Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Aurora in negotiation for storage in Lake Pueblo Pueblo Chieftain: "A draft environmental assessment has been released for a 40-year contract that would allow Aurora to store and exchange water in the Arkansas Valley in Bureau of Reclamation projects. Aurora, a city of 300,000 east of Denver, uses parts of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project to move water from purchases it made in the Lower Arkansas Valley in the 1980s and in Lake County in recent years. In the past, Aurora applied for excess capacity contracts on an annual basis, but is seeking long-term assurances of its ability to move water... "Aurora is asking for 10,000 acre-feet of storage space in Lake Pueblo, along with 10,000 acre-feet of exchange capacity. The storage space could be emptied and refilled throughout the year. The exchange is a paper trade with the bureau that allows Aurora to move water into Turquoise or Twin Lakes, where it pumps it into the South Platte River basin. Aurora currently is charged $43.76 per acre foot for storage, compared with $24.10 for cities within the Arkansas Valley. Additionally, if Lake Pueblo fills, Aurora's water is the first to be released since the city lies outside the valley. In addition, Aurora will pay the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District $24 million over the life of the contract, under a 2003 intergovernmental agreement. An environmental assessment on the project will determine if there are significant impacts that would need further study under a full environmental impact statement. If there are no significant impacts, the bureau and Aurora will continue contract negotiations... "The document reveals Aurora is projecting to double its population and water demand by 2050, and will keep in place severe conservation measures that began during the 2002 drought. Aurora also will reuse about one-fourth of its water supply as drinking water by the year 2020. The Arkansas River basin provides an estimated 25-40 percent of Aurora's water now, and that proportion is not expected to increase. Under the 2003 IGA, Aurora will not purchase new water rights and will limit lease activities... "In lieu of Lake Pueblo storage, Aurora would likely develop a 500-acre gravel pit near the Pueblo County Airport into a 10,000 acre-foot reservoir. The $40 million project would take about 10 years to complete, according to the report. Aurora would need to look for other ways to use and exchange its water rights in the Arkansas Valley. In the short term, that might reduce exports as water rights cases were sent back to court, and some water rights could be sold or traded to other users, the report states. In the long term, denial of a contract could lead to more purchases or leases by Aurora in the Arkansas Valley, since IGA provisions would presumably go away." Category: Colorado Water 6:56:35 AM     New groundwater basin - Box Elder? Rocky Mountain News: "A Front Range water conservancy district wants to create a state-designated groundwater basin so some central Colorado farmers can resume using idled irrigation wells. The Central Colorado Water Conservancy District has asked the state's groundwater commission to create the Box Elder Groundwater Basin in Weld, Adams, Arapahoe and Elbert counties. If the basin wins state designation as a waterway separate from the South Platte basin, some farmers who lost the right to pump their wells this year and lost thousands of dollars of crops as a result could resume using those wells. The groundwater under Box Elder Creek is a tributary of the South Platte River, said Keith Vander Horst, of the state's groundwater commission... "The proposed Box Elder basin would run about 60 miles from four miles south of the South Platte to northern Elbert County. [Greg] Hertzke said an engineering study of the area shows that the proposed basin doesn't connect to any other groundwater or river basin." Meanwhile the Central Water Conservancy District is looking ahead to 2007 and hopes to turn on half of the 440 wells shut down earlier this year, if there is sufficient snowpack in the South Platte River Basin, according to the Longmont Daily Times-Call. From the article, "Probably the toughest news that officials from the Central Weld Water Conservancy District could give its farmers was to shut down 440 irrigation wells this summer, after many people had already planted crops. But maybe the second-toughest news was when they had to tell those same farmers a couple weeks ago that it's likely that only half of those wells will be turned on next year. That's the augmentation plan that Central Weld, in February, will take to the state water court, which will determine if there will be enough water in the South Platte to turn on the wells, said Greg Hertzke, Central Weld's water-acquisitions manager, speaking at a political forum in Milliken on Monday night." Category: Colorado Water 6:47:35 AM

© Copyright 2006 John Orr. Last update: 12/29/06; 12:15:16 PM.