferred development in 1965, as well as supplemental water to other tribal lands. None of
these units have been constructed. In Title II of CUPCA the Ute Indian Unit was deauthorized,
and the Uintah and Upalco Units were replaced with authorizations for smaller, more economic,
and environmentally sensitive projects. As presently proposed, the Uintah Unit Replacement
Project would develop flows of the Uinta River to provide supplemental water to existing
irrigated lands of both Indians and non-Indians, The Lower Uintah Reservoir is to have a storage
capacity of 38,000 acre-feet. The Upalco Unit Replacement Project will develop storage and
supplemental water supplies for both Indian and non-Indian lands. The Crystal Ranch Reservoir
on the Yellowstone River is to have a storage capacity of 24,000 acre-feet and the existing Big
Sand Wash Reservoir, an offstream water storage facility fed by the Lake Fork River, will have
its storage capacity increased from 12,000 acre-feet to 21,000 acre-feet.

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

On August 31, 1990, FWS issued a Biological Opinion for the Strawberry Aqueduct and
Collection System, that portion of the Bonneville Unit which will enable the diversion and
depletion of up to 108,000 acre-feet of water from the Duchesne River Basin. In addition to
assessing the impacts of this partially exercised depletion to the Duchesne River, the Opinion
looked at the impacts on the Green River below its confluence with the Duchesne River. FWS
found that jeopardy to the endangered species could be mitigated through the reoperation of
Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Green River. In the Tribe's view, the impacts ofthis depletion
on the Duchesne River were completely ignored leaving it to future development, including
development of the Tribe's senior water rights, to address the impacts in the Duchesne River.

Section 7 consultation on the re-operation of Flaming Gorge Reservoir was initiated in 1980 but
not completed until 1992. Originally, the environmental baseline for that consultation included
only 4,000 acre feet of depletions attributable to tribal water use throughout the Green River

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