ABSTRACT
I will begin by confessing that I have no personal knowledge of the flora and fauna in the geographic area this paper addresses, namely the Upper Colorado River Basin in northwestern Colorado. However, I do have some appreciation of the energy development assessment problems and research needs from work we have conducted on hydroelectric projects in the Columbia River Basin, and from knowledge of assessment problems associated with the phosphate mining industry in southeast Idaho. Phosphate mining in this region is of the open-pit type and, therefore, poses assessment problems similar to those of coal and oil shale development.
