On Sept. 20, the House Committee on Natural Resources voted to approve U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert’s bipartisan bill to protect endangered fish and aid 1,200 Colorado water and power users.
The Upper Colorado and San Juan River Basins Endangered Fish Recovery Programs Reauthorization Act, HR 4596, would reauthorize the Upper Colorado and San Juan Recovery Programs to protect four threatened and endangered native fish species until 2031.
The Upper Colorado and San Juan Recovery Programs began in 1988 to fully recover four federally listed endangered fish species – Colorado pikeminnow, bonytail, razorback sucker and the humpback chub. During this time, significant water and power-use restrictions were threatened.
As part of the Colorado River Storage Project, the recovery programs bring water from Aspinall Unit, Navajo and Flaming Gorge reservoirs. Together they store 6.5 million acre-feet of water.
Local communities, water users, environmental groups, Tribes, energy users and states have worked together to recover the four threatened and endangered fish species while sustaining water and power facility development and operations in the Upper Colorado River and the San Juan River Basins over the past three decades.
The program has been a success and brought humpback chub and razorback sucker numbers up. The chub has been downlisted from endangered to threatened and the razorback has been endorsed for downlisting.
The Fish and Wildlife Service will give $1.56 million per year in base funding and the Bureau of Reclamation supplies cost-shared contributions to both base and capital funds. The capital funding backs significant infrastructure projects at canals, diversion dams, reservoirs and flood plains that span the basin.
Nonfederal partners will give $11 million per year in water contributions, plus $750,000 in staffing and in-kind contributions. Participating states also will give $500,000 to base funds per year in cash equivalents for recovery actions, such as fish hatcheries and nonnative fish removal.
“Big win today as my fish bill passed the Natural Resources Committee with unanimous, bipartisan support,” Boebert said. “This crucial step brings us closer to safeguarding four endangered fish species and providing long-term certainty for 2,500 water and power users that benefit from the program and would have to perform extremely burdensome Section 7 consultations for all 2,500 individual projects without it.”
