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Threatening the Endangered Species

If you want to know how much water a river needs, it’s fair to ask a fish who grew up there.

In Colorado, four ancient native fish were listed as endangered species on the Colorado River between 1967 and 1981. It’s largely because we’ve not left enough water in the river. Today the four endangered fish cause fits for irrigators and water providers, as a 1999 biological opinion drafted by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service limits further diversions from the Colorado River to only 120,000 more acre-feet over what was being diverted in 1995. Any new diversions over 120,000 acre-feet will trigger another expensive biological review under Section 7 of the ESA. None of the four fish in question are recovering in significant numbers.

Historically, only fourteen species of fish inhabited the upper Colorado River basin, but over forty non-native species have been added since the late 1800s. The native fish species in the Colorado are primarily carp, minnows and suckers, and many are found nowhere else. They are comfortable in several different niches within the underwater world of rivers. Razorback suckers and humpback chub prefer turbulent, swift water. Bonytail chub live in calm backwaters and eddies. Pikeminnows spawn in backwaters but roam throughout the river in search of food.

Table 5.1 Four endangered fish (photos via www.coloradoriverrecovery.org).

Colorado Pikeminnow

Once called the “Colorado squawfish,” it used to grow to 6 feet and weigh 100 pounds. Its range extended from the Gulf of California to Rifle. One of the last surviving populations is in the 15-Mile Reach of the Colorado River above the Gunnison River in Grand Junction.

Humpback Chub

This fish adapted to rivers with strong continuous flow—its humpback and sloping head help hold the fish against the river bottom when facing upstream.[1] It prefers warm water in Westwater Canyon or the Little Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.

Razorback Sucker

The razorback sucker was listed in 1981 and has steadily declined ever since. Once commercially fished in Arizona, it is now found in significant numbers only in Lake Mohave downstream of Lake Mead.

Bonytail

No known breeding populations exist. Listed in 1980, the last known concentration of bonytail was identified in the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument. In 1993 a single bonytail was captured in the Colorado River 4 miles upstream of the Green River.[2]

Until recently, pikeminnows were the dominant fish, eating almost anything. Early settlers called the pikeminnow the “Colorado salmon,” probably because it migrated up to 200 miles through extreme white water to find its spawning grounds each year. Biologists now consider the average size of an adult pikeminnow to be between four and nine pounds. Few reach even three feet in length, a fraction of their former size. Today, exotic, non-native fish dominate the rivers. One study done at the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers, just above the exciting Cataract Canyon rapids in Canyonlands, found 95 percent of the fish to be non-native.[3]

Figure 5.1 Status of native fish species in the Colorado River basin[4]

In studies on the Green River, researchers documented that young Colorado pikeminnow constituted 5 percent of the diet of the invasive northern pike (no relation to the pikeminnow despite the similar name), even though young Colorado pikeminnow made up a much smaller portion of the available food base in the river. Researchers estimated that a single northern pike could consume 100 or more young Colorado pikeminnow per year.[5]

Dams are another reason native fish are declining. The Redlands Diversion Dam straddles the Gunnison River just above where it joins the Colorado River in Grand Junction (hence the name Grand Junction, bestowed when the “Colorado” was still known as the “Grand.”). Redlands is considered a “low-head” dam since the head, or vertical distance between the top and bottom of the drop, is not very high. Structures like this are great for diverting water to grow hay but they can stop fish migration and be deadly for boaters who can get caught in their powerful inescapable backwash and drown. The fish ladder below Redlands Dam was built in 1996 to allow fish to get past the structure. From 1996 to 2012, some 115,000 native fish ascended, but only 122 endangered Colorado pikeminnow (less than eight per year), twenty-eight razorback suckers, eight bonytail, and one humpback chub. It’s a clear portrayal of what we’ve done to the river.

Another fish ladder was built in 2004 at the Grand Valley Diversion Dam on the Colorado above Palisade in DeBeque Canyon along Interstate 70. Through 2012, 58,000 native fish had passed the roller dam, but only two razorback suckers, six humpback chub, and twenty-two bonytail.[6] Two razorback suckers! After three-to-five million years of habitation! In 2014, the first pikeminnow made it through the fish ladder at the roller dam, ten years after it was built, according to an article in The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel by Gary Harmon.[7] That enabled the pikeminnow to swim upstream possibly as far as Rifle, considered to be the top of its range, although I’ve heard that pikeminnow once made it as far up as Basalt. The Fish & Wildlife Service claims the 15-Mile Reach above the Colorado River’s confluence with the Gunnison River to the Grand Valley Irrigation Canal in Palisade, is the most dewatered section of the entire Colorado.[8] The main reason the river is so dewatered below Palisade is because Grand Junction irrigators divert 760,000 acre-feet yearly, mainly to grow hay. (Grand Junction’s famed peaches consume less than 2 percent of this water, by the way).

“The goal of the Recovery Program is to recover the listed species while providing for new and existing water development in the Upper Colorado River Basin,” the Service said in its 1999 recovery plan. “New and existing water development” refers to dams and diversions. The endangered fish recovery plan is known in water speak as a “programmatic biological opinion,” or PBO. In a 1999 PBO, the Service estimated that existing depletions from the upper Colorado River above the confluence with the Gunnison River are approximately 1 million acre-feet per year, and that additional depletions of 120,000 acre-feet over what was being consumed in September 1995 are possible without further harming critical habitat. The report does not list the diversions, so it isn’t possible to see what makes up these numbers, but we have a good idea—see the table at page 33 near the end of Chapter 2. In all, Colorado consumes about 2.1 million acre-feet of the Colorado River and its tributaries in an average year.

