Endangered fish recovery efforts detailed at water forum

By NATHAN DEAL

Nathan.Deal@gjsentinel.com

The Hutchins Water Center at Colorado Mesa University hosted the 12th annual Upper Colorado River Basin Water Forum on Monday and Tuesday, with students and community members learning about local, regional and statewide water use and management.

The two-day forum included keynote addresses by University of Colorado Water Desk Co-Director Luke Runyon and Southern Ute Indian Tribal Council Vice Chair Lorelei Cloud, work sessions, networking events and forums covering a variety of water-use topics — such as soil moisture observations, a proposed Water Security Index for the Colorado River, urban outdoor water usage, and groundwater resources in the Grand Valley.

One of the final speakers of the event was Julie Stahli, the program director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program. Speaking in the University Center ballroom, she detailed the program’s efforts to recover, protect and delist four native fish species in the Upper Colorado River Basin that are either threatened or endangered: bonytail, Colorado pikeminnow, humpback chub and razorback sucker.

“Back in 1983, the Fish and Wildlife Service came to water users in the Upper Colorado River Basin and said the water development in the basin was threatening endangered fish populations, and therefore, they were requiring a curtailment of water development in the basin and asking for an equal amount of water to be released down to Lake Powell, as was being developed by any other parties. That was pretty much met with a hard ‘no’ from a lot of the water users who were not interested in a preliminary curtailment of their rights. One of the quotes in the paperwork came

See RECOVERY, page 18A ➤

Julie Stahli, the program director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program, looks up at a picture of a razorback sucker Tuesday while discussing the recovery program during the second day of the Upper Colorado River Basin Water Forum in the Colorado Mesa University Center ballroom.

NATHAN DEAL/ The Daily Sentinel

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back citing ‘irreconcilable differences between these parties,’ ” Stahli said.

“For students in the room, how would you respond to this problem? You’ve got endangered fish on one side and water development on the other. What do you do with that? I think we’ve seen a lot of examples from across the country as to how a lot of different programs or different ecosystems or different user groups have dealt with that problem. For us — and this is a credit to the water users back in the 1980s — the water users were the ones who decided that, if the fundamental problem was these fish were endangered, the fundamental solution was to make them not endangered.”

Stahli said collaboration between the program and a litany of other local and national agencies has led to certainty for Western Slope water users, as this collaboration has led to streamlined Endangered Species Act (ESA) compliance, no water projects being halted or delayed because of the ESA, and no litigation for any program partners.

The Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program’s partners are the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, the state governments of Wyoming and Utah, Western Area Power Administration, Western Resource Advocates, Colorado Water Congress, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Nature Conservancy, the Utah Water Users Association and the Wyoming Water Association.

Stahli detailed the five priorities of the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program.

The first priority is instream flow coordination. Instream flows are the foundation for all fish habitat and provide water for people, recreation and fishing. Program partners use scientifically based flow recommendations to drive management decisions to ensure endangered fish are protected as water is used to grow crops and supply homes and businesses with water. The program’s instream flow coordinator works with partners and figures out how to get as much water in the river as they can at the right time for these endangered fish. The program stays in constant contact with water users in the basin, including weekly phone calls with water users in “priority” regions like the Yampa River. Stahli said this is becoming increasingly difficult because of challenges around water in the basin.

The second priority is habitat protection. Because each protected species has different habitat preferences, program partners cooperate to provide passage across diversion dams, access to warm and food-rich nursery habitats, and protection from entering irrigation canals where they could end up on a farmer’s field instead of in the river.

The third priority is non-native fish control. For various reasons, non-native fish have been introduced across the basin for years, leading to the serious threat of predation that is perhaps the most challenging risk to manage for endangered fish. There are 12 species of native fish compared to 40 non-native species, including three big “trouble- making” species: smallmouth bass, northern pike and walleye. They can procreate fast, have big teeth and eat every stage of all native fish throughout their life cycles.

“I would argue that, without these three species, we would have these fish much closer to recovery,” Stahli said.

The fourth priority is outreach, as garnering public support is crucial for the program. Program partners visit schools, attend community events, engage anglers and boaters along the rivers, present at professional meetings and develop a variety of printed material and educational items that inform people about the value of endangered fish in their communities. Stahli mentioned Palisade High School’s fish hatchery program as an example of the positive benefit of community engagement.

The fifth priority is propagation. Hatchery- produced fish are stocked into rivers and streams when populations fall below self-sustainability. Program partners work together to maximize genetic diversity and continuously improve techniques so stocked fish are more likely to survive in the wild.