BOARD02169

• Board Meeting Date: 5/24/1999
• Description: Endangered Fish Recovery, ISF Water Rights Applications - 15-Mile Reach and Yampa - Status Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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April 7, 1998

Honorable Peter Domenici, Chairman
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee
on Energy and Water Development
132 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Re: Recovery Program for Endangered Fish in the Upper Colorado River Basin

Dear Chairman Domenici:

The Nature Conservancy is an international non-profit conservation organization dedicated
to the protection of biological diversity. For more than 45 years, we have pursued this mission with
on~the-ground habitat conservation that is based on the best available science, takes a non-
confrontational, market-oriented approach, and builds partnerships with people and agencies across
the political spectrum. The Conservancy has over 900,000 individual members and over 1,850
corporate sponsors.

1 am writing on behalf of the Conservancy to request a Fiscal Year 1999 appropriation of
$8.687 million to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation ("Reclamation") for Endangered Species
Recovery Programs and Activities for the Upper Colorado River Region. This requested
appropriation is included in the Administration's proposed budget. It will provide $7.628
million in fundirig for the Recovery Implementation Program for Endangered Fish Species in the
Upper Colorado River Basin (outside the San Juan River); $.459 million for the San Juan River
Recovery Program; and $.600 million for other Activities to A void Jeopardy (to endangered
species) in this region. The Nature Conservancy joins the other partners in the Recovery Program
for the Upper Colorado River Basin outside the San Juan River ("Recovery Program") in
supporting this FY99 appropriation.

The Recovery Program is a cooperative venture among the states of Colorado, Utah and
Wyoming, environmental organizations, power users, water development interests, Reclamation,
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Western Area Power Administration. Now in its tenth
year of operation, this program has the objective of recovering four endangered fish species while
water development moves forward in compliance with the Endangered Species Act.

Beginning in Fiscal Year 1994, the Recovery Program initiated specific studies in
preparation for the following on-the-ground actions to recover these endangered fishes: I)
restoration of fish passage to historical habitat (construction of the Redlands Fish Passage near
Grand Junction Colorado was completed in May 1996); 2) instream flow protection on the Green
River, Colorado River (rnainstern), Gunnison River, and Yampa River; 3) modification of existing
water projects; 4) restoration of flooded river bottomlands in Utah and Colorado; and 5)