Eric Kuhn, the former Colorado River District general manager, claimed that the 120,000 acre-feet of new depletions are intended to be split between the west and east slopes.[9] That is enough water for 600,000 more people on each side of the Continental Divide at ten persons per acre-foot (1.2 million total). The east slope’s 60,000 acre-foot share is largely spoken for between the Moffat Tunnel and Windy Gap expansions, since they total 48,000 acre-feet. That means the east slope may be able to only develop 12,000 more acre-feet from the Colorado River, and that will likely come from the Eagle River MOU if we divert still more water to Aurora and Colorado Springs from the Eagle River drainage through the Homestake Tunnel. All this means the endangered fish are tied to a central issue in Colorado, which is that any additional water diverted to the east slope will only come if fish-flows, and fish lives, can be maintained on the main stem of the Colorado River above and below Grand Junction. If not, it means agriculture on the west slope could be dried up.

When we were negotiating the Conceptual Framework to set the rules of engagement before any more water is diverted to the Front Range through a new transmountain diversion, I asked Kuhn if the Front Range would agree to refrain from drying up farms on the west slope. He said they would not. Purchasing irrigated hayfields is still fair game. I’ve also been asked by people how that would work, in terms of getting the water from, say, a ranch near Delta, to the Front Range. If irrigation water from a lower-elevation hayfield on the west slope is changed to municipal use, only the amount of former consumptive use from the hayfield can be sent east. But that amount of water could still be attractive to a Front Range water provider. So that amount of water could then, in theory, be diverted from a Colorado headwaters stream via a high-elevation transmountain tunnel, and through a water exchange, the water could be replaced downstream … with the actual water saved at the point of diversion after drying up the irrigated field in the lower-elevation west slope valley. That’s the mechanism for how the Front Range could “buy-and-dry” the west slope. Buy the water at the bottom, leave it in the river there, but take the same amount off the top. 

There is no law preventing this.

To counter the trend Colorado, as a state, or local counties or irrigation districts, could develop a pool of funds to purchase irrigation water to keep it on the west slope, but that will pit the west slope against the east slope where 90 percent of the population and wealth are located. Laissez faire economics permit individual water right owners to sell their water to the highest bidder, and water law in the state is designed to facilitate just this type of transfer. As long as east slope water districts and municipalities can purchase, and use, west slope water, they certainly will. And water users on the west slope want to keep it that way, because it’s a good potential financial option, and they are rational people.

Meanwhile, the Fish and Wildlife Service hopes to recover the endangered fish by improving habitat and by increasing their numbers through stocking efforts in the 15-Mile Reach. Also included in the effort is the eighteen miles of the Colorado River downstream of the Gunnison River confluence, as this combined 33-mile reach supports one of the only two wild surviving populations of pikeminnow. The other pikeminnow reach is in the Green River, upstream of where I-70 crosses the Green River at Green River, Utah. According to the PBO, a Colorado pikeminnow was implanted with a radio transmitter at Gypsum Canyon in upper Lake Powell on April 5, 1982. The fish was contacted next in the lower Cataract Canyon area on July 9, 1982. Forty-one days later, the next contact was made above the Black Rocks area of Ruby-Horsethief Canyon just downstream of Loma, and some 160 miles above Cataract Canyon. By the end of September, the fish was in the 15-Mile Reach, nearly 200 river miles upstream from its furthest documented downstream location in Lake Powell.[10] Scientists believe it was related to spawning, but it could also be an indication that the fish was stressed. Pikeminnows tagged with radio transmitters typically moved 25-to-30 miles during a field season. Today, when a single pikeminnow is caught it can be national news, as occurred in 2010 when researchers captured a 30.3-inch, 9.1-pound pikeminnow in the San Juan River. In the twenty years from 1991 to 2010, only four pikeminnows weighing nine pounds or more were caught by researchers in the San Juan.[11]

The 15-Mile Reach is where most pikeminnows have been found—during 1986-1988, seventeen adult Colorado pikeminnow were captured there during the April-May-June time frame and radio-tagged.[12] The Upper Colorado Endangered Fish Recovery Program has sampled five reaches of the Green, Yampa, and White rivers from 2000-2003, 2006-2008, 2011-2013, and 2016-2018. In the ongoing 2022-2024 sample, only 65 adult pikeminnow were found, down from nearly 1,000 in the 2000-2003 study. They use electrofishing wands to stun pikeminnow and count and tag the ones that rise to the surface. They do three passes in each of the five river reaches each year and count the number of tagged fish that they recapture to determine the population size. In 2022 only three individual adult Colorado Pikeminnow were recaptured, and in 2023 only one was recaptured. It is one more species that I am watching disappear, evoking the same sadness and helplessness I have felt so many times in my life.

To improve habitat, the Fish & Wildlife Service works to increase Colorado River peak flows in June—it estimates that high flows between 12,900 and 29,000 cfs are needed each year to tumble the river bed and flush sediment downstream.[13] Pikeminnow need clean gravel beds to spawn, which scientists say does not happen until flows reach at least 21,500 cfs.[14] These flows are also large enough to flood side channels and wetlands where young Colorado pikeminnow and razorback suckers hide out and mature. The Service is also removing dikes that channelized and separated the river from the flood plain, hoping to restore wetlands and backchannels where young fish develop.

