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1 a . . i~ 1i A tl ~J i '. "~ " I 1 .! n,~ 't~(t, ,,,. ... SCOPING REpORT GUNNISON RIvER CONTRACT CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION A. Background In the 1982 Colorado State water rights adjudication of the United States v. Denver, 656 P.2d I, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument (Black Canyon) was decreed a conditional, Federal reserved instream flow water right on the Gunnison River with a 1933 priority date. A proposal to supply water to the Black Canyon by means of a water delivery contract from the Federal Reclamation project reservoirs of the Wayne N. Aspinall Unit (Aspinall Unit), located immediately upstream from the Black Canyon, was stimulated by the need to quantify that right and proposals to develop large amounts of water in the Gunnison River Basin, In January 1991, the Bureau of Reclamation (BaR), National Park Service (NPS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) began examining the possibility of providing a long-term water supply to the Black Canyon and the downstream Gunnison Gorge from Blue Mesa Reservoir. It was agreed that such a contract shou'ld be seriously considered, and the agencies' intent to pursue negotiating a water delivery contract was announced by BaR's Commissioner in December 1991. To initiate activities ,under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), scoping for the contract proposal commenced in the spring of 1992 and involved participation by each of the above agencies. Also in the spring, BaR began providing flows from the Aspinall Unit to assist in studies on the effects of the Aspinall Unit operation on downstream endangered fish, pursuant to Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act and the "Recovery Implementatipn Program for Endangered Fish Species in the Upper Colorado River Basin." The goal pf this program is to recover the endangered Colorado squawfish, razorback sucker, humpback chub, and bonytail chub in the Colorado River and its tributaries such as the Gunnison River. Historically, these species were known to have occurred in the GunnisonRiver, primarily below its confluence with the Uncompahgre River at Delta, Colorado and downstream from both the Black Canyon and the Gunnison Gorge. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) participated in the scoping effort to help address questions relevant to endangered fish issues, Formerly the Curecanti Unit, the Aspinall Unit was authorized by the 1956 Colorado River Storage Project Act. The Aspinall Unit assists Colorado and the other,Upper Basin States (Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico) in utilizing their apportionment of Colorado River water while meeting obligations to deliver water to the Lower Basin States (California, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico) and Mexico, as agreed to by the 1922 Colorado River Compact and the 1948 Upper Colorado River Basin Compact (Compact entitlement). The Aspinall Unit developed the water storage and hydroelectric power generating potential along a 40- mile section of the Gunnison River by the construction of three dams and powerplants: Blue Mesa, Morrow Point, and Crystal. The dams and powerplants of the three reservoirs are