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<br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Information Meeting with Reclamation & IBWC <br /> <br />On December 16"', the Commissioner ofRec/amation (Eluid Martinez), the U.S. Commissioner <br />for the U.S. Section, International Boundary and Water Commission (John Bernal), and other federal <br />officials met with representatives from the Colorado River Basin states. At the meeting, Reclamation <br />discussed a possible accounting method that could be used to track and account for the Wellton- <br />Mohawk waters bypassed directly to Mexico, as well as the accrual of water into a potential offset <br />account due to the lining of the Coachella Canal. The general consensus was that there were a number <br />of questions and issues that would need to be resolved before implementing such an accounting process. <br />Furthermore, it is important for Reclamation to write up its proposed accounting framework and <br />distribute it for review and comment. <br /> <br />Reclamation also discussed the possibility of placing up to 500,000 acre. feet in ground water <br />storage, equivalent to the flow of the Well ton-Mohawk bypass for four years, to allow adequate time <br />to seek congressional appropriations should the Yuma Desalting Plant need to be placed into operation. <br /> <br />Colorado River Endanl!ered Soecies <br /> <br />The Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program Steering Committee (Steering <br />Committee) will meet on January 13,2000, to consider augmentation of the budget in order to carry the <br />program through July 2000, In addition, the Steering Committee will consider requesting the plan <br />development contractor (Ogden) to hire an additional firm under sub-contract to write an initial Habitat <br />Conservation Plan. A draft of the interim plan should be available in April 2000. The plan would be <br />used to help develop the program conservation alternatives and program expectations for scoping <br />meetings in the late spring or early summer of this year. <br /> <br />Included in the Board Folder is a Sixty-Day Notice of Intent (NOI) to sue Secretary of the <br />Interior Babbitt and eight other Federal officials, dated December 14,1999, from the American Humane <br />Society and fourteen others environmental organizations. The NOI essentially alleges that <br />Reclamation's analysis and description of its limited discretion is flawed, and that Reclamation has <br />failed to fully implement the Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives agreed to in the 1997 Biological <br />Opinion. The NOI further alleges that Reclamation has failed to adequately considerthe indirect effects <br />of its actions, and that the LCR MSCP program is flawed because it does not consider the ;;:ntire <br />Colorado River as an Ecosystem, or more specifically, it does not consider the Colorado River Delta <br />or the Upper Gulf of California in Mexico. The environmental organizations requested notification <br />within sixty days of the Federal agencies' intent to remedy the situation in order to avoid litigation. <br />Although only Federal agencies are named in the NOI, appropriate legal counsel from the Board's <br />member agencies and the Attorney General's office will meet soon to determine the best way for <br />California to handle this issue. Preliminary discussions with Reclamation staff indicate that the issue <br />may be assigned to one Federal agency (Reclamation?) as lead to coordinate the Federal response and <br />that it will be handled from Washington D,C. However, there has been no formal communication from <br />the Federal Government regarding how it plans to respond to this issue, <br /> <br />Also included in the Board folder is an undated letter from numerous environmental <br />organizations to both United States and Mexican officials essentially requesting that an in-stream flow <br /> <br />4 <br />