The fish recovery plan called for a $62 million capital improvement budget to build fish ladders at two diversion dams in De Beque Canyon above Palisade, to acquire 3,500 acres of wetlands along the river, and to purchase critical water rights. Much of the money was also spent constructing fish hatcheries to raise endangered fish to restock rivers. Another $4 million is spent each year for recovery plan operations. Reclamation provides much of this funding, primarily from hydropower revenues collected at Glen Canyon Dam. This is yet another reason why the Colorado River basin states do not want Lake Powell levels to drop below the outtake tubes, since funding for the endangered fish program would itself be endangered.[15] The most significant aspect of the 1999 endangered fish recovery plan was its call for higher flows in the 15-Mile Reach. From 1975 through 1991, Grand Junction water users diverted a constant flow of 3,009 cfs from August through October, reducing flows in the 15-mile reach to a bare trickle of 84 cfs.[16]

The water is diverted at two points: the red-roofed “roller dam” along I-70 in De Beque Canyon, officially known as the Grand Valley Diversion Dam; and six miles downstream in Palisade at the diversion structure that directs water into the Grand Valley Irrigation Canal. The roller dam raises the level of the river high enough so that water can be diverted into a channel running alongside the river. (The “roller” used in describing the dams comes from the dam’s unique adjustable roller gates that control the flow of water). Raising water in a river high enough so it can be diverted is how nearly all irrigation ditches operate in the West. Each one creates a barrier that hampers fish passage. Reclamation has managed to leave 158 more cfs in the 15-Mile Reach by modernizing irrigation turnouts in the 52-mile long Government Highline Canal, which is fed water by the Grand Valley Diversion Dam and snakes along the north side of Grand Junction. The Bureau releases another 170 cfs from reservoirs over a hundred miles upstream, half from Ruedi Reservoir on the Fryingpan River above Basalt and half from Granby Reservoir in Grand County.

Releasing water from Ruedi for the fish in the 15-Mile Reach sometimes raises the hackles of a few folks in the Basalt fishing community, who feel that 220 cfs is the optimum flow for wading in the Fryingpan River. Flows can sometimes reach 300 or 350 cfs in late summer when “fish water” is being released. According to a 2016 article by Brent Gardner-Smith of Aspen Journalism that ran in the Aspen Daily News, flows over 300 cfs are high enough to sweep some anglers off their feet when they try to wade across the river to reach attractive fishing holes.[17] State and federal officials now aim to keep late-summer flows below Ruedi Reservoir below 300 cfs in an effort to keep anglers on the lower Fryingpan happy.

The main issue, however, remains the fact that Grand Junction irrigators still take a constant flow of 2,882 cfs from the Colorado River from August through October, almost all to irrigate alfalfa, hay, corn, and, increasingly, bluegrass lawns in new subdivisions. It amounts to their diverting 87 percent of the river’s flow. The tiny sliver at the top of the bars in the graph below represents the only water irrigators did not divert and instead left in the Colorado River in the 15-Mile Reach before the biological opinion was finalized in 1999.

Figure 5.2 Diversion amounts in Grand Junction

Searching for Chub

About thirty miles downstream of Grand Junction, Westwater Canyon, which is deep, rugged and remote, holds the only sizable remaining population of humpback chub outside of the Grand Canyon. On a 2015 kayaking trip through Westwater (a gem of a run in mid-summer when the river is warm) I encountered a group of scientists floating the river on specialized rafts counting humpback chub. That is not uncommon, as a dedicated group of biologists and ecologists track the four endangered fish species throughout the Colorado River basin. Humpback chub numbers had been dropping in Westwater, with the 2012 population estimated at 1,525 adults compared to 2,500 in 1999. By 2021, however, humpback chub had increased to 3,300 in Westwater and 12,000 at the Little Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, so the Service downlisted them from endangered to threatened in 2021. The growing Grand Canyon population at the Little Colorado River apparently motivated the downlisting. That doesn’t mean humpback chub are no longer at risk, since under the Endangered Species Act “threatened species” are still “likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of their range.”[18] The humpback chub was one of the first species listed as endangered in 1967, and it was downlisted to threatened 54 years later in 2021 because recovery goals established in 2002 were partially met. One 2002 goal that was not met was a goal to have five separate populations in the Upper Basin. By 2021, a population in the Yampa River was extirpated, leaving four remaining populations in Desolation and Gray Canyons, Cataract Canyon, Westwater, and Black Rocks in Ruby Horsethief canyons at the Colorado-Utah border. One factor that encouraged the Fish & Wildlife Service to downlist the species were the presence of upstream reservoirs that the federal government managed and could release water needed to sustain the humpback chub.[19]

Humpback chub are faring better at the mouth of the Little Colorado River, sixty-two miles below where the famed Grand Canyon raft trip begins. Humpback chub like the “Little C’s” warm water compared to the constant flow of cold water coming down the mainstem Colorado River from Lake Powell. Biologists estimate their population grew 50 percent from 2001 to 2008 in the Little Colorado River, which courses through the Navajo Reservation in the lower half of its 340-mile length. Population estimates can vary widely since they are based on random samples of fish caught in trammel nets or by electro-shocking them and counting the fish that float to the surface. Scientists attribute the increasing humpback chub population in the Grand Canyon to two causes, reduced predation from non-native trout, and warmer water. Between 2003 and 2006, the rainbow trout population in the Colorado River near the Little Colorado River was reduced by more than 80 percent. Humpback chub require a minimum temperature of 60.8oF (16oC). As the level of the Lake Powell has dropped, warmer water at the surface of the reservoir has reached the outtake tubes at Glen Canyon Dam, and releases are not as frigid.

