Saturday, September 16, 2006

Good Samaritan bill passes U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works From email from U.S. Senator Wayne Allard, "I am pleased to report that on Wednesday the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works passed the Cleanup of Inactive and Abandoned Mines Act, known as the Good Samaritan bill. My Colorado colleague Senator Salazar and I introduced this bill. This legislation has been years in the making and has involved the environmental community, industry and local elected officials and citizens. Our legislation will allow these contaminated, abandoned mines to be cleaned up free of taxpayers' expense. "Anyone who has driven westward up the I-70 corridor in Colorado from Denver, or on many other mountain roads throughout the Rocky Mountain West, has seen the impact of abandoned mines on the landscape. "This is the biggest step forward for the Good Samaritan bill in nearly a decade. This legislation will help to clean up thousands of mines that otherwise would continue to pollute our water and blemish our western landscape." From the same email, "I am also pleased to report that earlier this week that the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, which I introduced back in May 2005. The hearing will be held on Thursday, September 21. "This project is critical to the future of the Arkansas Valley. I am grateful that Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici understands the importance of the project and will allow a hearing on this legislation. I've been working on this bill for several years, and this is a good opportunity to move it forward. This is important because communities served by the conduit need assistance in complying with unfunded federal mandates that are part of the Clean Water Act. "My legislation creates a cost-share formula that requires the federal government to pay for 80 percent of the conduit's construction costs. The remaining 20 percent will be paid for by the local communities who would receive water from the conduit. Congresswoman Musgrave and I worked closely with citizens and elected officials from communities in the Lower Arkansas Valley in developing legislation." Category: Colorado Water 12:46:09 PM     El Nino is back El Niño is back and skiers in the San Juans are happy, according to the Durango Herald. From the article, "Praying to the snow gods and practicing the ritual of burning skis in hopes of an epic snowfall may not be needed this year. The region's snow for this season already might have been conceived by the atmospheric anomalies in the equatorial Pacific. Translation: greater chances for precipitation this coming November and December. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a synopsis Wednesday stating that El Niño conditions have developed and are projected to continue into early 2007. Studies from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center show that the years of El Niño typically have a 106 percent to 141 percent higher precipitation in the early winter months... "El Niño is the eastern migration of a warm pool of water in the Pacific Ocean that influences weather conditions worldwide. El Niño effects already have been observed this year in Indonesia, Malaysia and most of the Philippines with drier-than-average conditions. Although the studies point to higher precipitation in Southwest Colorado, they also include the likeliness of warmer-than-average temperatures during the winter across the western and northern United States." Category: Colorado Water 8:47:51 AM     Evapotraspiration in mountainous areas El Defensor Chieftain: "Over the course of the last two decades, hydrologists and other scientists have used emerging technologies such as satellite optical remote sensing to develop and refine several operational evapotranspiration algorithms. These algorithms are now routinely used in hydrological studies in New Mexico and worldwide. However, these remote sensing-based algorithms have encountered significant difficulties when used by hydrologists or other water resources professionals to estimate evapotranspiration in mountainous regions. This is because of variability in mountain meteorology, soils and topography. In an effort to improve the application of remote sensing algorithms to mountainous terrains, the U.S. Geological Survey recently awarded a research grant to fund a field study in New Mexico. The project is titled 'Validation, Calibration, and Improvement of Remote Sensing ET Algorithms in Mountainous Regions.' New Mexico Tech hydrology professor Jan Hendrickx, along with Tech post-doctoral researcher Jan Kleissl, spearheads the multi-year research project... "Mountains cover approximately 25 percent of world's land area, accommodate 26 percent of the world's population and generate about 32 percent of surface runoff on a global basis. However, in New Mexico and other semi-arid mountainous regions, runoff from mountains can represent as much as 90 percent of the total surface runoff into low-lying basins such as the Rio Grande or Colorado River. As part of their study, Hendrickx and Kleissl will set up various measuring and recording stations at field sites located atop the Magdalena Mountains and within the Valles Caldera National Park in New Mexico. "The New Mexico Tech hydrologists are using scintillometers - novel scientific instruments that measure atmospheric optical disturbances over distances of up to three miles - to gauge turbulent heat fluxes at mountainous sites. Additional meteorological measurements taken, such as wind speed and direction, surface and air temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure, allow them to examine the determinants of ET in mountainous terrains, thus providing clues to improving ET algorithms there. In addition, other contributing factors, such as slope, topography, vegetation, solar radiation and snow accumulation are being considered by the scientists as they attempt to improve remote sensing ET algorithms... "Several government agencies besides the USGS have already expressed interest in using improved ET algorithms in their water resources planning, including the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the Interstate Stream Commission, the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, and the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. 'Our goal is not so much to develop new models or algorithms for how evapotranspiration occurs in mountains as it is to improve current ET algorithms by using an integrated approach that considers the particular features of mountains,' Kleissl says. 'These improved ET algorithms will also still be able to be used in flat areas as well.' In addition to the USGS funding, supplemental support for the ongoing research project currently is being provided by the Water Resources Research Institute, New Mexico Tech, and a National Science Foundation funded program - the Experimental Program to Stimulate Cooperative Research." Category: Colorado Water 8:36:19 AM     We assume that past hydrology will repeat itself in the future Here's a report from yesterday's Colorado River Water Conservation District's annual seminar, from the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. From the article, " Colorado River water is over-allocated, and water managers project its stream flows will decline in coming years. Such are some of the challenges Colorado's water users face, according to a panel of water experts from around the West who spoke Friday at the Colorado River Water Conservation District's annual seminar at Two Rivers Convention Center. The panel members gathered to speak about the history and future of the Colorado River Compact, the challenges of meeting the West's growing water needs and what to do about them. While water managers in Colorado and among the seven states of the Colorado River Compact try hard to reach a consensus, they face many uncertainties about future water supply and demand. "Chief among the challenges is climate change. 'Climate change is real,' conservation district General Manager Eric Kuhn said. 'Climate has always been changing and will continue to change in the future.' The years 2000 to 2006 were the Upper Colorado River Basin's driest seven years on record, and Kuhn said that deprived the Colorado River of about 1 million acre-feet of water. As the earth's deserts continue their march northward, he said, a U.S. Geological Survey study shows stream flows in the west-central United States could decline by 10 to 30 percent in the next three or four decades... "Lake Powell allows Upper Basin states - Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah - to meet their obligation to deliver 7.5 million acre-feet of water to the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada. As the West enters a drought period, [Jim] Lochhead said, Lake Powell draws down faster than the Lower Basin's reservoir, Lake Mead. Despite drought, the Upper Basin still must meet its obligation to the Lower Basin states. But there isn't enough water in either basin to meet demand. The two basins have tried to reach an agreement about how Colorado River water is to be managed during a shortage, but the agreement hasn't been approved by the U.S. Department of Interior. The agreement would allow water managers to be flexible with how they move water in the Lower Basin, and provide for the banking of water credits in Lake Mead and the importation of nontributary ground water." Category: Colorado Water 8:21:19 AM

© Copyright 2006 John Orr. Last update: 12/29/06; 12:12:36 PM.