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McClane Canyon Mine Expansion and Fruita Loadout Facility Biological Assessment <br />• Minimize subadult and adult entrainment at diversion /out -take structures. <br />• Investigate and provide habitats for all life stages. <br />• Ensure protection from overutilization. <br />• Ensure protection from diseases and parasites. <br />• Regulate non - native fish releases and escapement. <br />• Control problematic non= native fishes. <br />• Minimize risk of increased hybridization. <br />• Minimize risk of hazardous materials spills in critical habitat. <br />• Remediate water quality problems. <br />• Provide for long -term management and protection. <br />Critical habitat. The FWS designated critical habitat for the bonytail in river channels and <br />flooded, ponded, or 'inundated rivenne habitats that would be suitable for adults and young <br />(FWS, 1994). Critical habitat within Colorado has been designated on the Colorado River in <br />Mesa County from -Ruby Canyon (Black Rocks River Mile 137), downstream to Fish Ford River <br />on the Utah- Colorado border (FWS, 1994). The PCEs are the same as critical habitat for <br />Colorado pikeminnow described, above. <br />4.3.3.2 Environmental Baseline <br />Current Status in the Action Area. Apparently, there are no self - sustaining populations of <br />bonytails in the*Colorado River Basin. During the 1960s through the early 1980s, adult bonytail <br />were captured in the Upper Colorado River Basin including the Yampa River, Green River, and <br />Colorado River mainstem (FWS, 2002c). In 1984, a single bonytail was collected on the <br />Colorado River at 'Black Rocks (Kaeding et_ al., 1986). Most recently, wild bonytails were <br />captured in Lake Mohave, Nevada (in 2002) and Lake Havasu, Arizona (in 1990). <br />Recent information suggests that floodplain habitats may be more important to survival and <br />recovery of the Ponytail than originally thought because the last reported Concentrations .of the <br />species in the upper Colorado River Basin occurred in.or upstream of alluvial river reaches with <br />substantial floodpipin habitat (FWS, 2002c). However, there are no 'records of their occurrence <br />within'the Action Area. <br />Critical Habitat. There is no critical habitat for bonytails in the Action Area in Reed Wash. <br />Critical habitat has been designated on the Colorado River from Ruby Canyon (Black Rocks <br />River Mile 137), downstream to Fish Ford River on the Utah - Colorado border (FWS, 1994). The <br />confluence of Salt Creek with the Colorado River is approximately 8 miles upstream from Black <br />Rocks in Ruby Canyon: <br />4.3.3.3 Effects by the Proposed Action <br />Direct and Indirect Effects. Water depletions would adversely affect critical habitat for the <br />bonytai1. Waterborne selenium appears to affect young bonytails as it affects Colorado <br />pikeminnows and razorback sucke 'rs (Hamilton, 1995). Toxicity effects may contribute to <br />absence of bonytail reproduction in the upper Colorado River 'but definitive evidence has not <br />been found. Nevertheless, all of the pathways that the Proposed Action could contribute <br />selenium to enter waterbodies, discussed above for Colorado pikeminnow, would affect bonytail <br />recovery in the upper Colorado River system. <br />Cumulative Effects. As discussed above for Colorado pikeminnow, no State, tribal,.local, or <br />private actions are reasonably certain 'to occur within Reed Wash and the 100- year,floodplain. <br />Other potential cumulative effects associated with human population. growth in Garfield and <br />Mesa counties are expected to generate cumulative effects to bonytails as described above for <br />Colorado pikeminnows. <br />33 <br />