BOARD02588

• Board Meeting Date: 5/24/1999
• Description: Directors' Reports
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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Colorado River Basin

Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Management Committee: On
May 12 the Management Committee of the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery
met in Denver, The members updated each other about current activities and discussed several
items of importance (see memos under Agenda Item #9 for additional information).

The staff has discussed the current situation regarding instream flow filings to recover
endangered fish with the AG's Office and the Division of Wildlife. The Board has withdrawn the
recovery flow filings it filed and there is a status conference with a referee from Water District V
regarding base flow filings on June 5. If the water court referee recommends that these filings be
dismissed, the Management Committee expects an opportunity to discuss next steps, since flow
protection components of the Recovery Action Plan will need to be revised (by consensus) and
the u.s. Fish and Wildlife Service issues Section 7 decisions for water development activities
based upon those and other components,

The Committee also discussed a draft scope-of-work it has received from a consultant
who would be hired to expedite the development of fish recovery goals, At its April 1 meeting,
the Recovery Program's Implementation Committee changed the due date for the completion of
recovery goals to FY 2000. The anticipated cost is $60,000. Also discussed was the current
status of planning in the Yampa River Basin, information and education coordination, the
reintroduction ofbonytail in Colorado (and possible impediments resulting from a new state law
that requires the general Assembly to approve the reintroduction of species), the status of FY -99
capital funds, operation and maintenance funding, and extending the program's cooperative
agreement beyond 2003, The next Implementation Committee meeting will be in August.

News concerning the Section 7 consultation is provided in a separate memo prepared for
Agenda Item # 9(0).

Cutthroat Trout Agreement: The DOW has signed an agreement with Wyoming, Utah
and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to recover the Colorado River cutthroat trout throughout
its historic range. Under the agreement, an estimated 1,754 miles of streams and 652 acres of
lakes in the three states will be protected and/or restored to maintain more than 400 populations
of the native fish, which has been reduced to less than one percent of its former range,

The Colorado River cutthroat is one of a growing list of sensitive, threatened or
endangered aquatic species -- including the greenback and Rio Grande cutthroat trout, boreal
toad, Rio Grande chub and sucker, Arkansas darter, the Rocky Mountain capshell snail, the
humpback and bonytail chub and Colorado pikeminnow the state is working to restore.

. Colorado River cutthroat trout numbers were drastically reduced at the turn of the century
by over fishing, water diversions, and pollution from mining and habitat destruction from
overgrazing. As non-natives like rainbow trout were introduced to make up for the loss of the
cutthroat populations, hybridization with the non-natives began to weaken the species' purity.
Strategies to restore the Colorado River cutthroat involve removal of non-native trout from
targeted stream reaches and high mountain lakes, building barriers to prevent recolonization, and
monitoring watersheds, lake and stream habitats and instream flows to detect threats.

The three-state, 10-year strategy involves restoring degraded ecosystems by coordinating
land-use activities with the needs of the fish, improving lake and stream habitat and maintaining
adequate flows, water levels and water quality, In Colorado, 30 stream reaches and lakes (27 in
the upper Yampa basin, two in the Dolores basin and one in the Gunnison basin) will be
protected, and 31 (13 in the upper Colorado River, six in the Gunnison, one in the San Juan

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