Cottonwood Creek Appendices - Laserfiche WebLink

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66 % of the reach is located on federal lands managed by the BLM. Biological Data The BLM has conducted field surveys of the fishery resources on this stream and have found a natural environment that can be preserved. As reported in the letter from BLM to the CWCB "Fishery surveys indicate that the stream environment is presently in stable condition, and supports a self-sustaining speckled dace fishery. In addition, the creek also provides habitat for migratory trout from the San Miguel River during spring runoff. Channel stability, bank stability, and substrate is suitable for the fish population. This stream experiences very low flows during the late summer and fall, which severely limits available habitat and food supplies and confines the the speckled dace population to pools. Accordingly, it is important to provide stream flows during snowmelt runoff that protect the limited time period when habitat and food is readily available, if the continued existence of the fishery is to be assured." (See BLM Fish Survey in Appendix B). Field Survey Data BLM staff used the R2Cross methodology to quantify the amount of water required to preserve the natural environment to a reasonable degree. The R2Cross method requires that stream discharge and ehannel profile data be collected in a riffle stream habitat type. Riffles are most easily visualized, as the stream habitat types that would dry up first should streamflow cease. This type of hydraulic data collection consists of setting up a transect, surveying the stream channel geometry, and measuring the stream discharge. Appendix B contains copies of field data collected for this proposed segment. Biological Flow Recommendation The CWCB staff relied upon the biological expertise of the cooperating agencies to interpret output from the R2Cross data collected to develop the initial, biologic instream flow recommendation. This initial recommendation is designed to address the unique biologic requirements of each stream without regard to water availability. Three instream flow hydraulic parameters, average depth, percent wetted perimeter, and average velocity are used to develop biologic instream flow recommendations. The CDOW has determined that maintaining these three hydraulic parameters at adequate levels across riffle habitat types, aquatic habitat in pools and runs will also be maintained for most life stages of fish and aquatic invertebrates (Nehring 1979; Espegren 1996). For this segment of stream, one data was collected with the results shown in Table I below. Table I shows who collected the data (Party), the date the data was collected (Date), the measured discharge at the time of the survey (Q), the accuracy range of the predicted flows based on Manning's Equation (240% and 40% of Q), the summer flow recommendation based on meeting 3 of 3 hydraulic criteria and the winter flow recommendation based upon 2 of 3 hydraulic criteria. - 3 -