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] United States Reserved Water Release For Endangered Species, 1992 paonia Project, colorado Introduction Paonia Reservoir, a feature of the paonia Project, provides supplemental and full service irrigation, flood control, recreation, and fish and wildlife benefits. The repayment contract with the North Fork Water Conservancy District for paonia Project provides 12,650 acre-feet (ac-ft) of water for irrigation. The US Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) reserved water in excess of this amount for other purposes. The reserved amount upon construction was originally 5,500 ac-ft; due to sediment deposition since construction, this reserved pool has subsequently been reduced to 3,877 ac-ft as of June 1988. Of this reserved storage, 2,000 ac-ft has already been contracted for. Due to sediment inflow rates expected to average 100 acre-feet/year and the storage space that has already been contracted for, the remaining available reserved storage has been reduced to 1,377 ac-ft. A water service contract was executed with the Ragged Mountain Water Users Association on August 6, 1991. This contract provides for the exchange of 2,000 ac-ft of supplemental irrigation water from the reserved pool in Paonia Reservoir to the upstream users. section 7 consultation of this contract resulted in the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recommending the annual release of the remaining uncommitted water in Paonia Reservoir for the benefit of the Colorado River endangered fish species as a conservation measure. The uncommitted capacity of the United States water in paonia Reservoir is 1,377 ac-ft based on current reservoir capacity. Although, to date, a contract has not been signed with the FWS addressing the time and amount of conservation releases, Reclamation has made releases to be in compliance with providing irrigation water to Ragged Mountain Water Uses during 1992. In November of 1992 the Bureau of Reclamation requested the Fire Mountain Canal Company (the operator of Paonia Dam) to release approximately 1,400 ac-ft. Reclamation is monitoring and tracking the conservation releases to determine the results and impacts of such releases on the river from paonia Reservoir to the US Geological Survey (USGS) gauging station near Grand Junction, Colorado. . Release Schedule Reclamation decided that to facilitate monitoring and tracking of the release, 1,400 ac-ft should be released at a rate of 140 cubic feet per second (cfs) over a 5 day period. On November 13, 1992, Mr. Art Cannon, Manager of Tri- County Conservanc:,. District, Mr. Ion Spor, Superintendent of Ridgway Dam, Mr. Jim Hokit, Manager of Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association, and Mr. Brad Vickers in the Upper Colorado Region Operations were contacted to inform them of the planned releases. They agreed to cooperate in keeping the releases from the Aspinall Unit and Ridgway Reservoir constant during this period of release so that side in!_ows would have a minimal impact on river fluctuation in the study reach. The releases from Paonia Reservoir were increased by 140 efa on November 20th at 8:45 am. and all releases were terminated on November 25th at 9:00 am.