Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Fry-Ark space for Aurora? The Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District is looking at going to court over the 40 year agreement to share storage between the Bureau of Reclamation and Aurora, according to the Pueblo Chieftain. From the article, "The Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District is contemplating a lawsuit against the Bureau of Reclamation following the final environmental assessment on a proposed 40-year contract that allows Aurora to store and exchange water in the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project... "Singletary has talked in the past few months with the Lower Ark board about the possibility of filing a lawsuit if the assessment were issued without addressing concerns raised in a public comment period. Specifically, the Lower Ark is questioning how the exchange portion of the contract will affect the future in-basin exchanges and how storage will affect water quality, Singletary said... "In its response to the Lower Ark, Reclamation said the Aurora contract has a provision that offers similar contract exchanges to entities within the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District each year before approving any exchanges with Aurora. The Southeastern district, Colorado Springs Utilities, and the Pueblo Board of Water Works raised similar concerns about exchange priorities during public meetings last fall and in written comments to Reclamation... "Reclamation stated there are no adverse consequences and the discussion on productivity is required in an EIS, but not the assessment. The Lower Ark also questioned whether the Aurora contract would contribute to more dry-up of land, out-migration and cultural changes in the area east of Pueblo. Reclamation replied there would be no change in existing water rights, and noted that even under a no-action alternative, Aurora's water from the rights it purchased on the Colorado Canal and Rocky Ford Ditch would leave the valley... "A lawsuit over the decision to proceed with the contract is possible, Singletary added. 'We're certainly considering it, but I can't act unilaterally,' Singletary said. 'I haven't had enough time to look everything over, but I can't imagine we won't look into it.'" Meanwhile here are some details about the proposed contract and the public comment period from the Pueblo Chieftain. From the article, "The Bureau of Reclamation is moving ahead on a final draft of a 40-year contract that would allow Aurora to use the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project to export water to the South Platte basin. 'We don't issue the final draft of the contract until the NEPA process is done,' said Reclamation spokeswoman Kara Lamb Monday, referring to the National Environmental Protection Act. 'The latest draft will be going out shortly for public review.' Once the final draft is released, there will be another 60-day public comment period before the final contract is signed. Aurora would pay about twice the rate entities within the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District pay for storage of non-project water. Aurora also has agreed to pay Southeastern about $24 million over the life of the contract under a 2003 agreement... "Under mitigation measures, it reduces the amount of temporary storage under annual excess capacity contracts at Lake Pueblo to 70,000 acre-feet from 80,000 acre-feet, as approved in a 2006 environmental assessment. Requests for excess-capacity storage typically range from 10,000 to 40,000 acre-feet, but have increased in recent years. Additionally, the Pueblo Board of Water Works plans to increase its account to 15,000 acre-feet, up from the current 6,000 acre-feet, within the next 20 years and Colorado Springs has requested a long-term contract for 28,000 acre-feet. Aurora and Colorado Springs were the first to use excess capacity storage in Lake Pueblo, beginning in 1986. Reclamation will monitor Aurora contracts daily 'to better understand real-time use of contracted storage,' Reclamation stated. Aurora would be able to fill and empty its space in Lake Pueblo as needed, as long as the reservoir has space. When the reservoir fills, as occasionally has been the case since it began storing water in 1975, Aurora's water would be the first to spill... "Reclamation also put a provision in to reassess the contract if it causes problems with the Arkansas River Compact. Kansas raised numerous objections about water quantity and quality during the public review of the assessment. Reclamation's replies were based on reports from the Colorado Division of Water Resources and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Kansas continually has disputed Colorado's figures in a U.S. Supreme Court lawsuit filed in 1986 over the compact... "The Bureau of Reclamation is expected to sign a 40-year contract with Aurora for long-term excess capacity storage contract following a finding of no significant impact last week after an environmental assessment: "- Aurora will be able to store up to 10,000 acre-feet of water in an account in Lake Pueblo, which will allow it to exchange water from its purchases of water rights in Otero and Crowley counties. The account can be emptied and refilled as often as needed. "- Aurora will be able to exchange up to 10,000 acre-feet of its water in Lake Pueblo in any given year for Fryingpan-Arkansas water in Twin Lakes in paper trades with the Bureau of Reclamation. Reclamation will determine the amount of water available for exchange each year and exchanges cannot interfere with voluntary flow programs. "- Aurora will pay about $45 million to Reclamation over the next 40 years, initially $43 per acre-foot for storage and $49 per acre-foot for exchanges. An inflationary rate of 1.79 percent and a fluctuating charge for operations and maintenance are included in the contract. Money from the contract will repay federal costs for building the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project." Category: Colorado Water 7:37:14 AM     Farm disaster on the South Platte From today's Greeley Tribune, "A group representing farmers along the South Platte River will meet with state officials today to ram home the point that