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!W'lII!!!! " 11.I ~C~l'" HOWAJm ":'::'Rocl~}aMouritai" l1ENVER, COLORADO. 132nd year, No. 17 News May9,1990.2Se ;' Squawfish could kill plan Jtlency's recommendation bodes ill for ~as- La Plata water project. Page 10 . R~~! ~~~~~Ir. N!~~ "~"'---'-""--~'A"'.'l; ~"'-r""""'-rr'~~l"''''''''-~*~' ',... Vf;ep!,M~~~'l',9PR, "OLORADO a THE 'EST!r' r Steve Campbell, State/Region Editor. 892-5381 Squawfisll may halt water project' By John Brinkley News Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - A U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service recommendation for a long-term study of an endan- gered fish species in the San Juan River basin may kin plans for the Animas-La Plata water project. Galen Buterbaugh, spokesman for the Fish & Wildlife Service's Denver office, yesterday said the agency had issued a "jeopardy opinion" on the effect of removing more water from the river basin, a home to the endangered Colorado squawfish. Moreover, he said, the opinion included a statement that "we could find no reasonable and pru- dent alternatives that would allow the project to go forward that would not impact severely on the squawfish." The service's recommendation to the Bureau of Reclamation, the Interior Department agency that would manage the project, is that the southwestern Colorado project be put on hold until Fish & Wildlife biologists can complete a lengthy study of factors affecting the squawfish. Environmentalists, who have long opposed the project, applaud- ed the recommendation, but Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, D- Colo., and Gov. Roy Romer criti. cized it. "We must not lose the Animas- La Plata project," Romer said in a press statement. He said he will ask state officials to prepare a response, which may include are. quest for exempting the fish from the Endangered Species Act. Buterbaugh said the proposed study probably would take about seven years to complete, although it might lake 10. Under the multiparty agree- ment that led to the project's ap- proval, the project had to be fin- ished by 2000 - within 12 years of passage of legislation authoriz. ing it. If not, the parties to the agreement - the states of Colora- do and New Mexico, the U.S.lnte- rior and Justice Departments, the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes, and various water dis- tricts and municipalities - could withdraw from it. Some preliminary work has be- gun. The $582-million project would divert water from the Animas and La Plata rivers, which are tributar- ies of the San Juan, into a network of two reservoirs, three pumping stations and 157 miles of pipes and canals. It would irrigate 68,000 acres of farmland in Colorado and New Mexico. Romer said the project mnst stay alive "to keep faith with the Indian water settJement." Campbell said he found the Fish & Wildlife recommendation "iron- ic as hell," because one of the factors that led to the squawfish's decline was a government-Iunded fish kill in 1962.