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Show Wound ffm ininnou gums ujofEis in Southern Of oh illlgal If the woundDnw. tat plan is approved. The survival of the tw inch fish appears to C upon undisturbed shallop, fles and deep pools J erate to swift currents', silty streams. ? Bait minnow already int. duced into the stream w begun to drive out the fi, the service said. Once a critical habitat, determined, no fc ' agency may authorize or carry out any action as granting of permits might jeopardize the specif or alter its critical habits The designation wouUk, affect sport fishing in j. area, but it could rulej; building of reservoirs alj" the Virgin River - and irrigation use of its waten The desalinization profo is being built to meet terms of a treaty with Mes. ico to clean up the Colorij v Basin. It is not now cfe what such a declaratit would mean to present ts$ of the Virgin which 'invito the federal government. The Carter administration has proposed declaring most of the Virgin River In Utah, Arizona and Nevada a critical cri-tical habitat for the wound-fin wound-fin minnow, an endangered species. If the proposal is adopted, it could halt a desalinization desal-inization project at the headwaters head-waters of the Virgin River and rule out other projects along the stream. It could be a problem for the Warner Valley Power Plant, planned for the St. George vicinity. The 500-megawatt plant would burn 8,000 tons of coal a day. It wold be cooled by 45,000-acre-feet reservoir constructed by flooding the Red Desert. The Virgin River Riv-er would be diverted to supply sup-ply the water. Prohibited actions conceivable con-ceivable could include such activities as allowing Bureau Bu-reau of Land Management land to be used for the plant, reservoir or transmission corridor or helping with construction con-struction of the diversion structure. A few weeks ago the Interior In-terior Department found inadequacies in-adequacies in plans for the Warner Valley Plant. The problem of protecting the woundfin was cited as an area where more work would have to be done. Desalinization would be particularly damaging to the woundfin, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, because the fish thrives in slightly saline water, and the salinity appears to be limiting limit-ing the spread of other fish which might compete disastrously dis-astrously with the woundfin. The withdrawal of water from the stream for Irrigation Irri-gation or other purposes would also probably be ruled |