Endangered Fish May Become ‘Spotted Owls of the Southwest’ : A controversial plan would set aside habitats on the Colorado River. Critics say it could hinder development in recession-racked communities.

Before the dams there was the virgin Colorado River--an unruly course of chocolate-colored water meandering 1,400 miles from the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California.

For eons, snowmelt slashed down the mountain slopes each spring, prompting the annual spawn of an array of unique fish that evolved in the tempestuous river system 4 million years ago.

Now, four endangered fish--the razorback sucker, Colorado squawfish, humpback chub and bonytail chub--are dying out, victims of dams built to bring power and water to cities, and of non-native predatory bass and catfish introduced for sportfishing.

“Endangered fish trying to migrate to spawning areas are literally running into concrete walls,” said Connie Young, spokeswoman for a multi-agency program devoted to preventing extinction of these fish in the upper Colorado River basin while providing for future water development.

In an effort to save them, a controversial proposal to designate critical habitats for the fish will be offered in January by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The plan is expected to affect water allocations, dam operations and recreation throughout the Colorado River and its tributaries, federal officials said.

Opponents fear the proposal has the potential to disrupt water projects and development just as local economies are starting to climb out of the recession. Some have already dubbed the endangered suckers and chubs the “spotted owls of the Southwest” in a battle pitting survival of a species against development of river communities and agriculture.

“This proposal is going to hurt people right smack dab in the pocketbook,” warned Sam Maynes, an attorney for the Southwestern Water Conservation District of Colorado. He and others are concerned that if waterways are protected, development of projects that bring in tourists, such as marinas and recreation areas, could be affected.

“In some cases, people won’t be able to divert water for historic irrigation purposes,” Maynes said. He said he also fears that energy costs will increase because hydroelectric power operations could be affected.

BACKGROUND: The federal wildlife agency is in no position to debate the issue. Its proposal is in response to an Oct. 30 order handed down by U.S. District Judge Sherman G. Finesilver in a lawsuit filed in Denver by a coalition of environmental groups led by the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund.

Essentially, Finesilver determined that the federal wildlife agency had violated the Endangered Species Act by not designating critical habitat for the razorback sucker.

“Without designation of critical habitat,” Finesilver wrote in his decision, “many projects may improperly continue and destroy habitat which is invaluable to preventing the razorback’s extinction.”

Once a dominant species throughout most of the Colorado River from Wyoming to Mexico, only a few razorback suckers survive now in the upper Green River in Utah, the Yampa River in Colorado, Lake Mojave on the border between Arizona and California, and occasionally in the Colorado River here.

The razorback, which can grow up to three feet in length and weigh more than 13 pounds, is brownish-green with a light yellow belly and a distinct bony hump just behind the head.

Federal officials are reluctant to reveal details of the habitat proposal, but key elements will include descriptions of areas that must be protected from development, and an analysis of the potential economic impacts in a seven-state region.

“Our survey is bigger in scope than the spotted owl study done in the Northwest, which focused mostly on the timber industry,” said University of New Mexico economist David Brookshire, who is coordinating the court-ordered analysis for the federal wildlife agency.

“We are looking at hydroelectric power and agriculture, recreation, municipal and industrial water use,” Brookshire said. “Are the impacts going to be on future development or existing projects? We just don’t know yet.”

But Bob Williams, Utah state supervisor for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the proposal may require changing the operation of certain dams to mimic natural stream flows.

Once the recommended flows are made public, Williams said, “there could be controversy because they could fly in the face of state water rights.”

Experimentation with dam flows during spring months has already begun in the vicinity of this farming community in Grand Valley.

PRESERVATION: Preliminary results have raised hopes for saving at least one of the endangered species, the Colorado squawfish, which grows three feet in length and was once known as the “white salmon” of the river.

However, the work has angered some fishing enthusiasts.

“Those fish aren’t endangered, heck, there are hordes of them that beat trout to your bait--they’re trash!” groused Bob Horter, one of several anglers in a Grand Junction sporting goods store one day earlier this month. “We’ve been fighting the state for five years to stock the river with more warm water fish, but they won’t because of the stupid squawfish.”

Frank Pfeifer, a federal fisheries biologist in Grand Junction, said such misgivings are ill-conceived.

“The bonytail chub is nearly extinct in the wilds, the razorbacks are not reproducing, and there is no upstream migration of squawfish because they’re bumping their noses into dams,” said Pfeifer, a member of the Colorado River Endangered Species Recovery Program, the multi-agency effort to protect endangered fish to the river.

Hoping to protect at least some of the fish from toxic spills or some other catastrophe, the program has constructed six ponds as “seed” depositories in Horse-Thief Canyon State Wildlife Area, near the community of Fruita, Colo.

The refuge ponds, which are filled with water diverted from the Colorado River, include thousands of first-generation offspring of 10 wild squawfish captured near here in 1990.

Until self-sustaining populations of these and other endangered fish can be re-established and then protected in the river, “the ponds will act as an insurance policy,” Pfeifer said. “They will protect a genetic resource that is threatened.”

As additional insurance, federal penalties of up to $100,000 and one year in jail should dissuade anglers from keeping an endangered fish.

Saving the fish may one day provide recreational benefits through trophy sportfishing.

Leaning on his elk-bone cane, retired rodeo cowboy Jim Janosec recalled “catching suckers and white salmon all day long when I was a kid.”

“They were good eatin’,” said Janosec, 64. “Liked ‘em better than trout.”