Thursday, February 8, 2007

Trout Unlimited: Rivers Conservation and Fly Fishing Youth Camp The Cherry Creek News: "Colorado Trout Unlimited (CTU), a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving, protecting and restoring Colorado's coldwater fisheries, is now accepting applications from students aged 14 to 18 for its Rivers Conservation and Fly Fishing Youth Camp. Applications are available online at www.cotrout.org and must be received by March 15, 2007. The camp, which is scheduled for June 10 through 16 at the Peace Ranch near Basalt, Colo., is designed to educate students on the importance of coldwater conservation and provide hands-on fly-fishing instruction." One would hope that the students will get a chance to practice the rod, reel, cornmeal and frying pan method for control of non-native species. Category: Colorado Water 5:09:02 PM     Snowpack This is the time of year that most farmers get religion and start praying for a good snowpack. Here's an update about Mesa Verde country from the Cortez Journal. From the article, "A weather reporting station in Cortez measured 10.8 inches of snow for January. The moisture content of the snow is still below average. For the month of January, the snow's water equivalent was 0.64 inches, 63 percent of the average. But while the snowpack is below average so far, [Tom Hooten, Colorado State University Cooperative Extension agent] said it is the best snowpack the mountains have had in six or seven years." Category: Colorado Water 7:40:07 AM     CWCB: We're not here to compete, we're here to help Here's an article about the Interbasin Compact Committee from the Cortez Journal. They write, "On his second day on the job, Harris Sherman stepped into a water war. At stake is the role of a new group the Legislature created in 2005 to find a truce between western and eastern Colorado. Sherman, the state's new director of natural resources, on Friday led his first Interbasin Compact Committee meeting and tried to calm fears that he and Gov. Bill Ritter are not committed to the system... "The roundtables and IBCC are supposed to build trust among the river basins. But some IBCC members think they were ignored when the Colorado Water Conservation Board introduced its yearly water projects bill. The bill includes controversial projects, such as $150,000 for a study of how recreational in-channel diversions are working. The CWCB had opposed many filings for recreational water rights. IBCC member Melinda Kassen said environmentalists, the recreation community and some people on the Western Slope don't trust the CWCB... "CWCB Director Rod Kuharich defended his group. 'We're not here to compete,' Kuharich said. 'We're here to help in any way we can to see the state move forward,' Kuharich said. 'Having said that, the Water Conservation Board has been here since 1937.' IBCC members, however, said their group is building trust for the first time between western and eastern Colorado, something the CWCB hasn't been able to do. They asked Sherman for time to continue their conversations. 'We have the mayor of Holly talking to a Lake County commissioner,' said Jeris Danielson, an IBCC member from the Gunnison River Basin. 'That's a difference of about 11,000 feet. This has never happened before.'" Category: Colorado Water 7:35:32 AM     Energy policy: Biofuel from algae? Biofuel from algae is the subject of this article from WorldChanging.com They write, "As we inch closer towards a post-carbon economy, the future mix of energy sources is slowly bubbling to the top. One potential addition to this mix is the large-scale production of oil-containing algae. Jamais brought GreenFuel to our attention last year, but, as with most things in the sustainability realm, the momentum behind algae has grown tremendously since then. New companies, new methods, and a changing landscape indicate that biofuel from algae is poised to play a larger role. Unlike other plants that are currently being using for oil production such as soy, palm, corn and jatropha, some strains of algae contain as much as 50% oil. Once algae is grown, harvested and pressed to extract the oil, the remaining residue can be processed into ethanol, or burned directly in a power plant. The oil can then be processed into biodiesel using the ethanol (or methanol from another source). The National Renewable Energy Lab also believes jet fuel from certain strains of algae is possible." There's some good detail in the article, read the whole thing. Category: 2008 Presidential Election 7:09:34 AM     Water availability for oil and gas development Is there enough water to develop energy resources on the western slope without making Colorado a national energy sacrifice zone? The White River Roundtable and Colorado River Roundtable are asking the state for some dough to try to answer that question, according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. They write, "Two northwest Colorado water basin roundtables are expected to ask the state for money to study how much water may be available for energy development in the region. That critical question was overlooked in 2003 when the state took on the Statewide Water Supply Initiative, or SWSI, a water needs assessment and availability study that examined the state's water supplies basin by basin. The water supply report, issued in 2004, acknowledged it didn't account for the water needs of potential natural gas and oil shale development throughout the state, said Chris Treese, external affairs officer for the Colorado River Water Conservation District. When the study was being developed, commercial oil shale development wasn't foreseen, he said. Now, faced with questions