Thanks to drought-induced warming that began in 2003 and Lake Powell’s dropping water level, in 2005 water temperatures in the mainstem Colorado River near the Little Colorado River exceeded 62.6°F (17°C), the warmest temperatures recorded in this section of the river since the reservoir filled in 1980. "The Grand Canyon is the one bright spot in the Colorado River Basin for native fishes," USGS supervisory biologist Matthew Andersen said in a 2009 USGS press release. [20] Twenty-six miles downstream, the Service reintroduced humpback chub in 2018 in another Colorado River tributary, Bright Angel Creek. It tumbles thirteen miles down from the Canyon’s north rim to Phantom Ranch in the heart of the Grand Canyon. Before restocking the humpback chub, biologists spent six years removing brown and rainbow trout that the Park Service first began stocking in Bright Angel Creek in 1920.

Biologists walk up the creek with electrofishing wands that produce a charge strong enough to stun fish but not kill them. Volunteers following behind collect the trout floating to the surface, which they haul out by helicopter for human consumption outside the Canyon. Poisoning the fish could be more effective, but national park regulations do not allow this, and the poison would also kill insects the fish feed on. Electrofishing will not eliminate all the trout, so park officials encourage backpackers to keep what trout they do catch. Crews of seasonal workers and volunteers hauled out 14,000 trout in the winter of 2012-13, nearly 90 percent of them brown trout that biologists say are especially fierce with native fish. That equals more than 1,000 fish per mile in tiny Bright Angel Creek; compare that to the one to three Colorado pikeminnow per mile that I estimate survive in 871 miles of the Colorado, San Juan, and Green rivers that have been studied in the Upper Colorado basin.[21]

Brown trout particularly prey on humpback chub, and almost half of the browns that had apparently swum twenty-six miles upstream in the Colorado River from Bright Angel to the Little Colorado River had fish in their bellies. Rainbow trout prefer to eat insects—less than 1 percent of rainbows caught near the Little Colorado had fish in their stomachs. Still, the Park’s mission is to restore native fish, so all introduced exotic fish including rainbows have to go. According to a 2013 Arizona Republic article by Brandon Loomis, flagstaff angler Mark Steffen used to hike down to Bright Angel Creek weekly in the 1980s, catching as many as fifteen trout in one beaver pond after another.[22]“It was the funnest place in the world to fish,” he said, but now he won’t go back. “It’s toast,” he said of the fishery. “The whole Grand Canyon is dead to me. It’s a politically correct place. It’s no fun.”

He’s upset, claiming that biologists think they need to regulate everything instead of letting the fish find a new equilibrium. Since 2020 the Park Service has been encouraging anglers to catch all the brown and rainbow trout they can, setting no bag limit, and paying anglers $33 to $50 for each brown trout caught between Glen Canyon Dam and the Paria Riffle, just below Lees Ferry where the Grand Canyon raft run begins. The bounty program is expected to last through 2026. Over three years from 2021 through 2023 the Park Service paid $423,190 to remove 5,597 brown trout, a cost of more than $75 per fish, with the top angler receiving $3,821 for catching 53 fish in one of the most beautiful places on earth! Imagine if you were the one telling that fish story![23]

The Park Service has reintroduced humpback chub in three Grand Canyon tributaries, Bright Angel, Shinumo, and Havasu creeks, but only after first removing as many brown and rainbow trout as possible. Shinumo and Havasu Creeks have significant waterfalls that prevent trout from entering from the Colorado River, but brown trout can freely enter Bright Angel Creek from the Colorado River, hence the no-bag-limit on trout caught there. Beginning in 2009, 1,102 humpback chub were translocated into Shinumo Creek, but the attempt ended in failure when the Galahad Fire burned 6,500 acres in 2014, 10 percent of the Shinumo Creek drainage, and contaminated the creek with charred debris. In 2021 no humpback chub were found in Shinumo Creek, illustrating the risk that a catastrophic event can have on a threatened species.[24] On my first kayaking trip through the Grand Canyon in 1988, we ate trout for dinner in the upper part of the Canyon and watched them circle the eddies above the rapids when scouting the biggest rapids. But on a trip in 2013, members of our party fishing for trout from rafts in the upper canyon came up empty.

Another endangered fish, the razorback sucker, was once so numerous that it was commonly eaten by early settlers and commercially marketable quantities were caught in Arizona. Residents living along the Colorado River near Clifton, just downstream of Palisade, observed several thousand razorback suckers during spring runoff in the 1930s and early 1940s. Formerly widespread throughout the Colorado River basin, today the 15-mile Reach is its last refuge above Lake Powell, as 76 percent of the razorback suckers captured in the Colorado River between 1979 and 1985 were captured in the Grand Junction area. In 1991 and 1992, twenty-eight adult razorback suckers were collected from isolated ponds adjacent to the Colorado River near De Beque, but no young razorback suckers have been collected in recent times. The ancient fish is in imminent danger of extirpation, and recovery efforts today include the capture and removal of them from all known locations for genetic analyses and development of discrete brood stocks.[25]

In 2014, biologists discovered larval razorback suckers at nine spots in the Grand Canyon. "This exciting news suggests that Grand Canyon is becoming a significant basin-wide haven for the endangered fishes in the Colorado River," said Lesley Fitzpatrick, a biologist for the Service, according to a 2014 article by Becky Oksin on the Live Science website.[26] Since Interior began authorizing a series of massive floods in the Grand Canyon in 2012, beaches and sandbars have reappeared, creating more favorable spawning conditions. The razorback suckers had all been stocked, but at least they were reproducing. The last time they were seen in the canyon before that was 1990. In 2021 the Service proposed downlisting the razorback sucker from endangered to threatened, but no official action has been taken.[27] “With almost zero wild-spawned fish surviving to adulthood, today’s rule ignores basic biology,” said Taylor McKinnon Southwest Director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Razorback suckers are still dangerously imperiled. And that situation’s made worse by the Colorado River Basin’s grim climate future.”[28]

