The following reports have shaped regional and national policy during the 1970s: 



1. River basin commission reports: 



a. The 1972 "Columbia-North Pacific Region Comprehensive Framework 

 Study" of the Pacific Northwest River Basins Commission emphasized the 

 need for instream flow data as a prerequisite to planning, and placed a high 

 priority on studying legal and administrative means for enforcing minimum 

 streamflows, and 



b. The 1975 "Annual Report of the Missouri River Basin Commission" 

 identified the determination of instream flow requirements as a high 

 priority study. 



2. The Department of the Interior's 1974 "Westwide Study Report on Critical 

 Water Problems Facing the Eleven Western States" found that a major data 

 gap existed in the area of instream flow needs determination. 



3. In 1974, an ad hoc instream flow study evaluation committee of the Pacific 

 Northwest River Basin Commission identified critical needs including: the 

 development of low-cost methodologies, evaluation of impacts, benefits for 

 increments of flow, and improvement of existing legal and institutional 

 systems for controlling instream flows of inter- and intra-state waters. 



4. A 1975 "Regional Problem Analysis" conducted by the Water Resources 

 Research Institutes of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho stressed the need for 

 improved mechanisms for coordination between state and federal agencies to 

 determine instream flow needs and effect their enforcement. 



5. A FWS Western Water Allocation project-sponsored study and workshop 

 conducted at Utah State University in 1975 evaluated the methodologies in use 

 for determining stream resource maintenance flow requirements and pointed 

 out numerous deficiencies in the state-of-the-art and in understanding 

 discharge-aquatic ecosystem relationships. The published report recognized 

 that methodologies are needed to directly assess the magnitude and range of 

 effects resulting from a series of changes in discharge through a stream channel. 

 It went on to say that "for rational water resource planning, these effects must 

 be predicted and described for incremental decreases or increases of flow. The 

 more fully documented options the planners and decisionmakers have 

 available, the more rational and equitable the ultimate decisions. "^ 



6. A national instream flow needs symposium and specialty conference, jointly 

 sponsored by the Western Division of the American Fisheries Society and the 

 Power Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers, was held in Boise, 

 Idaho, in May 1976. This conference provided an open forum and published 

 proceedings for the discussion of the major single and multi-disciplinary 

 problems associated with the allocation of streamflow among competing uses 

 and the short- and long-term effects of such allocations on the values of 

 streams. It also sought solutions to technical, legal, and social problems caused 

 by increasing competition for limited streamflow. ' 



7. The critical need for a coordinated, substantive effort to provide a focus for the 

 multitude of divergent ongoing efforts concerning instream flow assessments 

 was documented in a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Division 

 of Ecological Services, in a document entitled "Toward a National Program of 

 Substantive Instream Flow Studies and a Legal Strategy for Implementing the 

 Recommendations of Such Studies." Subsequently, the Office of Biological 

 Services, FWS, established in 1976 the Cooperative Instream Flow Service 

 Group (IFG) in Fort Collins, Colorado. 



8. The U.S. Water Resources Council launched a second national water 

 assessment during 1974. This assessment gave substantial opportunity to 

 increase the visibility of concern for instream values. While the assessment was 

 not released until near the end of the decade, the discussions and circulation of 

 early drafts of working papers and appendices had the effect of broadening the 



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