ISFAPPC00906

• Case Number: 03CW0266
• Stream Name: Bitter Creek
• Watershed: White River
• Water Division: 5
• Water District: 43
• County: Garfield
• Instream Flow App - Doc Type: Supplemental Data

upon the biological expertise of the cooperating agencies to develop a biologic instream flow
recommendation.

The BLM has indicated that this is a high priority stream segment to them. However, because
the winter recommendation falls outside the accuracy range of the R2CROSS model, staff
believes that more data needs to be collected to accurately predict the winter flow
recommendation. Staff has consulted with the recommending agency and believes that it would
be appropriate for the Board to file on a winter flow of 0.4 cfs, based on winter water availability
(See Table 1).

Hydrologic Data

After receiving the cooperating agency's biologic recommendation, the CWCB staff conducted
an evaluation of the stream hydrology to determine if water was physically available for an
instream flow appropriation. The hydro graph below was derived from data collected by the
USGS stream gage for Bitter Creek above Dick Canyon near Watson, UT (ill #09306740),
which has a drainage area of 11.7 square miles (See Gage Summary in Appendix C). The total
drainage area of the Bitter Creek Drainage upstream of the Colorado-Utah Stateline is
approximately 9.9 miles. The period of record for this gage was 1974 to 1978, the period of
record used by staff in their analysis was 1974 to 1978, or 4 years of record. Table 2 below
displays the flow of Bitter Creek upstream of CO-UT Stateline (Table 2), in terms of a
percentage of exceedence.

Table 2: Bitter Creek Estimated Flow upstream of CO - UT Stateline
Exc:eedences Janua Februa March '" M. Jun. '" Au ust So ember October November December
1% 1.10 1.57 1.55 5.52 8.46 ." 3.79 3.60 2.69 U5 1.18 1.25
5% 1." 0.93 1.34 2." 8,46 7.87 3.28 W 1.89 1.35 '" 1.18
15% 0.00 0.85 1.27 '50 8.34 6.77 2.89 2.03 151 1.27 0.93 US
'5% on 0.81 1.03 1.52 6.11 5.58 2." 1.88 1.44 1.18 0<15 '"
50. 0.42 '" 0.52 1.11'1 ,.. 2.98 1.61 1.18 1.10 0.59 0.67 0.63
80% 0.29 0.15 0.44 '" 0.76 0.51 0.46 0,48 0.38 0.41 0.43 0.41
00% 0.21 0.00 0.25 0.76 0.66 0.41 0,37 OAO 0.30 0.34 0.39 0.34
"'. 0.17 0.03 022 0.68 0." 0.37 0.36 0.32 0.08 0.31 0.34 0.25
W% 0.17 0.03 0.19 0.67 057 036 0.32- 0.30 0.00 0.30 0.25 0.21

Bitter Creek Estimated Stream Flow

3.5
3
2.5
'" 2
'ti 1.5
1
0.5 -
0
'"

- - - - - - - - - - - -

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m

MAY

JUN

u

,uo

SEe

OCT

NOV

OEC

Month

- 4-