The bonytail is the rarest native fish in the Colorado River. Formerly reported as widespread and abundant in mainstem rivers, the last known riverine area where bonytail were common was the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument, where ninety-one specimens were collected during 1962-1966. From 1977 to 1983, no bonytail were collected. It was listed as endangered on April 23, 1980. In 1984, a single bonytail was collected from the Black Rocks area on the Colorado. The number of bonytail are now so low on the upper Colorado River it is not possible to develop a population estimate.[29]

Since the Service wrote its PBO in 1999, how much progress have we made recovering the four species of endangered fish in the Colorado River basin? A clue can be found in the detailed recovery reports the agency releases periodically. Often running over a hundred pages, the reports state in numbing detail how many endangered fish have been stocked or whether management objectives have been met and can be checked off, such as how many public education programs have been conducted.[30] Much harder to find are actual fish numbers. Despite declining numbers, the Water Center at CSU Fort Collins says we are recovering endangered fish species,[31] and the Service maintained in 2012 that we are making “sufficient progress.” The numbers tell a different story—as best I can tell, three of the four endangered fish are continuing to decline and one, the humpback chub, is barely holding on.

The table below indicates where we stand today.

If you’re a water manager in Colorado, this table should be of bigger concern to you than the Colorado River Compact, and it would be wise to study the ESA.

Figure 5.3 W what is needed to delist endangered fish species.

            When Kuhn recommended that Reclamation be able to adjust releases out of Lake Powell rather than adhering to rigid annual release targets, he said we must be able to adapt because there’s always an unplanned event or unintended consequence just around the corner. The latest is small mouth bass, a warm water fish introduced in Lake Powell in 1982 for sportfishing when Lake Powell was 92 percent full and 197 feet above the power turbines. By February 2023, Lake Powell had dropped 166 feet, only 31 feet above the power turbines, about the depth that small mouth bass have been caught. Small mouth bass like water closest to the surface since it’s warmer, but as the lake dropped scientists feared they were starting to get through the power turbines and into the Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam. Sure enough, on July 1, 2023, the Park Service scooped three juvenile smallmouth bass from a riverside slough several miles below Glen Canyon dam according to Brad Loomis in an article written for The Arizona Republic.[32] They were so small that they conceivably represent the catch of a single breeding pair, perhaps the first in the canyon. Scientists are fretting about how to keep the small mouth bass from getting into the Grand Canyon proper. Several options have been raised, from poisoning the river—the native American tribes would have to agree to that—to releasing colder water out of the lower outtake tubes at the base of Glen Canyon Dam to interfere with their breeding, to installing bubblers whose sound apparently repels fish. The Park Service installed a net across the river to try to contain the fish, but if the rest of the Colorado River is any guide, keeping the small mouth bass, or the walleye, another fish that apparently went through the power turbines, out of the main Grand Canyon will be a permanent and persistent project. If they get to the Little Colorado River 61 miles downstream of Lees Ferry, the recent humpback chub surge from 3,000 in 1992 to 12,000 today, could reverse, landing them back on the Endangered Species list.

            McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity faults Reclamation for not doing the obvious, installing fish screens on Lake Powell’s tubes feeding the turbines so fish cannot get through. “The Bureau of Reclamation has lots of very smart engineers on staff,” he said in an interview on KUNC. “The fact that they have not figured out how to do this to date shows that they have not made it a priority.”[33] McKinnon fears the problem is about to explode as Lake Powell levels continue falling, and potentially to dead pool level at 3,370’ above sea level where no power can be produced, nor will there be any cold water barrier preventing small mouth bass and walleye from entering the Grand Canyon

Living in the ESA

The Fish and Wildlife Service can list a species, or private individuals and organizations may petition these agencies to list a species. Below are the various grades of endangerment.

Table 5.2 Definitions of “endangered,” “threatened,” and “imperiled” species

Endangered Species

Species that are likely to become extinct throughout all or a large portion of their range. Species become endangered from habitat loss, pollution, over-fishing, over-hunting, disease or predation, or because they cannot compete with introduced exotic species.

Threatened Species

Species that are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future.

Imperiled Species

Species that are in decline and may be in danger of extinction. Many species are not being protected because we lack knowledge about their status and the environmental factors that may threaten their future.[34]

Critical habitat 

A term defined and used in the ESA. It refers to specific areas within the geographic area occupied by a species at the time it was listed. They contain physical or biological features that are essential to conserving endangered and threatened species and that may need special management or protection.[35]

To be considered for listing, a species must meet any one of five criteria: if its habitat or range is at risk of destruction; if it is being exploited by commercial or recreational fishing or hunting; if disease or predation are overly threatening; if existing regulatory protection is inadequate; or if other natural or manmade factors affect its continued existence.[36] Whether a species gets listed depends on whether we can adequately protect it. Once listed, endangered or threatened species receive special protection from the federal government. Animals are protected from “take” and cannot be traded or sold. The ESA defines “take” as to "harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect."[37] During the listing process, economic factors cannot be considered—the listing must be "based solely on the best scientific and commercial data available." The Reagan administration wanted to change the ESA to require an economic analysis of all government actions, but the House of Representatives refused, saying, “economic considerations have no relevance to determinations regarding the status of species.”[38] Once a species is endangered or threatened, the cost of protecting it cannot be used as the basis for not protecting it from harm. However, federal agencies can consider the cost of protecting critical habitat in determining mitigation strategies.[39] The goal of the ESA is to remove species from endangered or threatened status. There have been some notable success stories.[40]

Table 5.3 Details of successful species preservation efforts

Species

When listed

Latest

Why we succeeded

Bald Eagle

500

71,400 nesting breeding pairs in 2016[41]

Banned DDT

Gray Wolf

200-300

18,000 in US in 2017[42];  2,797 in 7 western states in 2022[43]

Public education, habitat restoration, wolf reintroduction, compensate ranchers for livestock killed by wolves.

