WSP02990 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

:.=, San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program ~:J -:> ~ The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program (San Juan Program) was established 0') as a result of the Section Consultation on the Animas-La-Plata Project (Project), which is located e.a in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico. The Program serves as a part of the reasonable and prudent alternative under which the Project is allowed to proceed. The goals of the San Juan Program are basically identical to the goals of the Upper Colorado River Basin Recovery Program: a) To conserve and recovery populations of the Colorado squawfish and razorback sucker consistent with the goals of established under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). b) to proceed with water development in the Basin in compliance with federal and state laws, interstate compact, Supreme Court decrees, and federal trust responsibilities to the Southern Utes, Ute Mountain Utes, Jicarillas and the Navajos. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has not identified any instream flow requirements for endangered fish on Colorado streams. They are however, carrying out comprehensive investigations for flow requirements on the San Juan River which may also result in instream flow requirements on tributaries in Colorado, Protection of Colorado's Compact Entitlement Currently, available scientific information and methodology cannot prescribe with certainty and precision the flows required in different segments or different times for the recovery of the endangered fish species and their essential habitats. Whatever flows are to be legally protected may tend to have an effect of limiting or foreclosing water development options necessary for Colorado's full use of its interstate compact entitlement. Nevertheless, it is urgent in the implementation of the Recovery Program that some flow protection mechanisms be instituted, to avoid risking the viability of the program. The protection of flows required for fish recovery is agreed to be the responsibility of each of the states under state law. Colorado can only implement flow acquisition and protection to the extent of the authority it has under current statute or as may be provided by amendment. Current statutory authority is quite broad: [R)ecognizing the need to correlate the actlvltles of mankind with some reasonable preservation of the natural environment, the [CWCB] is... vested with the exclusive authority ... to appropriate... such waters of natural streams .., as the board determines may be required for minimum stream flows... to preserve the natural environment to a reasonable degree. CRS ~ 37-92- I 02(3) 4