Coyote Gulch

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Eastern Colorado drought

If you've been watching the skies this summer your not going to be surprised by this news: Drought conditions cover most of eastern Colorado. The drought ranges from "Stage 1" generally north of the Arkansas River graduating to "Exceptional" in the southeast corner of the state, according to The U.S. Drought Monitor.

Conservation is the name of the game. Denver Water's reservoirs are in great shape, as are most reservoirs supplying the Front Range. That's no excuse for waste, we won't know about next year's supply for another 10-11 months, until we can gauge the winter snowpack.

From The Rocky Mountain News: "A dry summer is taking its toll on the town of Poncha Springs in Chaffee County. Last week, town administrator Patricia Alderton banned all outdoor watering, and that restriction remains in place. Authorities are calling 2008 the fourth-driest year on record. Officials say the water tanks in Poncha Springs aren't completely dry, but they are dangerously low - especially since that water is also used to fight fires."
"colorado water"
8:26:56 AM

Dillon Reservoir: Fish kill at Meadow Creek inlet

Officials are investigating a fish kill at the Meadow Creek inlet into Dillon Reservoir, according to The Summit Daily News. At this point in time the cause of the kill is not known and it seems to have only effected suckers. The carcasses were found on July 17th and the level of decomposition will make identifying the cause of death difficult or impossible according to Colorado Division of Wildlife biologist Tom Kroening.

Denver Water has not detected anything in the water supply that would cause alarm. They bring water from Dillon Reservoir under the Great Divide through the Roberts Tunnel. Officials are leaning toward naming it a one-time event, possibly from a spill in the developed areas around the creek.
"colorado water"
8:07:47 AM

Southern Delivery System: Impact on Arkansas River Compact

Here are some details on Kansas' comments on Colorado Springs' proposed Southern Delivery System, from The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:

Kansas is concerned that the Bureau of Reclamation has not included enough safeguards for the Arkansas River Compact in the draft environmental impact statement for the Southern Delivery System. "As far as we can determine the draft EIS conclusion that downstream water users will be affected is based on a modeling assumption, not an analysis by the bureau," Kansas Chief Engineer David Barfield wrote in comments to Reclamation. Reclamation's analysis of the impact of SDS, a $1.1 billion pipeline project proposed by Colorado Springs, Security, Fountain and Pueblo West, stops at Las Animas, based on the assumption that there would be no impact farther down the Arkansas River. Barfield disagrees. "Given that actual operations may differ from assumed operations under the model, it is important to recognize the obligation for compact compliance in the final EIS," Barfield wrote.

The issue is of concern to Colorado because of more than 100 years of dispute over flows at the Kansas state line. The two states negotiated the Arkansas River Compact in 1948, and Congress ratified it after the two states signed it in 1949. Well pumping and reservoir development in Colorado spurred a U.S. Supreme Court lawsuit in 1985 that is expected to be wrapped up this year. Still, there are ongoing issues between the two states, that in the future will be decided through arbitration under the final report of Special Master Arthur Littleworth now before the court. While Colorado has been proactive in addressing those future problems in agriculture, there has been almost no active input into the biggest urban water project in the basin...

Water rights Colorado Springs and its partners are trying to perfect, or fully develop, are conditional, particularly the exchanges that allow Colorado Springs to release treated effluent down Fountain Creek in exchange for fresh water higher up the Arkansas River basin. The exchanges are made against water imported from the Western Slope or fully consumable native supplies. Colorado Springs, like others with conditional rights, is required to demonstrate reasonable diligence in developing those rights every six years, and the Colorado Division of Water Resources becomes involved at that point. "We have the ability to administer applications at any time," [State Engineer Dick] Wolfe said.

The state was last approached about SDS in 2005, during Reclamation's alternatives analysis, Water Division 2 Engineer Steve Witte said. No one from the state engineer's office made written or oral comments on the draft EIS for SDS, Witte said. By contrast, the state has taken a more active approach to agricultural water use. A committee has begun meeting on agricultural consumptive use in an attempt to account for surface systems converted to sprinklers. The state is also heavily invested in a weighing lysimeter at the Colorado State University Rocky Ford agricultural research center. Agriculture still uses 85 percent of the water in the Arkansas Valley, which is why the state has taken a harder look at farms vs. cities. In the Supreme Court case, Kansas prevailed on the issue of agricultural well pumping that surged in the two decades following the compact...

SDS, however, would mean the rerouting of 50,000-75,000 acre feet of water per year. That has caused concern for other downstream users, particularly the Amity Canal, which irrigates 37,800 acres below John Martin Dam in Prowers County. Reclamation did not assess impacts on any water users below Las Animas. Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association has options to buy more than half of the canal, and is pursuing a change of use decree in water court that would allow it to build a power plant. Tri-State initially said it would build two coal-fired plants near Holly, but is now considering a nuclear power plant. Amity also operates the Great Plains Reservoirs in Kiowa County. "The Amity's primary concerns regarding SDS are reduction and timing of flows in the Arkansas River; impact on ground water; water quality and channel stability," Amity attorney Don Steerman and president Glenn Wilson wrote in comments to Reclamation. "The Amity's decrees on the Arkansas River are relatively junior and oftentimes are called out by more senior decrees on the river."[...]

