Laserfiche WebLink
1.4. Water rights administration <br />Historically, water right calls occur only on internally controlled tributaries where <br />irrigation demands can exceed streamflows, such as Bear River, Fortification Creek, and <br />North, Middle, and South Hunt Creeks. Irrigation shortages on the upper Bear River are <br />typically satisfied by storage releases from Yamcolo and Stillwater reservoirs. On the <br />main stem there has not been administration of water rights calls and water has been <br />available for appropriation. <br />The Upper Colorado River Basin Compact of 1948 specifies that Colorado may not <br />deplete the flow in the Yampa River below an aggregate of 5 maf over any 10-year <br />period. Average historical consumptive use, per the Colorado Decision Support System <br />(CDSS) Yampa River Water Resources Planning Model, is on the order of 160,000 acre- <br />feet/year on average. Therefore the Compact constraint is not limiting at current levels of <br />development. <br />Future administration of the Yampa maybe affected by activities and projects in the <br />Recovery Program for Endangered Fish. Under the Endangered Species Act, four <br />Colorado River native fish species are listed as endangered: Colorado pikeminnow (a.k.a. <br />Colorado squawfish), humpback chub, bonytail chub, and razorback sucker. In 1988, the <br />States of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, water users, hydropower customers, <br />environmental organizations, and federal agencies developed a program to recover these <br />species while allowing water use to continue and up to 50,000 acre-feet/year of new <br />consumptive use to be developed. <br />The Recovery Program determined that 7,000 acre-feet of augmentation would satisfy <br />adopted base flow recommendations for the Yampa River in all but the driest 10% of <br />years. Eleven augmentation water supply alternatives were examined in detail, as <br />described in the Management Plan for the Yampa River Basin. Alternatives include <br />purchase or lease of water from one or more existing reservoirs and/or new or enlarged <br />reservoirs, as well as supply interruption contracts. The Colorado Water Conservation <br />Board (CWCB) recommends adoption of an alternative developed in August 2000 by a <br />workgroup in Craig, Colorado. The specific elements of that alternative are as follows: <br />• Lease up to 2,000 acre-feet per year from Steamboat Lake. <br />• Enlarge Elkhead Reservoir to provide 3,700 acre-feet per year for late summer <br />releases for endangered fish. <br />• The balance of augmentation (1,300 acre-feet) would likely be provided through a <br />lease between the Recovery Program and Colorado River Water Conservation <br />District (River District). This volume could be provided from the proposed human <br />use pool at Elkhead and/or from a new tributary reservoir. <br />The Programmatic Biological Opinion (PBO) will not cap the amount of water that can <br />be developed in the Yampa Basin. Rather, it will protect the right to develop a certain <br />amount of water within a timeframe, whose impacts can be scientifically analyzed using <br />Yampa River Basin Information 1.5 <br />