Durango Herald: "If the City of Durango decides to apply for water rights for its kayak park, it will have to deal with a new set of rules, which could change again next year. On Tuesday, the Colorado Water Conservation Board voted to rewrite its rules for recreational water rights. Meanwhile, Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, will introduce a bill in the Legislature in January. If Isgar's bill is successful, it will rewrite the rules yet again. The rules change a detailed set of criteria to evaluate cities' applications for water rights for their kayak parks. Among other controversial provisions, the new rules say the board must take into account the effect kayakers' water rights have on other existing or 'reasonably foreseeable uses' of the river. Officials from the Southwestern Water Conservation District and the state told the county commissioners Tuesday that Durango's water park could threaten future development upstream on the Animas River. The state water board changed its rules to bring them into line with a Colorado Supreme Court ruling on the Gunnison kayak park. Some advocates said the new rules don't solve the problem."
Pueblo Chieftain: "U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard is pressing for an additional $424,000 in federal funding in 2007 to complete a study of the Fountain Creek Watershed by the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies...The watershed group's technological advisory committee has finalized the hydrology study of Fountain Creek, now under technical review. Hydrology looks at the physical characteristics of the creek itself. Phil Boawn, liaison with the Albuquerque Corps of Engineers office, told the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District Thursday that the hydrology report is a giant step toward getting the city of Colorado Springs and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to agree on flood plains."
Water Power Magazine: "The US Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) has released the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) on the operation of Flaming Gorge dam. The FEIS document, prepared with the cooperation of eight state and federal agencies, describes the potential effects of modifying the operation of the dam to assist in the recovery of four endangered fish and their critical habitat downstream from the dam. The purpose of the proposed action analysed in the FEIS is to operate Flaming Gorge dam to protect and assist in recovery of the populations and designated critical habitat of the four endangered fishes, while maintaining all authorised purposes of the Flaming Gorge Unit of the Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP), particularly those related to the development of water resources in accordance with the Colorado River Storage Compact. The four endangered fish species are Colorado pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus lucius), humpback chub (Gila cypha), razorback sucker (Xyrauchen texanus), and bonytail (Gila elegans)."
Nature: "All currently available climate models predict a near-surface warming trend under the influence of rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In addition to the direct effects on climate-for example, on the frequency of heatwaves-this increase in surface temperatures has important consequences for the hydrological cycle, particularly in regions where water supply is currently dominated by melting snow or ice. In a warmer world, less winter precipitation falls as snow and the melting of winter snow occurs earlier in spring. Even without any changes in precipitation intensity, both of these effects lead to a shift in peak river runoff to winter and early spring, away from summer and autumn when demand is highest. Where storage capacities are not sufficient, much of the winter runoff will immediately be lost to the oceans. With more than one-sixth of the Earth's population relying on glaciers and seasonal snow packs for their water supply, the consequences of these hydrological changes for future water availability-predicted with high confidence and already diagnosed in some regions-are likely to be severe."
Category: Colorado Water
7:48:41 AM 
|
|
