OCR Text |
Show of Wildlife Resources and the Utah Division of Water Resources it was agreed that, in order to preserve the ecologic feasibility of the Unit, the original minimum flow recommendation would be reduced from 37,000 acre- feet to 6,500 acre- feet per year. The official position of the State of Utah was set forth in a joint resolution advanced by the State on April 12, 19& 5* in concurrence with the Governor, requesting that the Bureau of Reclamation amend the Definite Plan Report for the Bonneville Unit to reflect the reduction in water available for maintenance of fish habitat. x This resolution was also approved by the Central Utah Water Conservancy District. The Forest Service was not party to the State resolution. The Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife withdrew its original recommendations to be consistent with the State's amended recommendations. The Forest Service has not altered the recommendations derived from their stream habitat studies as evidenced by publication of the stream habitat study. " As indicated above, the Bureau of Reclamation is aware that the proposed minimum fishery bypasses are insufficient to maintain the fishery and related resource at its- existing level of quality and production. The consequences of making the recommended minimum fishery bypasses and decreasing the transbasin diversion flow would be significant: !' l) the repayment contract between the United States and the Central Utah Water Conservancy District would have to be renegotiated to reflect reduced benefits and repayment, and ( 2) the Indian Deferral Agreement would be broken and would have to be amended. Both the District and the Ute Indian Tribe have indicated opposition to any changes which would reduce benefits to their respective entities. Consequently it appears that such negotiations would be extremely difficult. This aspect is discussed further in paragraph H3c It is also recognized that there is not enough accurate knowledge available explaining the relationship of streamflow requirements to production of fish. The Bureau of Reclamation intends to investigate this relationship through initiation of studies as described here and in Section D of this statement. The final environmental statement has been significantly expanded and modified in an effort to present a complete and impartial picture of the impacts expected to occur under the proposed plan. The additional input was derived from completion of the Preliminary Survey of the Biota of the Bonneville Unit of the Central Utah Project carried out by the Center of Health and Environmental ( 664 |