Sunday, January 21, 2007

HB 1156 Here's the link (pdf) to HB 1156. The bill if it becomes law, "Requires every contract for the purchase and sale of all residential real property to disclose the source of water for the property. If the source is a well, requires the disclosure to include a copy of the well permit." Category: Colorado Water 5:15:41 PM     Richardson for president? Say hello to Bill Richardson. He's officially in for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination. Thanks to the Bill Richardson Blog for the links. We hope that Governor Richardson's blog will soon have an RSS feed. ABC News: "The field for the Democratic presidential nomination got still more crowded this morning, with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson announcing he will take the first step in a run for the White House by forming a presidential exploratory committee. Richardson followed the announcement with an exclusive interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week." Category: 2008 Presidential Election 8:22:18 AM     Underground storage in the Upper Ark Valley? The Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy and the USGS are planning to study the aquifer in Custer county to determine if it can be used as underground storage to support further development, according to the Pueblo Chieftain. From the article, "Groundwater storage or recharge in the Upper Arkansas basin could be possible, a preliminary federal study shows. The Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District is looking at a partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey to determine if the concept is a way to cope with increasing growth in Custer, Chaffee and western Fremont counties. 'Right now we have a baseline study of the groundwater and the size of the aquifer,' said Terry Scanga, Upper Ark executive director. 'The continuation of the study will look at the aquifer along the mountains to determine the rate of recharge.'[...] "The new phase of the study would calculate the rate of recharge and subsurface flows out of the aquifer. It could also identify which areas could be recharged if a source of replacement water is available. For instance, if a certain quantity of water takes two years to reach the river, an aquifer might have one year of available storage." Category: Colorado Water 7:28:20 AM     How to incorporate climate change into water policy decision making? Is there a way to measure Colorado's decreasing runoff due to climate change? Many are asking that question and at the same time they're trying to see a few decades in the future to predict the sustainability of water supplies in light of the pressure to send more rainy side water to satisfy the unbridled growth on the Front Range. Here's an article with some details from the Glenwood Springs Post Indenpendent (free registration required). From the article, "This week, at a meeting of the Colorado River Water Conservation District board of directors, river district general manager Eric Kuhn said recent research findings by nationally recognized climatologist Robert Balling suggest annual runoff from spring snowmelt in the Colorado basin could decrease 35 percent by 2050. How decreases in water flows due to climate change will impact an already strapped supply in the Colorado River can only be surmised. Nevertheless, it must be factored in to projections of future water demands, especially with the growing population on the Front Range. 'The issue of future climate change on water resources is just now beginning to get attention within the water community,' Kuhn said... "To fill the gap between present supply and future demand, several water transportation and storage projects are under study. These so-called 'straws' would suck water out of West Slope reservoirs and rivers and pipe it across the mountains to the Front Range. In one - the $4 billion Yampa Diversion Project - the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District aims to pull about 300,000 acre feet a year out of the Yampa River at Maybell and transport it through about 200 miles of pipelines and tunnels under the mountains to the plains, where it would serve Front Range cities. 'If climate change were to reduce stream flows, is there really a reliable water supply for these projects?' Kuhn asked. 'The difficult challenge (will be) how to incorporate climate change into water policy decision making in a reasonable and understandable manner.'[...] "Both Kuhn and Randy Udall, director of the Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE) in Carbondale, are involved in the Colorado Climate Project, a bipartisan initiative to study the effects of impending climate change across the state and how to lessen its impacts. The aim of the initiative is to develop a plan to reduce emissions of global warming pollutants - greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide." 7:17:03 AM

© Copyright 2007 John Orr. Last update: 2/1/07; 7:28:53 AM.