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. 6. The National Park Service announced it is considering requesting Outstanding Waters Designation from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment for the Aspinall Unit and several upstream tributaries. If the NPS makes such a request, the decision by CDPHE would be made in 2006. 7. The USFWS reported that 5 pikeminnow and 3 razorback sucker used the Redlands fish ladder this year. Approximately 60,000 native fish have used the ladder since its installation in 1996. The USFWS has found several razorback larvae above the fish ladder in recent years, indicating successful spawning above the fish ladder. Water Officials Consider New Reservoir: The Upper Gunnison Water Conservancy District is considering asking Gunnison County taxpayers to pay to build a new reservoir. In exchange, the public could be offered fishing access along the rneandering waterway that runs east of Gunnison plus more security against trans-basin diversions. At issue is whether the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District (UGRWCD) should pursue building a small reservoir near the headwaters ofTomichi Creek that could capture some of the spring run-off and release that water later in the sumrner. Numerous engineering studies have been completed to identify a suitable reservoir near the western base of Monarch Pass and the Continental Divide. The plan water officials and potential users are gravitating toward calls for a 1,500 acre-foot reservoir on a tributary of Tornichi Creek known as Long Branch, just a few miles west ofSargents. The estimated price tag is $10.6 million, of which affected ranchers agree they could cover only approximately 11 percent of the annual debt payment. Therefore, backers suggest the project would have to be built - and billed - as having multi beneficiaries in order to get more potential funding partners to the table. Long Branch isn't the only project the Upper Gunnison is pursuing. They currently have on the table two proposals affecting the Ohio Creek drainage. One involves diverting water out of the Gunnison River below Almont and transferring it to Ohio Creek via a canal (estimated price tag of$3.2 million), the other calls for a $15.5 million reservoir in Cunningham Gulch. But the strongest interest appears to lie along the Tomichi, where ranchers typically have the hardest time finding enough water to make their agricultural operations viable. The UGRWCD holds conditional water rights for approxirnately 60,000 acre-feet of storage and 1,500 cubic-feet-per-second direct flow rights. . Platte River Basin SPDSS Update: On Aug. 18 the SPDSS Core Advisory Committee met to hear updates on the various South Platte DSS components. Phase l(Year 1) deliverables were made available to the committee members on CD and will also be available on the CDSS website. Irrigated acreage has been delineated and the consulting firm of RTi is in the process of attaching water source to the numerous irrigated parcels in Water District 1,2 & 64. This will be completed in late November 2004. The consumptive use consultant, LRE, has been interviewing key water users within the basin and writing white papers on their water resource operations, such as transmountain di versions. The groundwater consultant, CDM, has been collecting an analysising groundwater data for both the Denver bedrock aquifers and the South Platte alluvium. This collection includes the drilling of test wells and performing aquifer tests, this has greatly increased our understanding the South Platte groundwater system. The team will be wrapping up the rernainder of Year 1 tasks and completing Year 2, by the end of this year or the early part of 2005. Phase 3 or year 3 scopes of work are being developed by each of the consultants and will be finalized and made available on the CDSS website. 13