Friday, February 2, 2007

Energy policy: Wind HB 07-1150 Concerning the Creation of the Renewable Energy and Infrastructure Authority is receiving a good deal of support from rural areas, according to the Denver Post. From the article, "As a Baca County farmer, Troy Crane said he cursed the wind. But today, while lawmakers kicked off a push for renewable energy, he praised it as the savior of rural counties. Crane spoke before the House Transportation and Energy Committee unanimously approved a bill that would provide funding to build transmission lines to deliver wind- and sun-generated electricity. The measure (House Bill 1150) is one of a half dozen supported by Gov. Bill Ritter to jump-start rural economies and help the state meet its growing need for electricity. The bill would create a five-member board that would provide grants and loans to build the power lines necessary to get the electricity to market. It now goes to the full House for debate. Crane said he didn't realize there was money to be made from winds that blew across his 4,000-acre farm, carrying away his wheat crop and drying up his water." Meanwhile U.S. Senator Ken Salazar is working on renewable energy at the federal level, according to the Montrose Daily Press. They write, "U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., is working to make renewable energy an integral part of the 2007 farm bill and to pass resolutions altering the strategy in the War in Iraq. 'To champion the revitalization of rural America is very important,' Salazar said in a teleconference with the media Wednesday." Category: 2008 Presidential Election 6:18:41 AM     Snowpack Here's a short article about snowpack in western Colorado from the Craig Daily Press. They write, "Despite recent snowfalls, western Colorado still is experiencing low moisture conditions, and that holds true when examining the current mountain snowpack levels. Brian Avery, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction, warns that while the eastern side of the continental divide is above normal in measurements of snow/water equivalents, the same does not hold true for west of the divide. 'The Yampa and White River basins are currently at 68 percent of normal,' he said. 'December was fairly warm, and it melted some of the snowpack.'[...] "'On Feb. 1, 2006, we were at 125 percent of normal,' he said. 'We're about half of that right now.' Snowpack measurements are important because those numbers are indicators of how full the rivers will be in the spring and summer, and how much irrigation water will be available to farmers and ranchers in western Colorado. Low measurements on Colorado's Western Slope also mean less water available for refilling major reservoirs in the west, such as Lake Powell in Utah, and Lake Mead on the Arizona-Nevada border." Here's a report on snowpack in the Arkansas River Basin from the Mountain Mail. They write, "Snowpack in the Arkansas River Basin is the healthiest of any river drainage in Colorado thanks to hefty snowfall this season in the southern Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Arkansas River Basin snowpack stands at 118 percent of average in terms of snow water equivalent, the Natural Resources Conservation Service reported Wednesday. Statewide, snowpack is 87 percent of average. Only two of the eight basins surveyed by the NRCS have above average snowpacks: the Arkansas and the South Platte at 112 percent of average. The Arkansas River Basin has remained healthy with a combination of upslope storms affecting the Sangre de Cristos and storms emanating from the southern jet stream from Arizona and New Mexico. The pattern is consistent with El Nino conditions that currently exist in the eastern Pacific Ocean... "Elsewhere in Colorado, the Upper Rio Grande basin is at 100 percent of average and the San Miguel, Dolores, Animas and San Juan river basins are at 77 percent. To the north, the Upper Colorado is at 92 percent, the Yampa and White River basins are at 68 percent and the Laramie and North Platte are at 77 percent. To the west, the Gunnison River basin is at 81 percent." Here's a report on northern Colorado snowpack from the Greeley Tribune (free registration required). From the article, "The first survey of the season by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service showed water content of the snowpack is near average high in the Poudre and Big Thompson canyons but well above average, in some cases, in the lower reaches of the canyons." Category: Colorado Water 6:11:34 AM     Super Ditch for southeastern Colorado? It looks like southeastern Colorado may end up forming a Super Ditch authority on the lower Arkansas River, according to the Pueblo Chieftain. They write, "Sufficient supply and demand exists for a 'Super Ditch' designed to give Arkansas Valley farmers more clout with cities in future water deals. The major hurdle to developing the proposed water management authority will be balancing diverse water rights, providing a level of certainty for customers and creating trust all the way around. The Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District is investigating the possibility of forming the so-called Super Ditch, but would not manage it. Instead, valley ditch companies would be expected to run the show, officials explained Thursday. "About 200 people, including many ditch company shareholders and officers, heard how the Super Ditch might work at the Farm, Ranch and Water Symposium sponsored by the Lower Ark and Colorado State University. Following a panel presentation, there were more questions than answers -- and a flood of interest in the project. 