Kansas also favors a 10-year contract, rather than the 40-year contracts Reclamation is considering, and has concerns about water quality impacts of the pipeline project, Barfield said. "There are many projects being contemplated in the Arkansas River basin and their cumulative effects are unknown at this time," Barfield wrote. "A shorter term contract would allow for meaningful review of operations and their effects as related to SDS, leading to appropriate adjustments."

More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here
"colorado water"
7:34:52 AM

Summitville update

Here's an update on efforts to control runoff from the Summitville Superfund site, from The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:

The state health department is undertaking a series of construction projects this summer designed to improve the control of runoff at the Summitville Superfund site. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which manages cleanup of the former gold mine, will make upgrades to the site's dam spillway and the Wightman Fork diversion. The construction will enable the Wightman Fork to withstand a 100-year precipitation event, while the combined capacity of Wightman Fork and the improved spillway would be able to withstand a 500-year event. In their current capacities, the structures only could handle a 25-year event...

Work crews also will build a turnout structure on the northeastern edge of the site this summer, allowing managers the option to send uncontaminated water directly in Wightman Fork, which drains into the Alamosa River. The health department makes the determination on whether the water is uncontaminated based on weekly monitoring results. Lastly, a 16-inch diameter penstock will be installed as the first step in plans to build a small hydro power plant in 2009. Power from the plant will be fed back to Xcel Energy and used to offset the cost of power usage at the site...

A new water treatment plant is scheduled to be built in 2010, but Danny Lutz, a community involvement coordinator for the site, said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would not decide on funding for the plant until fall of 2009.

More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
"colorado water"
7:17:49 AM

Hillrose moving dirt for new water system

From The Fort Morgan Times: "Hillrose officials hope to break ground on their new water system next week. The USDA approved the town's plans to put in a new system using water from the Morgan County Quality Water District, which was what the town was waiting for, Assistant Town Clerk Barbara Nichols said after Monday's meeting of the Hillrose Town Council...t took years, but grants and loans from federal agencies allowed the town to plan for the new system. It will mean putting new pipes into homes across Hillrose."
"colorado water"
7:11:06 AM

NCAR Front Range Flash Flood Prediction System

From Media Newswire: "People living near vulnerable creeks and rivers along the Front Range may soon get advance notice of potentially deadly flash floods, thanks to a new forecasting system being tested this summer by the National Center for Atmospheric Research ( NCAR ). Known as the NCAR Front Range Flash Flood Prediction System [pdf], it combines detailed atmospheric conditions with information about stream flows to predict floods along specific streams and catchments. 'The goal is to provide guidance about the likelihood of a flash flood many minutes or even hours before the waters start rising,' says NCAR scientist David Gochis, one of the developers of the new forecasting system. 'We want to increase the lead time of a forecast, while decreasing the uncertainty about whether a flood will occur.' Funding to create the system was provided by NCAR's sponsor, the National Science Foundation, as well as by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

More from the article:

The Front Range, because of its steep topography and intense summer storms, is unusually vulnerable to summertime flash floods. The Big Thompson Canyon flood on July 31, 1976, killed 145 people, and deadly floods have also struck elsewhere in the region, including Fort Collins, Buffalo Creek, and Denver. Flash floods are difficult to predict because they happen suddenly, often the result of heavy cloudbursts that may stall over a particular watershed. Forecasters can give a few hours' notice that weather conditions might lead to flooding, and radars can detect heavy rain within minutes. But whether a flood hits a specific river or creek also depends on soil, topographic, and hydrologic conditions that are characteristic of particular watersheds. Thus, emergency managers may not know that a flash flood is imminent until the waters begin to rise. The goal of the NCAR system is to provide officials at least 30 minutes warning of flash flooding in specific watersheds, and possibly as much as an hour or two. It is designed to pinpoint whether a particular stream, such as Clear Creek or Cherry Creek, is likely to overflow, as well as forecast the likelihood of flash floods producing flooding events across a larger region. NCAR scientists this summer will monitor the system's performance each day, tracking potential flood events from Colorado Springs in the south to Fort Collins in the north. They are working to make forecast products accessible to the National Weather Service and Denver's Urban Drainage and Flood Control District. After this summer's test of the system, researchers will evaluate its performance and make improvements as needed...

The system uses National Weather Service radar observations of current conditions and short-term computerized weather forecasts. The weather forecasts are generated by the NCAR-based Weather Research and Forecasting model ( WRF ), which produces highly detailed simulations of the local atmosphere. The system integrates the weather information with data sets about hydrology and terrain. These data sets incorporate information about land surface conditions, such as terrain slope, soil composition, and surface vegetation. They also include information on stream flow and channel conditions. By combining information about the land and the atmosphere, the system can project whether an intense storm is likely to stall over a specific area of the Front Range and how that could affect the flow of water on the ground.
"colorado water"
6:58:17 AM

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