Habitat2 | 2021 SECURE Report Web Portal

Habitat, Ecosystems, and Recreation Strategies

Reclamation helps maintain healthy ecosystems and protect federally-listed fish, wildlife, plants, and designated critical habitat affected by Reclamation facilities through a range of programs and activities. Reclamation and its non-Federal recreation partners also work together to manage more than 240 developed recreation areas. Changes to the timing and volume of streamflow, increasing severity and duration of floods and droughts, and increasing temperatures can create challenging conditions for species, habitat, and recreation activities. These conditions raise the importance of efforts to protect habitat, ecosystems, and recreational uses.

Collaboration and transparency are critical to the success of Reclamation’s efforts to support Endangered Species Act-listed species and habitat. A common understanding of the hydrology can provide a vital foundation for habitat conservation. For example, a water system operations model developed for the Upper Deschutes Basin Study in Oregon provided a basis for more specific analyses conducted to inform the Habitat Conservation Plan that has recently been developed for the basin. As a result of work done in the basin study to create scenarios of current and future conditions—and improved working relationships developed during those efforts—stakeholders in the planning process started with a common understanding about water operations in the basin. This shared understanding has helped different basin interests work toward strategies to improve streamflow for ecosystem benefits while also recognizing the challenges facing irrigated agriculture.

Reclamation and our partners have developed creative approaches on the Rio Grande to address competing demands for water by irrigators and for Endangered Species Act-listed species, such as the silvery minnow. To mimic the flow pulses that historically occurred naturally on the Rio Grande, Reclamation works with water management partners, including USACE, the State of New Mexico, irrigation districts, Tribes, and municipalities to engineer pulses that create overbank flows in key river reaches to support the spawning of the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow, without significant impact to irrigators.

In extremely low snowmelt runoff years, such as 2020, Reclamation and the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District cooperate to use the irrigation diversion structures along the river to pass flow pulses through the Middle Rio Grande. These innovative water operations support silvery minnow spawns in the river and allow biologists to capture eggs to raise in hatcheries so that minnows can be released back to the river during better flow conditions.

Reclamation’s Cooperative Watershed Management Program (CWMP) supports watershed groups to encourage diverse stakeholders to form local solutions for water management. Since 2012, Reclamation has provided $7.7 million in Federal funding to support 85 projects by watershed groups to conduct watershed group development, watershed restoration planning, and watershed management project design. These restoration plans cover 200,000 square miles of watershed area. Reclamation has also provided funding for on-the-ground watershed management projects, representing $2.4 million in collaboratively developed watershed management solutions, including non-Federal cost share contributions.

Reclamation is improving fish passage to help protect fish as potential increases in temperature and decreases in summer streamflow create challenging conditions. These efforts include the Nation’s largest horizontal fish screen, completed in September 2020 at Derby Dam near Reno, Nevada. The $34-million fish screen is a critical investment to modernize the dam to provide reliable water supplies for irrigation customers and restore historic spawning habitat for the threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout.

An innovative helix fish passage design, similar to the spiral ramp in a parking garage is now being installed at Cle Elum Dam in the Yakima Basin in Washington. The new structure will provide permanent fish passage at the facility and support the reintroduction of sockeye that the Yakama Nation and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are leading.

Reduced reservoir levels and river flows could have negative implications for these recreational activities. Reclamation is adjusting to changes by providing adaptable recreation infrastructure.

The Missouri Headwaters Basin Study (Reclamation and the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation 2019) showed that, generally, lower pool elevations in reservoirs and lower streamflow in the summer months will lead to decreased access to boat ramps for recreation and, on average, more unusable days.

At Scorpion Bay Marina on Lake Pleasant, north of Phoenix, Arizona, for example, fluctuating reservoir levels impaired access to the marina. In response, Reclamation’s managing partner, Maricopa County, and their concession operator built an innovative floating system that allows the entire marina to react to fluctuating reservoir levels.