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. Eagle River Water & Sanitation District Proposal to Enlarge Black Lake No.1 March 2005 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND The Black Lake No, I is a reservoir located in Eagle County, Colorado near Vail Pass in the headwaters of Black Gore Creek, which is a major tributary to Gore Creek in the Eagle River Basin, The rescrvoir is adjacent to the Interstate-70 right-of-way on White River National Forest land and is operated by the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District (the "District") as part of the water supply system that serves the Town of Vail, the Vail Mountain Ski Area, and the service arca of the Upper Eagle Regional Water Authority through a system interconnect discussed below, The District is proposing a second enlargement of Black Lake No, 1 and operational changes to provide additional water for District needs including augmentation of late summer, fall and winter streamflows in Gore Creek and the Eagle River, . The original reservoir was created in 1940 by the Colorado Division of Wildlife with construction of a small earth dam at the lower end of a small natural lake, This earth dam provided 44 acre-feet of additional storage for recreational uses, The first enlargement of the Black Lake No, 1 was completed in 1992 by the District (formerly the Vail Valley Consolidated Water District) by the construction of a new earth dam located about 150 feet downstream of the original dam, The first enlargement created the total current reservoir capacity of362 acre-feet, 227 acre-feet of which is allocated to the District for augmentation of instream flows in Gore Creek and other uses in the Eagle River. The first enlargement of Black Lake No, I was completed pursuant to a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), dated January 30, 1986, between the District and the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, Under the terms of the MOA, the District enlarged Black Lake No, 1, as described above, and utilized 73 acre-feet of storage in Black Lake No, 2, providing a total of 300 acre-feet of storage, In addition, the District agreed to stock Black Lakes with up to 5,000 pounds of catchable rainbow trout annually and to assume responsibility for a portion of the structural integrity and maintenance of the dams, The Colorado Department of Natural Resources agreed that the terms of the MOA would mitigate potential instream flow and water quality impacts associated with the District's use by exchange of Green Mountain Reservoir contract water, . The primary purpose of the 300 acre-fect of reservoir storage in Black Lakes has been to augment municipal diversions when streamflows in the municipal reach of Gore Creek are at or below the Colorado Water Conservation Board instream flow water right levels (16 cfs May 1" through September 30th. 10 cfs October 1" through October 31'" and 6 cfs November 1" through April 30th), Fishery and hydrology studies conducted prior to the first enlargement of Black Lake No, 1 found that the critical factor for trout populations in Gore Creek was the lack of adult habitat due to low flows during the mid-winter months of January and February (Bio/West 1990), Based upon these findings, the District and the Colorado Department of Natural Resources entered into a second MOA, Hydrosphere Resource Consultants, Inc., to02 Walnut St, Suite 200, Boulder, CO 80302