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STATE OF COLORADO Bruce McCloskey. Director 6060 Broadway Denver, Colorado 80216 Telephone: (303) 297-1192 Bill Owens, Governor DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES DIVISION OF WilDLIFE AN EQUAl OPPORTUNITY EMPlOYER December 20, 2004 Mr. Dan Merriman and Mr. Todd Doherty Colorado Water Conservation Board Stream and Lake Protection Section 1313 Sherman Street, Room 723 Denver, Colorado 80203 Re: Colorado Division of Wildlife Instream Flow Recommendations for Comet Creek, Dear Dan and Todd, The purpose of this letter is to officially transmit the Colorado Division of Wildlife's Instream Flow Recommendations for Comet Creek in San Miguel County, The reaeh of stream eovered by this flow recommendation is from the headwaters to the eonfluence with the San Miguel River, a distanee of approximately 3,6 miles, In the fall of 1996, the Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW), with the assistanee of staff from the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB), collected stream eross section information, natural environment data, and other data needed to quantify lnstream Flow needs for the Cornet Creek, Cornet Creek is classified as a medium stream (between 20 to 35 feet wide), Cornet Creek was sampled using standard eleetrofishing equipment approximately 1/8 mile above the confluenee with the San Miguel River. The aquatie sampling summary shows that a self sustaining brook and brown trout fishery exists in Cornet Creek, Cornet Creek also has a healthy aquatie macroinvertebrate population indieative of high quality water, Comet Creek also supports a healthy riparian community, Instream flows are needed to preserve and protect these biological eommunities in addition to the existing brook and brown trout fishery, Cornet Creek also produees high quality water that serves to provide assurance that mine clean-up activities in the upper San Miguel basin (above the Town of Telluride) will eontinue to show improvements to the river's water quality and the river's fish population, The stream cross seetion data was analyzed using the R2CROSS program, The R2CROSS output was evaluated using the methods deseribed in Nehring (1979) and Espegren (1996), The CDOW has reviewed the data eolleeted to date and based on that review recommends that the CWCB appropriated the following flow amounts to preserve the natural environment of the Cornet Creek to a reasonable degree: . 9,0 cubic feet per second is reeommended for the summer flow, This flow is required to maintain the three principal hydraulic criteria of average depth, average velocity and pereent wetted perimeter; DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, Russell George, Executive Director WILDLIFE COMMISSION, Philip James, Chair. Jeffrey Crawford, Vice-Chair. Brad Phelps. Secretary Members, Bernard Black. Tom Burke. Rick Enstrom. Claire 0' Neal. Robert Shoemaker. Ken Torres Ex Officio Members, Russell George and Don Ament