Record Details
page 1-16
Digital Collections at BYU
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Title | page 1-16 Finding of No Significant Impact Lake Fork Section 203 Alternative : Proposed Action, page 1-16 |
| Coverage | Electronic reproduction; |
| Format | 1-16 text/PDF |
| Rights | Brigham Young University; http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/generic.php Public Domain Public |
| Language | English; eng; en |
| Relation | Central Utah Project; Western Waters Digital Library; the substantive alteration of historic basin resources to conditions observed today probably began with a series of events commencing in the late 1800s that provided the impetus for european american activity in the area these events included the presence of the ute tribe in the uinta basin and interactions with non indians the discovery and development of minerals and later petroleum resources and perhaps most important the land rush and diversion of water for irrigation by non indian settlers development of a predominantly agriculturalranching agricultural ranching lifestyle life style in the uinta basin over the past century has been a major force in modifying and shaping the basins resources as known today particularly as related to the affected environment being described for the project area the diversion and use of water for crops and livestock has been critical in the development of an agrarian lifestyle life style but it has resulted in substantially modified hydrologic regimes today compared to historic development predevelopment pre conditions for example the FWS 1998 reports that the duchesne duch esne river historically produced an average of about 768000 acre feet of water annually to the green river today some 100 years later the average annual flow remaining in the duchesne river at the green river is approximately 220000 acre feet the FWS concludes in their final biological opinion for endangered fishes in the duchesne river that historical stream flow reductions of this magnitude have severely diminished both the survival and recovery of the native fishes that inhabit the duchesne river fish assemblages in tributaries tributa ries to the duchesne river probably also differ markedly from native populations of a century ago due in part to the modified hydrologic regime a probable gradual decline in water quality current diversion techniques and the stocking of nonnative non native fish species native salmonids salmon ids such as colorado river cutthroat trout and mountain whitefish may have been more widely distributed in duchesne river tributaries tributa ries such as the lake fork river a century ago than the nonnative non native salmonids salmon ids that occur there today however there has probably been an overall reduction in habitat quantity and quality suitable for native salmonids salmon ids particularly in downstream areas because of substantially reduced stream flows potentially higher summer water temperatures because of reduced flows potentially higher total dissolved solids TDS loads and increased stream turbidity because of reduced stream flows and increased agricultural return flows and the current practice of dry damming some river reaches during summer diversion to divert water into canals purposely stocking or accidentally introducing more than 40 nonnative non native fish species in the duchesne river basin since the late 1800s has also altered fish assemblages FWS 1998 these introductions include various species of centrarchids sunfishes sunfisher sun fishes and basses ictalurids catfishes cat fishes and bullheads bulkheads bull heads cyprinids cyprin ids minnows and shiners and nonnative non native salmonids salmon ids such as rainbow brown brook and yellowstone cutthroat trout some of these species are better adapted to todays habitat conditions than native species and are therefore able to compete successfully and sometimes replace native species others species like some of the salmonids salmon ids hybridize and eliminate pure strains of native species for example colorado river cutthroat trout was the only trout species native to the duchesne river basin today no pure strains of this species are known to occur in the basin because of hybridization with rainbow trout and other subspecies of stocked cutthroat trout water diversions for agriculture as well as other actions related to settlement have also had a marked effect on the amount and type of wetlands and riparian communities upland 116 1 16 |
| Identifier | http://cdm15999.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/WesternWatersProject/id/12077 |
