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<br />f~ <br /> <br />DRAFT --7/28/99 <br /> <br />WORKING GROUP ON THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT <br />AND INDIAN WATER RIGHTS <br /> <br />CASE STUDY <br />on the <br />UPPER COLORADO RIVER BASIN <br /> <br />In the Colorado River Compact of 1922, portiOlIS of the States of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and <br />New Mexico, and the northeast comer of Arizona were designated the Upper Colorado River <br />Basin. Five Indian reservations lie within the Upper Basin: the Navajo Reservation in Utah, <br />Arizona, and New Mexico; the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation in Colorado and New Mexico; the <br />Southern Ute Indian Reservation in Colorado; the Jicarilla Apache Reservation in New Mexico; <br />and the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah.! Part or all of the first four reservations lie within <br />the San Juan River sub-basin of the Upper Colorado River. The Uintah and Ouray Reservation, <br />actually two non-contiguous reservations, lies V\~thin the Green River sub-basin. <br /> <br />Although less developed than the waters of the Lower Colorado River Basin, the waters of the <br />Upper Basin are the subject of numerous Federal water projects, For purposes of this Case Study <br />two significant water impoundments are Navajo Dam on the San Juan River in northwestern <br />New Mexico and Flaming Gorge Dam on the Green River in northern Utah, These large storage <br />units, operated by the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), regulate water ofthe Upper Basin <br />in order to meet delivery obligations under the 1922 Compact and the 1944 Treaty with Mexico. <br />Maps of the two sub-basins, with reservation boundaries and water projects higltlighted, are <br />appended to this Case Study. <br /> <br />Large water projects in these sub-basins have changed the fundamental nature of the hydrology <br />of the sub-basins' major rivers from warm turbid rivers with highly fluctuating seasonal flows to <br />cooler and clearer streams near major dams with less fluctuating flows. These habitat changes, <br />the stocking of nonnative fish, the invasion of nonnative plants, and many other factors have <br />reduced the viability of native fish populations to the point that the Fish and Wildlife Service <br />(FWS) listed several fish, i,e" the Colorado squawfish, the razorback sucker, the bonytail chub, <br />and the humpback chub as endangered and threatened pursuant to the Endangered Species Act <br />(ESA). <br /> <br />! The Arizona portion of the Basin lies almost entirely within the boundaries of the Navajo <br />Reservation, It includes all drainage above Lee Ferry, which lies just below Glen Canyon Dam, <br />