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<br />Executive Summary <br /> <br />INTRODUCTION <br /> <br />Background <br /> <br />Just after the end of World War II the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation ("Reclamation") <br />began a comprebensive inventory of water development potential in the Colorado River basin. <br />Included in this inventory was the identification of the potential Juniper ReservoirlDeadman <br />Bench Canal, Maybell, and Cross Mountain projects on the Yampa River mainstem. <br />Following the 1948 Upper Colorado River Compact and authorization of the Colorado River <br />Storage Project (which included the Glen Canyon, Curecanti, Navajo, and Flaming Gorge <br />projects), these Yampa River projects were designated as possible participating projects and <br />were earmarked for further study. The Colorado River Water Conservation District ("River <br />District") filed for water rights for the Juniper project shortly after the post-compact studies of <br />t.'1e Yampa and neighboring White River basins were completed by Reclamation in 1957. In <br />1962, River District was granted water rights for t.'1e project with a 1954 priority date. <br /> <br />'Because of its location relatively low in the basin, its relatively senior water rights <br />priority, and the magnitude of its potential water rights call (or "draft") on the river, the <br />Juniper project water rights are generally considered to be the controlling water rights in the <br />basin. It has been estimated that roughly one-third of the current consumptive use in the basin <br />occurs under water rights junior to the Juniper project rights. In a 1989 study for The Nature <br />Conservancy ("TNC"), the potential draft of the Juniper rights was estimated to be 862,000 <br />acre-feet (at) per year, or nearly 75% of the annual flow of the river at the nearby Maybell <br />gage (Wheeler, 1989). Thus the development of the Juniper project would have the potential <br />to severely constrain both existing and future water uses in the basin. However, largely due to <br />economic considerations and the increasing complexity of environmental permitting, the <br />Juniper project has not proceeded to design and construction., <br /> <br />The Recovery Program <br /> <br /> <br />In January of 1988, the Secretary of the Interior signed a cooperative agreement with the <br />Western Area Power Administration and the governors of the three Upper Basin states of <br />Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming to implement a recovery plan (known formally as the Recovery <br />Implementation Program for Endangered Fish Species in the Upper Colorado River Basin, or <br />"Recovery Program" for short) for the endangered fishes in the upper Colorado River basin. <br />This agreement was the product of years of difficult negotiations between state and federal <br />agencies, water development interests, and environmental organizations. It provides for the <br />implementation of a broad range of measures for protection and recovery of the endangered <br />fishes, including habitat management, habitat development and maintenance, stocking of native <br />species, management of non-native species, and ongoing research. <br /> <br />Because of its relatively undeveloped state, the Yampa River contains some of the largest <br />remaining areas of natural habitat of these endangered Colorado River fishes; it also <br />contributes significant flows to habitat areas in the Green River. For these reasons the Yampa <br />River has been assigned highest priority for acquisition of water rights for the Recovery <br />Program. In July of 1989, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ("Service") published a study <br />evaluating the habitat use, potential limiting factors, and relationships between life cycle and <br />annual flow events of the four fish species in the Yampa River (Tyus and Karp, 1989). Using <br /> <br />S-l <br />