Grizzly Bear

250

1,913 in lower 48 states, up from 700 to 800 in 1975[44]

Curtailed hunting, habitat destruction.

Peregrine Falcon

324 nesting pairs

3,000 breeding pairs, up from 1,400 in 2015[45]

Banned DDT

Florida Panther

30-50

200, up from 100 in 2015[46]

Captive breeding, habitat protection, construction of wildlife highway underpass.

The ESA is implicated whenever a project requires a federal permit or receives federal funds, or if a federal agency is carrying out the project. Section 7 of the law requires the federal agency to consult with the Service to ensure that its actions are “not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species or threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification” of designated critical habitat. These are known as jeopardy opinions, and they focus on the species rather than on individual members.[47] Once consulted, the Service must prepare a biological opinion that describes how the endangered species reproduces, what is causing its decline, and what actions are needed to sustain it. If the federal agency finds the species is jeopardized or that its critical habitat could be destroyed or adversely modified, it must suggest reasonable and prudent alternatives. If there are reasonable alternatives, the Service will issue an “incidental take statement” and the project goes forward. If the recovery program fails, new measures can be required to sustain the species. The Service is obligated to take measures to conserve any endangered species, which can rub people the wrong way.

In fact, it’s hard to think of a law more controversial in America the past fifty years than the Endangered Species Act. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative political think tank started by Joseph Coors of the Golden brewing family the same year the ESA was passed in 1973, has been trying to reform the law ever since. It is controversial because once a property contains an endangered species, further development can be limited. The Heritage Foundation was critical of a 1998 bill to reform the ESA, saying it failed to address what it considered to be the law’s most serious flaws. Heritage wanted to re-define "harm" in the law to include only death or physical injury to species rather than decline due to factors such as disrupted spawning or other reproduction. It said federal agencies should use “sound science” when making decisions and consider the economic consequences of listing decisions. It criticized the law as a means of federal land-use control, emphasizing that states and local governments should have complete authority to make land-use decisions, free of outside interference. It believes landowners should be able to develop their property even if endangered species are present. The 1998 amendments that did pass helped streamline the permit procedures for small landowners. They promote “safe harbor agreements” that encourage landowners to return critical habitat to baseline conditions existing before the ESA was passed. These amendments, passed during the Clinton presidency, also eliminated “surprise agreements” so that landowners who implement a habitat conservation plan would not be burdened further costs or land use restrictions to benefit species.[48]

 Sadly, the best solution for a landowner intent on developing property is to have an endangered species disappear because then the landowner no longer has to deal with it.

Figure 5.4 Imperiled classes of species, mainly freshwater[49][50]

            The ESA is criticized for delaying and halting projects, but how true is this? Researchers Jacob Malcom and Ya-Wei (Jake) Li analyzed all 88,290 consultations made by the Service from January 2008 through April 2015 and found that no project was stopped, only 7.7 percent of the projects required a formal consultation, and the median time was 13 days for informal consultations and 62 days for formal consultations. Nearly 99 percent of all informal and formal consultations were completed within established timelines.[51] The Trump administration tried to make delisting species easier, dropping any requirement to substantiate any delisting decision. It claimed that climate change impacts were too uncertain to be “foreseeable” and were unlikely to occur at all. Congress was adamant that federal agencies not consider economic factors in making listing decisions, but the Trump administration again tried to make listing subservient to economic interests. The Biden administration restated the Trump rule back to the one Congress passed in 1982, stating that the Secretary of the Interior must make any listing determinations “without reference to possible economic or other impacts of such determination.”[52]

Sixty-eight fish species are listed as endangered or threatened in the seventeen western states, and “physical habitat alterations” including water diversions, dams, reservoirs, channeling, and watershed disturbances are the most frequently cited "factors in decline" for fifty of the sixty-eight listed fish species.[53] Another eighty-six fish species are officially designated as candidate species. Many plants and animals from other taxonomic groups also rely on western rivers for critical habitat. Reclamation plays a central role in this drama—184 individual species with habitat affected by federal Reclamation projects and water service areas are either listed or proposed for listing under the ESA.[54] You read that correctly—184 species are imperiled by Reclamation water projects!

When it comes to environmental protection, our numerous laws are ineffective because they center on protecting man’s right to exploit the environment. Preserving healthy river flows in Colorado or practically anywhere else on earth is not a fair fight. Ultimately, this is a moral crisis. Until our moral code says the environment should be preserved, it won’t be. Before we had machines and built dams and burned coal and oil and manufactured fertilizer—before the Industrial Revolution—we couldn’t do to rivers what we’re doing to them today.

I’m convinced we must have a moral code that says we can’t harm rivers in order to save ourselves and every other species. I don’t see any other choice.

Figures

Figure 5.1 Status of native fish species in the Colorado River basin[55]

Figure 5.2 Diversions amount in Grand Junction

Figure 5.3 What is needed to delist endangered fish species.

Figure 5.4 New annual listings of endangered species

Notes

[1] “Endangered and Threatened Animals of Utah,” 1998, Utah Division of Wildlife et al., p. 33.

[2] TBD

[3] “Endangered Fish,” Canyonlands National Park Service, downloaded Sep. 18, 2016, https://www.nps.gov/cany/learn/nature/endangeredfish.htm.

