Colorado Water
Flows in the Dolores River are the subject of this article from the Rocky Mountain News [August 13, 2004, "Officials say EPA out of line"]. From the article, "Top Colorado officials are accusing the Environmental Protection Agency of trying to tell the state how to regulate its rivers and streams, challenging Colorado's sovereignty over its own water. The issue erupted recently when the EPA blamed pollution in the Dolores River on low flows, according to the state's top environmental regulator and the state agriculture commissioner...The letter focuses on a recent EPA demand that state water quality regulators include a stretch of the Dolores River in southwestern Colorado on a statewide list of polluted stream segments that need cleanup plans. Colorado officials had declined to include the river segment on the cleanup list back in March, when the matter was debated before a state regulatory board. But in July, the EPA overruled Colorado and told state officials to add the Dolores. At issue on the Dolores River immediately below McPhee Reservoir in Montezuma County are declines of roughly 70 percent in brown trout populations between 1996 and 2001. The EPA attributed the declines to a rise in water temperatures, algae growth and sediment increases."
Denver Water is studying pumping water from Chatfield Reservoir in times of drought, according to the Denver Post [August 13, 2004, "Chatfield eyed as drought fix"]. From the article, "The pump station would allow it to take another 3 feet during severe drought years, such as occurred in 2002. Concerns about dropping the lake by 3 feet, however, could be moot by the time the pump station is built and the next drought rolls around. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been studying for eight years a lake expansion of more than 76 percent, adding many times the lost depth to Denver Water's drought plan."
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