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<br />UM~ <br /> <br />Director. Upon approval, the property owner will then be approached <br />with an offer of some form of agreement (e.g., lease, easement, <br />purchase, credits, compensation, etc.). If the owner refuses the <br />offer, then the site will be dropped. Other sites will be added to <br />the list. <br /> <br />Site DesiQn and Restoration <br /> <br />For sites which have passed the screening tests, arrangements will <br />be negotiated with willing landowners to permit site restoration, <br />experimentation, and evaluation. On private lands, acquisition of <br />some form of interest in the property will be necessary. The <br />interest acquired may be in the form of a right-of-entry permit, a <br />flowage easement, an option-to-purchase agreement, a temporary <br />easement, fee simple purchase, etc. Prior to acquisition of any <br />interest in a property, however, the federal government (i.e., USBR <br />and USFWS) is required to ensure that the property undergoes <br />contaminants surveys, environmental compliance analysis (NEPA), <br />title search and insurance (with a solicitor's opinion), and an <br />appraisal. An ad hoc land Acquisition Group has been formed to <br />assist in this aspect of the Program. <br /> <br />The Program will test different site configurations. Some sites <br />will be engineered to control inflow, outflow, and predation. Such <br />sites will be relatively expensive, and will require long-term O&M. <br />Therefore, it is hoped that most of the sites will only require <br />minimal excavation to reconnect them to the river, that the <br />razorback sucker can be recovered by restoration of floodplain <br />habitats which behave naturally, as they did historically, and which <br />will require minimal O&M. Some of each type of site will be <br />developed, and comparisons of their effectiveness made. <br /> <br />Prior to site restoration, compliance with all existing Federal and <br />State environmental laws (e.g., NEPA, Section 7, 404 permits, etc.) <br />will need to be addressed. Steve McCall, USBR Grand Junction Area <br />Office, is the environmental compliance coordinator for the Program. <br /> <br />Evaluation <br /> <br />1. Site-specific evaluation <br /> <br />This form of evaluation will be restricted primarily to floodplain <br />depression-type habitats which have outlet structures to control <br />filling, draining, and fish access. The sites mayor may not have <br />inlet water or fish control structures. Razorback larvae will be <br />allowed to drift into the site and/or will be placed into the site <br />at the beginning of the season. At the end of the season, the site <br />will be drained and all fishes will be harvested. Survival and <br />growth of razorbacks will be the primary evaluation indices. This <br />scenario will eventually be duplicated for other endangered species <br /> <br />10 <br />