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<br />. <br /> <br />Navajo Indian Water Rights Settlement: Judge Pro Tern Rozier Sanchez has rejected a motion filed <br />by the San Juan County Agricultural Water Users Association asking him to enjoin the New Mexico <br />Office ofthe State Engineer and the Navajo Nation from continuing discussions of a draft settlement <br />agreement released last December. <br /> <br />The agreement is designed to resolve Navajo water right claims to the San Juan River. The tribe has <br />claimed all the water, much of which was allocated to non-Indians under a 1948 decree. The Navajo <br />Nation has begun protesting water right requests and water development proposals, asserting its rights. <br />Under the settlement, the tribe would be guaranteed a certain amount of water, and money to develop <br />that water. The Navajo Nation would get over 500,000 acre-feet of water and nearly $1 billion for <br />water projects, if authorized and appropriated by the Congress. In return, the tribe would abandon <br />claims to water already being used by non-Indians in the San Juan Basin. Some of those non-Indian <br />interests are concerned the settlement will drastically change water administration in the basin. They <br />want to be involved in the negotiations between the tribe, state and federal government. However, until <br />the settlement is signed, Judge Sanchez said his court has no jurisdiction and an injunction is <br />premature. <br /> <br />Soutbwestern Board Concerned About Fisb Metbodology: The Southwestern water Conservation <br />District has sent us a letter expressing concerns about the Riverine Fish Flow Investigation Report you <br />endorsed earlier this year and asked us to forward to the Biology Committee of the Upper Colorado <br />River Endangered Fish Recovery Program for consideration. A copy of this letter is attached. We can <br />discuss it at our meeting. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />YampaIWbite River Basin <br /> <br />Steamboat Lake Water Lease Renewed: The Recovery Implementation Program for Endangered <br />Fish Species in the Upper Colorado River Basin ("Recovery Program") was created on September 29, <br />1987 and was implemented by a Cooperative Agreement signed in January of 1988 by the Secretary of <br />the Department of the Interior, the Governors of the States of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming and the <br />Administrator of the Western Area Power Administration. The goal of the Recovery Program is to <br />recover four species of endangered fish while allowing water development to proceed consistent with <br />state water law and in compliance with the Federal Endangered Species Act in the Upper Colorado <br />River Basin in the states of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. <br /> <br />In September 1993, the CWCB and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ("Service") entered into an <br />Enforcement Agreement concerning water, water rights or interests in water appropriated or acquired <br />for Recovery Program purposes. The agreement stated that the Service would rely on the Board to <br />appropriate, acquire and enforce instream flow water rights for the listed species under state law, and <br />that any acquisition of water, water rights or interests in water by CWCB for the benefit of the four <br />listed fish species shall be considered in determining whether there has been sufficient progress for the <br />Recovery Program to continue to function as a reasonable and prudent alternative to avoid the <br />likelihood of jeopardy to those species from existing and new water developments. <br /> <br />In 1994, the Service designated a portion of the Yarnpa River downstream from Craig, CO as critical <br />habitat for the Colorado squawfish, the humpback chub, and the bonytail and razorback sucker, and <br />also identified a need to augment baseflows in the Yampa River during the late summer months. To <br />meet this need, the CWCB and Colorado State Parks jointly filed a water right application with the <br />Division 6 Water Court to add "instream flow use by the CWCB" to Parks' decree for Steamboat Lake, <br />which is located on a tributary to the Yampa River upstream from the identified critical habitat reach. <br />The Court decreed the change in use in, and the CWCB, State Parks and the Service entered into a <br />three-way lease agreernent to provide up to 3,300 acre-feet of water annually for the endangered fish. <br /> <br />17 <br />