about how much water the natural gas and oil shale industry and related power plants will need, Treese said, the Yampa and White River Basins Roundtable and the Colorado River Basin Roundtable are expected to ask the Colorado Water Conservation Board in March for $300,000 to get some answers. The state, he said, needs to figure out if it needs to reserve water for the energy industry... "The problem all along, he said, is that oil shale extraction technology is still being developed, so it's difficult to guess how much water the industry will need. Historically, he said, the oil shale industry needed between one and five barrels of water for every barrel of oil it produced. Some in the industry say they may have a zero net water demand, he said, and others say oil shale extraction may produce water. Quantifying the energy industry's water needs and figuring out how much water is available to the industry is 'absolutely critical,' said Cathy Kay of the Western Colorado Congress. 'That's something you should have done first before you went into the oil shale business.' She said that even if the industry uses one barrel of water per barrel of oil it produces, that's still millions of barrels of water the industry will need. 'We don't know what they're going to do to the water, how they're going to clean it up,' she said. 'There will definitely be drawdowns.' But most importantly, she said, she is concerned the potential for the industry to use up all the water that's left in the Colorado River Basin could prevent other industries from locating in Colorado... "Water availability in the Piceance Basin shouldn't be a problem for oil shale companies, the report stated. Based on 1981 hydrological data, the report estimated that enough water exists in the basin for oil shale companies to produce 3 million barrels of oil daily. Shell already is purchasing senior water rights for its oil shale projects, recently spending $14 million for the YZ water right on the White River in Rio Blanco County, [Jill Davis, spokeswoman for Royal Dutch Shell] said. She called it a 'very senior industrial water right. It's our intention to only have industrial rights because we want to work in combination with the (agriculture community),' Davis said, adding the company doesn't want the state to build reservoirs to supply water for oil shale development." Category: Colorado Water 6:50:42 AM     Climate change: We need to invest in adaptation Climate change is being accelerated so policies are needed to help populations adapt. Here's an article about the subject from the Denver Post. From the article, "In the face of global warming triggered by people burning fossil fuels, it's not enough to turn to the wind and sun for electricity, a new report says. Countries and communities also need to become better at handling normal climate variation - dry years and wet ones, good years for bugs and bad years for crops, said University of Colorado science policy professor Roger Pielke Jr. Energy policy changes could make it less hot a century from now, but people are already dying from floods, tropical diseases and crop failures related to capricious weather, Pielke said in a paper appearing today in the journal Nature. Helping vulnerable people - including residents of New Orleans and other hurricane-prone areas - become more resistant to today's weather problems will also help them deal with a warmer future, Pielke and three co-authors wrote. 'Climate change is unavoidable,' Pielke said. 'We need to invest in adaptation.'" Category: 2008 Presidential Election 6:45:21 AM     Pollution from de-icers? Here's a nice look at the de-icing chemicals and their effects on Cherry Creek and the South Platte from CBS4Denver.com. From the article, "Every 24 hours during this year's snowstorms, Denver put down an average of 1,500 tons of a mixture of an ice-melting product made up primarily of magnesium chloride. The Colorado Department of Transportation had put down 16,461 tons of it in the metro area by mid-January. They also put down 1.6 million gallons of a liquid magnesium-chloride mixture. So what's all that doing to our environment? Not much said Professor of Biology William Lewis, the associate director at C.U.'s Cooperative Institute of Research and Environmental Sciences. Lewis was asked by CDOT to study the effects several years ago. When it comes to water he says, 'We can see the effects of magnesium chloride on chloride concentrations in the stream, but the concentrations don't get to any level that would be a threat to aquatic life or water supply.' The reason, 'Magnesium and chloride are fairly inert. They're found in food and surface water,' Lewis said. As long as the concentrations aren't too high... "So we sampled some of the water from Cherry Creek along Speer Boulevard. An independent testing lab told us it found increased levels of many of the chemicals found in the de-icers. A sample of water near a drainage pipe pouring into the creek along Speer Boulevard showed a significant increase in sodium chloride, or rock salt. But there are no standards for contamination of drainage water. There are for water in the stream itself where the runoff is diluted. There was not an inappropriate amount of sodium chloride in the water we found there... "There's still the damage to vegetation to deal with. Lewis said that occurs primarily in splash zones. If a passing car splashes the material or liquid on the vegetation, there's a good chance it will pay the price. CDOT's own review found damage to plant material from road salts hundreds of feet from roads." Category: Colorado Water 6:40:06 AM

© Copyright 2007 John Orr. Last update: 3/1/07; 6:53:32 AM.