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.- ~E TOP j United States Department of the Interior FISH AND WILDI.nTE SERVICE ;+~ Ecological Services ~ _ 764 Horizon Drive, Building B ~~01V6d Grand Junction, Colorado 81506-3946 m atxt.v aF.t~a no: JAN 1 1 20D2 ES-6-RO-95-F-001-CrJ316 ~nQ.kretfon Reid ott;;,e MS 65412 GT DTvkfo^ ~ i~n~is & Geology January !0, 2002 Memorandttm To: Office of Surface Mining, Reclamatioir, and Enforcement, Denver, Colorado (Attn: Carl Johnston, Northwest Branch) From: Assistant Colorado Field Supervisor, Fi and Wildlife Se cc, Ecological Services, Grand Junction, Colorado ~.~d~~~` Subject: Biological Opinion for McClane Canyon Coal Mine )n accordance with section 7 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.), and the Interagency Cooperation Regulations (50 CFR 402), the Fish and Wildlife Service reviewed your Decetnber 17, 2001, corrospondcnce regarding the impacts of I.oadstar Bnergy, Inc.'s McClane Canyon Coal Mine on endangered Colorado River fishes. Through Technical Revision 11, the coal mine will increase production from 500,000 tons of coal per year to 1.7 million tons per year. The coal mine is located in portions of T. 7 S., R. 102 W., Garfield County, Colorado. The proposed action will cause an average annual depletion of 7.49 acre-feet to McClane Creek and East Salt Creek, tributaries to the Colorndo River, in the Upper Colorado River Basin. A Recovery Implementation Program for Endangered Fish Species in the Upper Colorado River Basin was initiated on January 22, 1988. The Recovery Program was intended to be the reasonable and prudent alteartative to avoidjeopardy to the endangered fishes by depleticns from the Upper Colorado River Basin. In order to further define and clarify the process in the Recovery Program, a section 7 agreement was implemented on October !5, 1993, by the Recovery Program participants. Incorporated into this ngreement is a Recovery Implementation Program Recovery Action Plan which identifies actions currently believed to be required to recover the endangered fishes in the most expeditious manner. Included in the Recovery Program was the requirement that a depletion fee would be paid to help support the Recovery Program. On July 8, 1997, the Service issued an infra-Service biological opinion determining that the depletion fee for depletions of 100 acre-feet or less are no longer required because the Recovery Program has made sufficient progress to be the reasonable and Appendix P