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<br />Endangered SDecies Issues
<br />River operations to create continuous flow in the Middle Rio Grande from Cochiti
<br />Dam to Elephant Butte Reservoir were the focus of substantial effort and extraordinary uses of
<br />water in 2000. Much of this effort was associated with mediation and an Agreed Order and
<br />Supplemental Agreed Order in the ESA lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the State of
<br />New Mexico by a coalition of environmental advocacy groups against Reclamation and the
<br />Corps. The lawsuit is styled Minnow. v, Martinez. The State of New Mexico through the New
<br />Mexico State Engineer, the NMISC, and the New Mexico Attorney General, the MRGCD, and
<br />the City of Albuquerque are defendant-intervenors. The mediated agreed orders resulted from
<br />a motion for preliminary injunction filed by the plaintiffs. The resulting operations were
<br />primarily responsible for record amounts, approximately 255,000 acre feet, of San Juan-
<br />Chama Project water flowing past the Otowi gage. These operations also resulted in
<br />significant reduction in storage in Heron, Abiquiu, and Jemez Canyon Reservoirs.
<br />The State of New Mexico, through the same three agencies identified above, and the
<br />MRGCD, sued the Service in 1999 in U,S. District Court for the State of New Mexico
<br />(MRGCD et al. v, Babbitt et al.) over its complaints of the inadequacies of the Service's
<br />process and contents of its critical habitat rule for the Rio Grande silvery minnow. Senior U.S.
<br />District Judge Mechem ruled on November 21, 2000. His ruling, at page 42, states:
<br />"Remarkably, FWS reaches a determination of 'no impact' without any definition of the
<br />meaning of 'continuous flow,' any estimate of how much water will be required or any
<br />explanation of the source of this water should it not be made available by the fortuities of the
<br />season. Given the region's history and the river's morphology, reaching a 'no impact'
<br />conclusion without identifying how much water could be required and where that water will
<br />come trom appears to be the essence of arbitrary and capricious." Judge Mechem required
<br />that the Service develop an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) regarding the impacts of
<br />the critical habitat rule and participate in the mediation in the Minnow v. Martinez lawsuit.
<br />Representatives of the Service told the Engineer Advisers that the EIS will be prepared. Its
<br />completion is expected to take 20 months. The Service has appealed Judge Mechem's ruling
<br />to the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
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