Executive Summary
Pathfinder Project Steering Committee Report
Strategies for Instream Flow Management
The Pathfinder Project is a pilot program that through its involvement with an array of stakeholders representing State interests, local water managers, water users, conservationists, and water resource managers working on a Steering Committee has developed strategies for instream flow management. The Steering Committee has worked to define a process that seeks to utilize “tools” (strategies or actions) that can provide for instream flows or protect existing instream flow regimes on National Forest lands in Colorado.
This process for instream flow management is meant to provide for instream flows that can meet federal resource management objectives on National Forest System lands. The Pathfinder Project Steering Committee recognized that there are several key issues that cause concern for stakeholders when the Forest Service attempts to provide for instream flows relying solely on its own authorities for National Forest lands. Three of those concerns or issues that were considered in specific detail during the stakeholder meetings are:
- Lack of Forest Service reliance on the State’s Instream Flow Program as administered by the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB);
- The conditioning of special-use permits by the Forest Service with “bypass” flow requirements to provide for instream flows; and,
- Adherence to state water law and recognition of privately held water rights and the State’s ability to adjudicate water for instream flow purposes.
The process outlined by the Pathfinder Project Steering Committee seeks to address these key issues within the framework of existing federal and state statues, regulations, laws, and policies and by focusing on cooperative and coordinated strategies, that when applied, could potentially provide the necessary instream flows to meet Forest Service resource management objectives or to sustain resource values on National Forest lands. Much of the controversy related to these three key issues revolves around the application of “bypass” flow requirements (conditions) on special-use permits (whereby the Forest Service requires that a quantity of the decreed diversionary water remain in a stream on National Forest lands). Therefore one of the primary objectives of the Pathfinder process was to develop a list of “tools” that could be utilized by the Forest Service in a cooperative process working with state agencies, water managers, water users, and other interested parties to achieve instream flow protection instead of a possible decision by the Forest Service to act unilaterally and impose bypass flow requirements on special-use permits.
These tools are to be implemented in tiered fashion. The tools identified by the Pathfinder Project entail 27 possible actions or strategies. Some provide for direct instream flow protection, others are more indirect in their outcomes, but when a part of a larger strategy can collectively achieve instream flow protection. The first tier of tools generally focuses on the more cooperative strategies or existing conditions analysis that are less controversial, while the second tier of tools involves greater coordination and may involve negotiated agreements to be implemented. Key in these first two tiers of action are efforts to collectively and cooperatively work out possible options for such actions as: re-operation of diversion or storage facilities, variable water use (drought options), possible acquisition (e.g.; donations, purchase, leasing), better monitoring and management of diversions (efficiency), protection under the CWCB Instream Flow Program, limiting diversions to decreed amounts, and conservation. It is anticipated that the first two tiers of tools, if applied or implemented, could provide the needed instream flow protection on National Forest lands without having to impose bypass flow conditions on special-use permits.
The Pathfinder Project Report is a strategy of progressive action. This strategy seeks cooperation first, then moving to more collective and coordinated efforts. It provides a variety of options that achieve the desired outcomes with regard to instream flows before the Forest Service would move to take unilateral federal action to provide instream flows through bypass flow requirements for special-use permits. This last course of action would only occur when and if the applicable tools in the first two tiers have been exhausted and determined not to meet Forest instream flow needs. The Pathfinder Project strategy views the application of bypass flow requirements as a federal action of “last resort,” while recognizing that parties supporting the strategy have not waived their rights and abilities to challenge such action.
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