'The Super Ditch is not really a ditch company, but a broker or clearinghouse that would match people who need water with people who have water to lease,' said Peter Nichols, water attorney for the Lower Ark. Nichols described the Lower Ark as the 'midwife' for the district, explaining it has the financial resources to get the company going. Initially, most ditch companies would have to change their by-laws to participate, and a court decree to expand the designated use of water would have to be filed on all the ditches... "Likely customers for the project could include Colorado Springs, Aurora and Northern El Paso County, who were all represented in a panel discussion. Colorado Springs will periodically need to lease a few thousand acre-feet each year, said Gary Bostrom, regional projects manager. The city of 400,000 north of Pueblo has fully developed water resources surrounding Pikes Peak, is importing water from the Western Slope and developing water rights it purchased in the Lower Arkansas Valley in the 1980s. Leasing water is the next step, Bostrom said... "Aurora has constraints on how much water it can export from the valley, based on intergovernmental agreements, but would be looking at leasing about 5,000 acre-feet on average, said Mark Pifher, deputy director of Aurora Water. The city of 300,000 east of Denver relies on the Arkansas Valley for much of its water supply from purchases of farms in the 1980s and 1990s. It leased water from the High Line Canal in 2004-05 and sold part of the lease to Colorado Springs... "Northern El Paso County may be the thirstiest customer, said Gary Barber of the Pikes Peak Regional Water Authority. He projected a need of 8,000-15,000 acre-feet per year for well recharge, saying the authority is considering building a pipeline from east of the Fountain Creek confluence with the Arkansas River to move the water. The group has signed a memorandum of understanding with Mark Morley, who is proposing building a reservoir near Pueblo Chemical Depot. Rather than continue 'mining' the Denver Aquifer, water districts in the Pikes Peak group want to bring in new water sources to supplement their finite resource, Barber said." Category: Colorado Water 6:00:05 AM     HB 1132 HB 07-1132 [pdf] won approval in the State House of Representatives by a 56 to 8 vote, according to the Pueblo Chieftain. From the article, "What a difference a year -- and an election that saw more Democrats elected to state office -- made for Rep. Buffie McFadyen's water quality bill Thursday. Unlike last year, when the Pueblo West Democrat's measure languished on the House calendar for more than a month and then passed by single-vote, this year's legislation had overwhelming support. With no debate on Thursday, the bill received final House approval on a 56-8 vote... "The eight legislators who voted against the measure, all Republicans, include Reps. Kevin Lundberg of Berthoud, Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling, Ken Summers of Lakewood, Victor Mitchell of Castle Rock and Spencer Swalm of Centennial. And even though the bill had the support of the Colorado Springs Utilities and other El Paso and Aurora water officials, who historically have opposed the idea, Colorado Springs Reps. Bill Cadman and Kent Lambert voted against it." Category: Colorado Water 5:51:23 AM     Global warming: The Earth is a beautifully complex system Here's an opinion piece about global warming from the Fort Collins Coloradoan. From the article, "It is hard to open up a paper these days without finding yet another article on global climate change. Editorials, letters to the editor, the City Council and even the president have taken up the issue. The information comes so fast, from so many sources, and from so many directions, it must be all but impossible for even the most diligent to keep up. So I thought I would comment from what is probably the most under-represented perspective on this issue: the perspective of a mainstream climate scientist. While a cursory read of the popular media would indicate otherwise, the scientific foundation of global climate change has continued to strengthen over the past two decades. Here is what we know: Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, meaning that it tends to warm the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide levels are rising and are presently at concentrations higher than anytime in the last 650,000 years. The rapid rise in global temperature in the last 30 years cannot be accounted for without the inclusion of human influence through fossil-fuel consumption. All of this is to say that when we look to explain the rise in global temperature to date, we do not need to look much farther than ourselves. "As we look to the future, our climate models project an additional 3 F to 10 F of warming during this century. A warming of 3 F will definitely be noticeable and is something that we should be concerned about. A warming of 10F will, in all likelihood, tear at the fabric of our society. Whether we find ourselves at the low end or the high end of these projections will depend primarily on whether we curtail our fossil-fuel consumption. Having developed climate model for the last 15 years, I have two bits of advice regarding these projections of global warming: do not take them as absolute truth and do not discard them as folly. These projections warrant serious deliberation when considering our future fossil-fuel consumption." Meanwhile the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change presented their report on climate change earlier today in Paris, according to the Environment News Service. From the article, "Changes in the atmosphere, the oceans, glaciers and ice caps show unequivocally that the Earth is warming, according to the first global assessment of climate change science in six years. The report confirms that the observed increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide since 1750 is the result of human activities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, concludes that advances in climate modeling and the collection and analysis of data now give scientists 90 percent confidence in their understanding of how human activities are causing the world to warm. This level of confidence is much greater than what could be achieved in 2001 when the IPCC issued its last assessment. Introducing the report today in Paris, Dr. Susan Solomon, an American atmospheric chemist, said it is 'very likely,' a 90 percent probability, that most of the observed increase in temperatures is due to the observed increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. The 2001 assessment said it was 'likely,' a probability of 66 percent. The rapid rise in global concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, all greenhouse gases, is so different from the patterns for thousands of years previous, 'there is no doubt that increase is dominated by human activity,' said Solomon, who helped to identify the mechanism that created the Antarctic ozone hole." According to The Guardian, "Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today. Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)." Category: 2008 Presidential Election 5:35:30 AM

© Copyright 2007 John Orr. Last update: 3/1/07; 6:52:26 AM.