the shutdown of irrigation wells along the river is paramount to a crisis. The Water Users Defense committee, which represents farm families and organizations reliant on more than 1,000 wells along the river, is calling on Gov. Bill Ritter and the Colorado legislature to fix what it calls a 'broken system.' Arnold Good, who farms between Fort Morgan and Brush, in the heart of Morgan County, is chairman of the group. The group, he said, formed last October when the Central Colorado Water Conservancy District board decided to cut its water replacement plan from 440 wells to about 200 in an attempt to get that plan through the court. Today's meeting -- with Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture John Stulp and Harris Sherman, director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources -- comes following a town hall meeting in Wiggins last week where Ritter and other state officials were told of what Good and others called a 'pending economic catastrophe.'" Meanwhile the court case that is trying to get 200 wells back into production started up again yesterday, according to the Greeley Tribune (free registration required). From the article, "A trial that will determine the future operation of more than 200 irrigation wells along the South Platte River resumed Monday in the Weld County Courthouse. The water replacement plan submitted by the Central Colorado Water Conservancy District Water Augmentation Subdistrict is scheduled to conclude April 6. It is being heard before Judge Roger A. Klein in the Division 1 Water Court. The trial is the result of more than 400 irrigation wells in Adams, Weld and Morgan counties being shut down in the spring of 2006 for fear the water they would use would result in injury to senior water right holders downstream on the South Platte. Many of those wells were a part of the former Ground Water Appropriators of the South Platte which went out of business when it could no longer provide replacement water to the river they pumped during the growing season... "Monday's resumption of the trial started with Allen Curtis, representing the Harmony Ditch Co. as well as the Bijou Ditch Co. and Bijou Irrigation Co., all of which supply irrigation water to farmers in the Wiggins and Fort Morgan areas. He had Bruce Kroeker, a water engineer and president of TZA Water Engineers in Lakewood, on the stand to start the latest session of the trial. Kroeker, who has had dealings with the South Platte River since 1981 and has represented Bijou for the past 10 years, told Klein it was his opinion that Central's water budget, which deals with water depletion versus water replacement supplies, does not balance, which would result in injury to downstream water suppliers such as Bijou. The remainder of the trial is expected to deal with similar testimony from other objectors in the plan." Category: Colorado Water 7:23:51 AM     Basin roundtable update Here's an update on the Colorado Water Conservation Board projects, from the Glenwood Springs Post Indepentdent (free registration required). They write, "The Colorado Water Conservation Board awarded more than $4 million in grants for 15 water-related projects across the state this month, including a study of water demands on the Roaring Fork River. The CWCB has allocated $40 million over four years for water projects. Grants totaling $2.1 million were awarded to the Colorado River round table. The grants were awarded through nine local river basin round tables created by the Water for the 21st Century Act. The round tables represent each of Colorado's eight river basins and one each in Denver's north and south metro areas. The aim of the groups is to reach agreement on water distribution in the state... "The Ruedi Water and Power Authority was awarded $40,000 for a watershed study of the Roaring Fork River to determine specific demands for water. A $300,000 energy water needs study for the Yampa River basin will also be funded by the CWCB. The study aims to determine how much water will be needed for energy development, including oil shale... "Also winning grants were a proposed analysis of upper Colorado endangered fish recovery alternatives ($200,000) and enlargement of the Eagle Park Reservoir between Copper Mountain and Leadville ($250,000)." Category: Colorado Water 7:15:41 AM     Global warming: The Earth is a beautifully complex system Say hello to the Competitive Enterprise Institute. They are refuting many of the connected dots in Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth. They write, "An Inconvenient Truth (AIT), Al Gore's film and book on 'The planetary emergency of global warming and what can be done about it,' purports to be a non-ideological exposition of climate science and moral common-sense. In reality, AIT is a lawyer's brief for global warming alarmism and energy rationing. The only facts and studies Gore considers are those convenient to his scare-them-green agenda. And in numerous instances, he distorts the evidence he cites." Thanks to Jay Ambrose (via Ocala.com): for the link. Mr. Ambrose adds, "The assertion about a cities-submerging sea rise isn't just a minor part of the Gore film, but one of its exclamation marks, a mighty statement about this mighty, warming catastrophe that's headed our way, only now it is time for Gore to say, 'Oops, sorry about that, folks.' The scientific consensus as expressed in the recent U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is that the rise will not be 20 feet by 2101, or 15 or 10 or 5. It likely won't even be 20 inches, which is to say, we clever human beings will be able to adapt. "If you think maybe that's it -- that the movie's errors end there -- you haven't read a recent New York Times story in which rank-and-file scientists express concern that the movie confuses extreme speculation with certainty or learned how major think tanks, buttressing their criticisms with documentation, have had at the Oscar-winning movie and companion book with a vengeance. True, some scientists adore Gore, but there are not a few dissenting scientists who have a hard time finding an inarguable word in any of his warming pronouncements." Category: 2008 Presidential Election 7:07:05 AM

© Copyright 2007 John Orr. Last update: 4/1/07; 9:52:34 AM.