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. . within the Federal Agency's legal authority and jurisdiction to implement, and will be economically and technologically feasible. o o c' ~ ..... ..... 12. if the Service concludes, at any time and independent of any consultation, that the Program is not implementing actions on schedule, and that this may impact the ability of the Program to provide reasonable and prudent alternatives, the Service will provide a written assessment to the Coordination Committee. The assessment will include the Service's recommendations for corrective actions. The Coordination Committee, in cooperation with the Biology Committee, will have an opportunity to modijj; timing, funding, and/or priorities in the L.P. to insure that the Service can rely on the Program to provide the reasonable and prudent alternatives. 6.0 Minor Depletion Allowance The purpose of the minor depletion allowance is to avoid imposing inefficient .and unnecessary administration of Section 7 on projects clearly causing insignificant impacts to the endangered/ISh and critical habitat, individually and collectively. Thefollowing guidelines will be used by the by the Service in application of Section 7 consultation to minor depletions: d) A minor depletion is defined as a depletion of 100 AF"yr or less. e) In rendering biological opinions onfederal actions resulting in minor depletions, the Service will consider all new information concerning project impacts and the status of the listed species, and goodfaith implementation of the RIP in determining if the RIP can provide the reasonable and prudent alternative for minor depletions. c) The aggregate of all minor depletions subject to section 7 consultation in a single biological opinion may result in a total annual depletion of not more than 3000 acre:feet/year. When and if the 3,000 AF/yr limit is reached, the Service may consider issuing another opinion to cover additional minor depletions limit. Consultations completed under any previous minor depletions account will not be required to reinitiate consultation if a new account is established, and will be included in the Section 7 baseline for the San Juan River. d) The Service will review each application for consideration under the minor depletion opinion and utilize that opinion to facilitate consultations on small projects so long as a proposed depletion fits within the 3,000 acre:feet/year ceiling and does not compromise the purposes for which the minor depletion opinion was issued. e) Depletions that were in existence as of October 25,1991, the date of the issuance of the first Animas- La Plata Biological Opinion will not be counted against any minor depletions account. 10