WSP06888

• File Number: 8270.100
• Description: Colorado River Basin Water Quality/Salinity -- Misc Water Quality
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 4/1/1982
• Author: USDA
• Title: Colorado River Water Quality Improvement Program - Final Environmental Impact Statement for Lower Gunnison Basin Unit - Montrose and Delta Counties CO and Uintah Basin Unit
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: EIS

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mitigation plan to protect wildlife habitat assOCIated ~ith improvements to
canals and laterals that is yet to be developed by USBR for the Lower Gunnison
and Uintah Basin Units. Ho~ever, there are no present commitments for the
off-farm mitigation plan to include mitigation measures for onfarm losses.

At the present time ~etland losses resultin~ from USDA activities in the Salinity
Control Program in Grand Valley Unit in Colorado, are being partially offset
by including wildlife conservation practices in the individual farm conservation
plans for the installation of salinity control measures. The wildlife practices
have been available at a 90 percent cost-share rate on annual agreements, but
the practices are only included in the conservation plan on a voluntary basis.
In thp Uintah Basin Unit USDA agencies are ~orking ~ith the state divisions of
wildlife and with the U.S. Fish and ~ildlife Service in the development of the
individual conservation plans. Such a system could be a viable wetland mitiga-
tion strategy for implementation of salinily control practices in any of the
plan alternatives in the Lower Gunnison Basin Unit.

Full mili~alion by replacement of habitat (see Tables A 1-4) at a cost of
$2,000 per acre is outside the authority and juris1iclion of the Soil Conser-
vation Service, if implementation occurs as USDA nonproject work on individual
or contiguous farms. However, where sufficient field data were available a
worst-case analysis of full miligation by replacement was shown. in accordance
with the guidance provided by the Council on Environmental Quality (Federal
Register Volume 46, No. 55. 18016-18038).

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