U.S. Sens. John Hickenlooper and Mitt Romney, along with Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse, have teamed up to ensure the continuation of conservation programs aimed at protecting native and endangered fish species through the Upper Colorado and San Juan Basins Recovery Act.

The recovery act has been included with the Fiscal Year 2023 Omnibus Government Funding Bill that has already been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and is awaiting approval from President Joe Biden.

“I’m proud to team up with my colleague from Colorado to support Utah’s efforts to continue the recovery of the threatened and endangered fish species in the Upper Colorado and San Juan Rivers,” said Romney, R-Utah, on his website. “I am hopeful we will get it across the finish line soon.”

Fish recovery programs in Colorado over the last few years have already seen many successes, including moving the humpback chub fish, a federally protected species found in the Colorado River, from “endangered” to “threatened,” according to Hickenlooper’s website.

The Upper Colorado and San Juan River Recovery Programs are set to expire on Sept. 30. The recovery act would extend any programs that currently study, monitor and stock four endangered fish species of the Upper Colorado and San Juan rivers through the end of 2024.

The four species of fish identified by the recovery programs are the razorback sucker, the Colorado pikeminnow, the bonytail and the humpback chub. These species have become endangered over the years as a result of building dams that have impeded their migration, the overall destruction of their natural habitats for the purpose of flood management, or the predation of nonnative game fish that have been introduced into the river systems for sport fishing purposes, according to the Colorado River Recovery website.

Besides extending Colorado’s recovery program time limits, the Upper Colorado and San Juan Basins Recovery Act intends to “create the ability to transfer funds from San Juan Basin to the Upper Colorado Recovery programs by shifting capital cost ceilings, keeping the total cost constant,” according to Hickenlooper’s website.

“Tribes, communities, water users, the state, and now Congress, all came together to protect our native fish and rivers,” said Hickenlooper on his website, who is a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. “This is how we save our rivers.”

This is not the first time Hickenlooper and Romney have worked together on a bipartisan bill. Last year, they introduced the Enhanced Access to Affordable Medicines Act of 2022, along with Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, which specifies that the Food and Drug Administration may approve generic drugs with different labels than the brand-name versions.

Romney also showed interest in the impact of human activity and climate change on the Colorado River and its native species in 2021, when he went on a rafting trip with Sen. Michael Bennett and the Colorado River Commissioner and director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, Becky Mitchell.

molsen@durangoherald.com