[4] Endangered Fish on the Colorado Plateau, Adapted from: Mac, M. J., Opler, P. A., Haecker, C. E. P. and Doran, P. D., editors. 1998. Status and Trends of the Nation's Biological Resources - Southwest. United States Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, 986 pp. Nonindigenous fish species are listed by state at a USGS website: “NAS – Nonindigenous Aquatic Species,” downloaded May 24, 2015, http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/StateSearch.aspx.

[5] “Upper Colorado River Endangered fish Recovery Program,” Mar. 24, 2015 update on progress, pg. 12 (pdf pg. 22).

[6] “Redlands Diversion Dam Fish Ladder - Grand Junction, CO - Fish Ladders on Waymarking.com,” July 8, 2015, http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMP6A9_Redlands_Diversion_Dam_Fish_Ladder_Grand_Junction_CO.

[7] Harmon, G., “Cross it off your fish list: First pikeminnow conquers river ladder,” Sep. 4, 2014, Grand Junction Sentinel. See: https://coyotegulch.blog/2014/09/16/cross-it-off-your-fish-list-first-pikeminnow-conquers-river-ladder-the-grand-junction-daily-sentinel/

[8] “Final Programmatic Biological Opinion for Bureau of Reclamation’s Operations and Depletions, Other Depletions, and Funding And Implementation of Recovery Program Actions in the Upper Colorado River Above the Confluence with the Gunnison River,” Dec. 1999, US Service, pg. 45. https://coloradoriverrecovery.org/uc/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/FinalPBO.pdf. The appendices of the PBO contain very useful information about Western Colorado’s largest water projects including the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, Fry-Ark, and the Collbran, Grand Valley and Silt projects, and also historic hydrology on the Colorado River between 1975 and 1991. For recovery efforts on the Yampa River, see “Management Plan for Endangered Fishes in the Yampa River Basin Appendices.”

[9] CBRT minutes March 2016.

[10] PBO, pg. 25.

[11] Campbell, D., “Researchers Capture Fourth Largest Endangered Colorado Pikeminnow in San Juan River Since 1991,” Dec. 13, 2010, US Fish & Wildlife Service.

[12] PBO, pg. 27.

[13] PBO, pg. 59.

[14] PBO, pg. 23.

[15] PBO, pg. 17.

[16] Historic flows from 1975 through 1991 are reported in the PBO in Appendix F, Table 2, Approximate Base flows at Palisade Colorado. The recovery plan calls for 59,050 additional acre-feet delivered to the 15-mile reach: 19,400 af from improvements to 21 check structures along the Highline Canal in Grand Junction; 9,000 af from the Palisade Pipeline that spills excess water back to the river near Palisade; and 30,650 af from upstream reservoirs including 25,238 af from Ruedi Reservoir and 5,412 af from Wolford Mountain, Williams Fork, and Granby Reservoirs on the Colorado mainstem in Grand County. PBO, pgs. 8-10; see also, “Grand Valley Project,” pgs. 797-803, http://irrigationtoolbox.com/ReferenceDocuments/TechnicalPapers/IA/2007/P1640.pdf..

[17] Gardner-Smith, B., “A sweet spot for fish water,” Mar. 27, 2016, Aspen Daily News, http://aspenjournalism.org/2016/03/27/a-sweet-spot-for-fish-water/.

[18] US Fish & Wildlife Service, “Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Reclassification of the Humpback Chub from Endangered to Threatened with a Section 4(d) Rule,” Federal Register, 86 FR 57588 to 57610, Oct 18, 2021.

[19] Id, Federal Register, pg. 57600, Oct 18, 2021.

[20] For example, the USGS estimated in 2009 the number of adult humpback chub in the Grand Canyon population was between 6,000 and 10,000, with the most likely number being 7,650 individuals. Anderson, M., “Endangered Humpback Chub Population Increases 50 Percent from 2001 to 2008,” Apr. 27, 2009, USGS Newsroom. Also see, “Status and Trends of the Grand Canyon Population of Humpback Chub,” by Andersen, at https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2009/3035/fs2009-3035.pdf

[21] PBO, pg. 12.

[22] Loomis, Brandon, “National Park Service attempts to undo trout damage at Grand Canyon,” Mar. 3, 2013, The Arizona Republic.

[23] National Park Service, “Brown Trout Incentivized Harvest,” downloaded June 22, 2024, https://www.nps.gov/glca/planyourvisit/brown-trout-harvest.htm

[24] National Park Service, Tributary Translocations, downloaded June 22, 2024, https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/nature/shinumotransloc.htm

[25] PBO, pgs. 30-32.

[26] Oskin, B., “They're Back! Endangered Fish Spawns in Grand Canyon,” June 18, 2014, LiveScience, http://www.livescience.com/46395-grand-canyon-sucker-fish-spawning.html.

[27] Fish & Wildlife Service, “Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Reclassification of the Razorback Sucker From Endangered to Threatened With a Section 4(d) Rule,” Federal Register, pg. , July 7, 2021, 86 FR 35708-35728,  https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/07/07/2021-14335/endangered-and-threatened-wildlife-and-plants-reclassification-of-the-razorback-sucker-from#:~:text=The%20proposed%20downlisting%20is%20based,1991%20have%20been%20eliminated%20or.

[28] McKinnon, T., “U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to Reduce Razorback Sucker Protection Despite Lack of Successful Reproduction, Drying Colorado River,” Center for Biological Diversity, July 6, 2021, https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/us-fish-and-wildlife-service-to-reduce-razorback-sucker-protection-despite-lack-of-successful-reproduction-drying-colorado-river-2021-07-06/

[29] PBO, pg. 25.

[30] “Upper Colorado River endangered Fish Recovery Program,” Mar. 24, 2015 report, 152 pp., US Fish & Wildlife Service.

