2011-10-03_APPLICATION CORRESPONDENCE - C1981015

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McClane Canyon Mine Expansion and Fruita Loadout Facility Biological Assessment • Minimize subadult and adult entrainment at diversion /out -take structures. • Investigate and provide habitats for all life stages. • Ensure protection from overutilization. • Ensure protection from diseases and parasites. • Regulate non - native fish releases and escapement. • Control problematic non - native fishes. • Minimize risk of increased hybridization. • Minimize risk of hazardous materials spills in critical habitat. • Remediate water quality problems. • Provide for long -term management and protection. Critical habitat. The FWS designated critical habitat for the bonytail in river channels and flooded, ponded, or inundated riverine habitats that would be suitable for adults and young (FWS, 1994). Critical habitat within Colorado has been designated on the Colorado River in Mesa County from Ruby Canyon (Black Rocks River Mile 137), downstream to Fish Ford River on the Utah - Colorado border (FWS, 1994). The PCEs are the same as critical habitat for Colorado pikeminnow described, above. 4.3.3.2 Environmental Baseline Current Status in the Action Area. Apparently, there are no self - sustaining populations of bonytails in the Colorado River Basin. During the 1960s through the early 1980s, adult bonytail were captured in the Upper Colorado River Basin including the Yampa River, Green River, and Colorado River mainstem (FWS, 2002c). In 1984, a single bonytail was collected on the Colorado River at Black Rocks (Kaeding et al., 1986). Most recently, wild bonytails were captured in Lake Mohave, Nevada (in 2002) and Lake Havasu, Arizona (in 1990). Recent information suggests that floodplain habitats may be more important to survival and recovery of the bonytail than originally thought because the last reported concentrations of the species in the upper Colorado River Basin occurred in or upstream of alluvial river reaches with substantial floodplain habitat (FWS, 2002c). However, there are no records of their occurrence within the Action Area. Critical Habitat. There is no critical habitat for bonytails in the Action Area in Reed Wash. Critical habitat has been designated on the Colorado River from Ruby Canyon (Black Rocks River Mile 137), downstream to Fish Ford River on the Utah - Colorado border (FWS, 1994). The confluence of Salt Creek with the Colorado River is approximately 8 miles upstream from Black Rocks in Ruby Canyon. 4.3.3.3 Effects by the Proposed Action Direct and Indirect Effects. Water depletions would adversely affect critical habitat for the bonytail. Waterborne selenium appears to affect young bonytails as it affects Colorado pikeminnows and razorback suckers (Hamilton, 1995). Toxicity effects may contribute to absence of bonytail reproduction in the upper Colorado River but definitive evidence has not been found. Nevertheless, all of the pathways that the Proposed Action could contribute selenium to enter waterbodies, discussed above for Colorado pikeminnow, would affect bonytail recovery in the upper Colorado River system. Cumulative Effects. As discussed above for Colorado pikeminnow, no State, tribal, local, or private actions are reasonably certain to occur within Reed Wash and the 100 -year floodplain. Other potential cumulative effects associated with human population growth in Garfield and Mesa counties are expected to generate cumulative effects to bonytails as described above for Colorado pikeminnows. 33