STUDY NUMBER : 2.1 ( COMPLETED ) 



ORGANIZATION ; Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks 

 ( MDFWP ) 



TITLE OF STUDY ; Instream Flow Reservation Studies - Upper Clark 

 Fork River 



CONTACT ( S ) ; Liter Spence - Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife 



and Parks - 444-3888 



Gerhard Knudsen - Montana Department of Natural 

 Resources and Conservation - 444-6601 



Dennis Workman - Montana Department of Fish, Wild- 

 life and Parks, Missoula - 721-5808 



OBJECTIVE ; Quantify the year-round instream flow requirements 

 for game fish in the upper Clark Fork River and prepare an appli- 

 cation to the Board of Natural Resources to reserve these flows. 



DURATION ; January 1984 - November, 1986 



CURRENT STATUS ; An application for reservation of water in the 

 upper Clark Fork River Basin has been submitted by the Department 

 of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to the Board of Natural Resources 

 and Conservation. The application describes the purpose and 

 need of the reservation and the amount of water necessary. The 

 application requests water to be applied instream for fish, wild- 

 life, recreation and the maintenance of water quality. Recre- 

 ation, fish, wildlife and wetted perimeter information has been 

 collected on the upper Clark Fork and its tributaries. Minimum 

 flows have been calculated for several stream reaches utilizing 

 wetted perimeter/stream discharge curves. 



Fish population monitoring has been conducted on all major 

 tributary streams in the upper Clark Fork Basin. An assessment 

 of water quality needs for trout populations in the mainstem 

 has been prepared. 



During the extremely low flows of the summer of 1985, photo 

 stations were established for several stream segments. Channel 

 appearance was photographed at various stream flows. 



FUTURE ACTIVITIES ; The completion of this application has trig- 

 gered the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process, with 

 the Montana Department of Natural Resources as the designated 

 lead agency. See Study No. 18.1. 



PUBLICATIONS AND REPORTS 



Application for Reservations of Water in the Upper Clark Fork 



3 