[31] “Case Studies For Those Considering Agricultural Water Conservation in the Colorado River Basin,” 2016, Colorado Water Institute, Colo. State Univ., slide 137, http://crbawcc.colostate.edu/files/Case percent20Studies percent20for percent20Website percent202 percent2024 percent2016.pdf. This is a comprehensive compilation of thumbnail sketches of agricultural water conservation programs throughout the American West. With 183 slides, it is a good starting point for further research in this area.

[32] Loomis, B., “As Lake Powell shrinks, voracious smallmouth bass are staging for a Grand Canyon invasion,” Arizona Republic, Dec 26, 2023.

[33] Hager, A., “Colorado River managers propose plan to protect Grand Canyon fish, but some say it's not enough,” KUNC, February 10, 2024, downloaded 6-23-2024, https://www.kunc.org/news/2024-02-10/colorado-river-managers-propose-plan-to-protect-grand-canyon-fish-but-some-say-its-not-enough.

[34] “What are “imperiled” species,” USGS.

[35] “Critical Habitat What is it,” Aug. 2016, US Fish & Wildlife Service.

[36] ESA, Sec. 4, 16 U.S.C. § 1533 (a)(1).

[37] Sec. 3, 16 U.S.C. § 1532(3)(19).

[38] Sullins, T., 1982, ESA ESA, pg. 13, Sec. 2.3.1; H.R. Rep. No. 97-567 at 19-20 (1982).

[39] ESA § 4(a)(3) and (b)(2); 16 U.S.C. § 1533(a)(3) and (b)(2).

[40] “ESA,” via National Wildlife Federation.

[41] U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Eagle Population Status, downloaded 6-23-2024, https://www.fws.gov/project/eagle-population-status#:~:text=Bald%20Eagle%20Population%20Update&text=The%20bald%20eagle%20population%20climbed,eagles%2C%20including%2071%2C400%20nesting%20pairs.

[42] “As of 2017, the United States has up to 18,000 wolves, about two thirds of which are in Alaska. They are increasing in number in all their ranges,” List of gray wolf populations by country, Wikipedia, downloaded June 23, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gray_wolf_populations_by_country#:~:text=As%20of%202017%2C%20the%20United,number%20in%20all%20their%20ranges.

[43] U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, “U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service completes status review and finding for gray wolves in the Western United States; launches National Recovery Plan,” Feb. 2, 2024, https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2024-02/service-announces-gray-wolf-finding-and-national-recovery-plan#:~:text=Based%20on%20the%20latest%20data,in%20the%20Western%20United%20States.

[44] U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, “Grizzly Bear,” downloaded 6-23-2024, https://www.fws.gov/species/grizzly-bear-ursus-arctos-horribilis.

[45] National Park Service, Peregrine Falcon, downloaded 6-23-2024, https://www.nps.gov/places/000/peregrine-falcon.htm.

[46] National Wildlife Federation, “Florida Panther,” downloaded 6-23-2024, https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Mammals/Florida-Panther#:~:text=During%20the%201970s%2C%20only%20about,200%20left%20in%20the%20wild.

[47] ESA § 7(a)(2); 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2).

[48] Meltz, pg. 4; FWS and NMFS published a joint Final Safe Harbor Policy at 64 Fed. Reg. 32,717 (June 17, 1999). Implementing regulations are at 50 C.F.R. §§ 17.22(c), 17.32(c).

[49] Stein, B., Flack, S., “1997 Species Report Card: The State of U.S. Plants and Animals,” The Nature Conservancy, Figure 2, pgs. 10-11.

[50] US Fish & Wildlife Service, ECOS Environmental Conservation Online System, U.S. Federal Endangered and Threatened Species by Calendar Year, downloaded 9-15-2024, https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/report/species-listings-by-year-totals

[51] Malcom J., Ya-Wei L., “Data contradict common perceptions about a controversial provision of the US Endangered Species Act,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112 (52) (2015, 15844-15849, https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1516938112. Spain, J.D., The endangered Species Act in the Biden Era,” The Water Report, Issue #241, March 15, 2024, pg. 3.

[52] Spain, J.D., The endangered Species Act in the Biden Era,” The Water Report, Issue #241, March 15, 2024, pgs. 1-15.

[53] Western fish species comprise over 70 percent of the ESA-listed fish; fish species, in turn, comprise roughly 25 percent of the ESA-listed animal species. The statistics in this paragraph are from Moore, M., Mulville, A., Weinberg, M., “Water Allocation in the American West: Endangered Fish Versus Irrigated Agriculture,” Spring 1996, Natural Resources Journal, Vol. 36. More generally, water development is identified as the cause or potential cause of endangerment of approximately one-third of all ESA-listed plant and animal species. Losos, E., et al., 1993, Taxpayers' Double Burden: Federal Resource Subsidies and Endangered Species (1993).

[54] Moore, M., et al, “Water Allocation in the American West: Endangered Fish Versus Irrigated Agriculture,” Spring 1996, Natural Resources Journal, Vol. 36, pg. 320. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Dep’t of the Interior, Proposed Acreage Limitation and Water Conservation Rules and Regulations, 3-85 (1995).

[55] Endangered Fish on the Colorado Plateau, Adapted from: Mac, M. J., Opler, P. A., Haecker, C. E. P. and Doran, P. D., editors. 1998. Status and Trends of the Nation's Biological Resources - Southwest. United States Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, 986 pp. Nonindigenous fish species are listed by state at a USGS website: “NAS – Nonindigenous Aquatic Species,” downloaded May 24, 2015, http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/StateSearch.aspx.

A Colorado cow in a pen. Source: BGS