BOARD02090

• Board Meeting Date: 1/26/2000
• Description: Legislative Session 2000 - Species Conservation Trust Fund ‎(HB98-1006)‎ - Funding Recommendations
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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Key Issues: A mechanism to ensure that all historic depletions and up to 120,000 acre-feet of
future depletions from the Colorado River above the IS Mile Reach near Grand Junction can
proceed in compliance with the ESA, was completed in December 1999. This mechanism,
called a programmatic biological opinion or PBO, will become a defining feature of the Upper
Colorado River Recovery Program.

Work also is proceeding on the development of a basin-wide water management plan for the
Yampa River. This plan will articulate how water will continue to be provided for hwnan
consumptive uses and address low-flow conditions that prevail in the lower Yampa River during
the later summer months that can negatively affect the endangered fish. This emerging Yampa
Plan, which is an important component ofthe more comprehensive Upper Colorado River
Recovery Program, is a collaborative effort involving elected officials and residents in the
Yampa basin. It is expected the Yampa Management Plan will culminate in a completed PBO
by the end of 2000. The state has expressed its strong desire that similar steps be taken in the
remaining basins.

Finally, the five years of research leading up to a Section 7 consultation on the Aspinall Units
has been completed and the synthesis reports and flow recommendations for the Gunnison River
are expected early in 2000. Actual Section 7 consultation will commence shortly after the
synthesis reports are received. We expect the Section 7 consultation will be coordinated with
the quantification of the reserved rights for the new Black Canyon of the Gunnison National
Park.

The San Juan Program continues to provide the regulatory compliance mechanism - called the
reasonable and prudent alternative - that ensures the ESA is not an insurmountable hurdle for the
development of some version the of the Animas - La Plata water supply project near Durango.
Specifically, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that up to 57,100 acre-feet of
annual depletions from the Animas River are permissible under the ESA as long as the San Juan
Recovery Program continues to make progress toward recovering the listed fish species in the
San Juan River Basin. This reasonable and prudent alternative has also allowed approximately
120,000 AF of new depletions for the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project in New Mexico to occur.
The seven year research period provided for as part of the Program has been completed and flow
recommendations for the San Juan River adopted. Work on the Environmental Impact Statement
for the re-operation of Navajo Dam to help meet the flow recommendations is in Progress. Also,
actions contemplated under the Recovery Program are being revised and updated as a result of
the completion of the research period.

Finally, Senator Wayne Allard and Congressman Scott McInnis, working with a diverse group
of water users, electric power suppliers, environmentalists, and state and federal agencies, have
introduced bills in Congress to provide for the federal government's share of funding for the
San Juan and Upper Colorado River Programs (Appendix F). The bills also identify cost
sharing by the states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, and recogllize
contributions that are being made by consumers of electricity generated by federal hydropower
projects.

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