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CONSERVATION GROUPS’ COMMENTS <br />UNCOMPAHGRE FIELD OFFICE RMP AND DEIS <br />56 <br />is between 70% and 99%, in large part due to human-caused climate change.169 The study <br />projects that: <br />business-as-usual emissions of greenhouse gases will drive regional warming and <br />drying, regardless of large precipitation uncertainties. We find that regional <br />temperature increases alone push megadrought risk above 70, 90, or 99% by the <br />end of the century, even if precipitation increases moderately, does not change, or <br />decreases, respectively. Although each possibility is supported by some climate <br />model simulations, the latter [99% risk] is the most common outcome [of the <br />models used]. An aggressive reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions cuts <br />megadrought risks nearly in half.170 <br />Local effects of climate change are already being felt by farmers, including lower- <br />than-typical snow pack, warmer and earlier spring thaws, earlier bud break, warmer <br />summertime highs, and warmer falls.171 Agriculture in the North Fork Valley relies <br />exclusively on the timely availability of clean irrigation water, which depends on a <br />healthy, vegetated watershed.172 Multiple years of drought combined with increasing <br />temperatures have stressed the North Fork watershed in multiple ways.173 Sudden Aspen <br />Decline, a drought- and temperature-induced dieback of aspen groves, has caused a <br />decline in the shadowing protecting the snowpack in mid- to late spring.174 The resultant <br />early runoff occurs at a time when farms are not able to use the runoff water to irrigate.175 <br />The reservoirs fill as they should but are tapped earlier because the runoff water is no <br />longer available when crops are ready to use it.176 Various beetle infestations threaten to <br />decimate the conifer cover of higher elevations in the watershed, again contributing to <br />snowpack degradation and early runoff.177 The level of fossil fuel development <br />contemplated by the RMP/EIS alternatives would further exacerbate the degradation of <br />the watershed by road construction, well pad development, pipeline construction, and <br />dust.178 <br />Orchard growers are at the greatest risk from climate change due to warmer <br />winters and late frosts.179 Fruit trees require chill hours, which are hours between the <br />temperatures of 32-45 degrees Fahrenheit.180 Winter hours above 60 degrees are <br /> <br />169 T. Ault et al., Relative impacts of mitigation, temperature, and precipitation on 21st-century <br />megadrought risk in the American Southwest, Science Advances (Oct. 5, 2016) at 1 (attached as <br />Exhibit 193). 170 Id. 171 Interview with Brent Helleckson, Owner of Helleckson Vineyards and Stone Cottage Cellars. 172 Id. 173 Id. 174 Id. 175 Id. 176 Id. 177 Id. 178 Id. 179 Id. 180 Id.