The U.S. House approved a bill this week to extend a program that seeks to protect four endangered fish species in Colorado.

It also would allow members of the public to continue using the Upper Colorado River and San Juan River basins for drinking water, agriculture and recreation.

“Communities across the 4th Congressional District rely on water from the Colorado River,” Rep. Ken Buck said in a statement. “This legislation allows those communities to thrive while still protecting our endangered species.”

Buck, R-Greeley, is a co-sponsor of the Endangered Fish Recovery Programs Extension Act. Five other members of the Colorado delegation to Congress also co-sponsored the bill. It now awaits a vote in the Senate.

The program started in 1998 to ensure compliance with the Endangered Species Act, which seeks to protect wildlife whose existence is threatened, generally through pollution or other human activity.

The Environmental Protection Agency has listed the humpback chub, the bonytail, the Colorado pikeminnow and the razorback sucker as endangered. Federal law allows the EPA to restrict water and power use to some communities to protect endangered species.

The Endangered Fish Recovery Program was designed to avoid water restrictions while still protecting the endangered fish.

The Upper Colorado River supplies water diversion programs that serve cities, industry and hydroelectric power generators. They include the Arkansas-Fryingpan Project, the Colorado Big Thompson Project and the Windy Gap Project.

“The Recovery Programs will allow recovery efforts to continue with the result hopefully being the [EPA] delisting of some or all of the species” said Eric Wilkinson, general manager of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District.

The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District is a water utility for eight counties in northeastern Colorado.

Money for the conservation effort would come from electrical power generation fees of the Colorado River Storage Project. The funding would be capped at $4 million a year for the Colorado River and $2 million a year for the San Juan River.

Wilkinson said the program has “made great strides to recover the endangered species while also allowing the continued beneficial use of Colorado River Basin water.”

Agencies participating in the Endangered Fish Recovery Program manage water resources through water leases and contracts, controlled releases from reservoirs, monitoring use of agricultural irrigation and restoring habitat for the fish.

They also try to remove invasive species of fish that kill off the native species. They include bass, channel catfish and Northern pike.