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Thursday, December 20, 2007
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Stygius nails the background, issues and highlights the opposition to Powertech's proposed uranium mine up in Weld County, over at SquareState.
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
7:16:08 PM 
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From The Durango Herald, "La Plata County commissioners on Tuesday formally brought into existence the Lake Durango Water Authority with the approval of an agreement to govern the body. The agreement among the county and Durango West I and II subdivisions establishes the authority, which was created to take over operations of the private company that supplies those and other nearby subdivisions. "Essentially, this is the constitution for this new entity," County Attorney Jeff Robbins, who helped craft the agreement, told commissioners during their regular business meeting. In July, owner Bob Johnson agreed to sell the water company, which for years has been plagued with complaints of inadequate supply and poor quality. The agreed sale price was $2.45 million."
Category: Colorado Water
7:13:20 AM
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The town of Snowmass is looking at extensive water and sewer improvements over the next few years, according to The Snowmass Village Sun. From the article:
As the town reviews its comprehensive plan and makes decisions on how to deal with future development, growth, affordable housing and other town-wide issues, the Snowmass Water and Sanitation District (SWSD) has to do the same thing with its water system infrastructure and sanitation facilities. As Snowmass Village expands toward its build-out capacity over the next 10-15 years, the SWSD has to figure out how to pay for the cost of replacing hundreds of miles of aging piping and other water infrastructure at a cost of millions of dollars. This week, the SWSD took the next step in fiscal planning with the adoption of its 2008 budget. Next year's budget calls for a 4.5 percent increase in service fees (which most residents pay on a quarterly basis), which will result in a 4.3 percent increase in estimated revenue. At this time, there will be no increase in tap fees. "The board instigated a study of our water rates last year," noted Kit Hamby, executive director for the Snowmass Water and Sanitation District. "We've hired a company, Red Oak Consulting, and have looked at some of the preliminary numbers. Once that is completed early next year, we'll look at numbers like our tap fees."
In 2008, the SWSD is proposing revenue of $3.643 million. Total water and sanitation expenditures are planned at $2.047 million, total general and administrative expenditures are planned to be $692,833 and total general and debt service expenditures are $1.291. At the beginning of next year, the SWSD plans to have $4.8 million in cash on hand, of which they will spend a little over $3 million of that amount this next year on capital improvements. The District has plans for a total of $4.07 million in new water capital expenditures, and $1.21 million in sanitation capital expenditures. They hope to bring in a little more in $3.46 million in new system development fees (tap fees) to pay for those expenditures. The difference will be paid by cash that has been banked by the SWSD.
Category: Colorado Water
7:08:11 AM
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From The Sky-Hi Daily News, "Union Pacific Railroad, which operates the Moffat Tunnel, has been draining water from the west portal of the tunnel into the Fraser River without a discharge permit. The water from the tunnel contains certain materials and contaminants that the water picks up along its path. Some estimate the contaminated water has been flowing into the Fraser River for quite some time. Union Pacific Railroad (UPR) is now applying for a discharge permit for the west portal of the Moffat Tunnel from the Colorado Department of Health and Environment, a permit that is required for any entity discharging into the watershed. It will require that the water be treated prior to flowing into the Fraser River."
More from the article:
Winter Park Town Planner Drew Nelson told Town Council members yesterday that he has drafted a letter to the Colorado Department of Health and Environment stating concerns about UPR's application for the permit. In the application, UPR requested variances from certain requirements in the permit process, such as waiving the need to remove suspended solids from the discharge. Nelson stated in the letter that a number of water systems, such as local water treatment plants, utilize the Fraser River for drinking water purposes, and any reduced treatment of UPR's discharge shifts the burden of treatment and removal of contaminants to those plants. Extra pollutants would also further contaminate the Fraser River, which is already listed as endangered. "Significant efforts have been made to remove pollutants and materials from the Fraser River ..." the letter states. "We believe that it is in the public's interest for UPR to meet the same standards that others are striving to meet in the Fraser River Watershed." Nelson's letter asked the Colorado Department that UPR be held to the most stringent water quality discharge standards in the Colorado Water Quality Control Act and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. Town Council approved the letter.
Category: Colorado Water
7:03:04 AM
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Here's a recap of Tuesday's meeting of the Pueblo Board of Water Works from The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
A cooperative effort on Fountain Creek should result in a master plan by next October, but its sponsors are hoping for much more. "Our goal is to create a sustainable legacy that will go far beyond the next two years," said Kevin Shanks, of THK Associates. The firm was chosen to lead a team under a $600,000, two-year plan funded jointly by the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District and Colorado Springs Utilities. Along with landscape architect Merle Grimes, Shanks outlined plans for Fountain Creek to the Pueblo Board of Water Works Tuesday. The presentation was the same one shown last month to Pueblo and Colorado Springs city councils and Pueblo and El Paso county commissioners...
The master plan will be followed by demonstration projects to show what is possible, Shanks said. The challenge with Fountain Creek will be to work with many different landscapes in a coordinated effort to reduce erosion, improve water quality, preserve wildlife habitat, create recreation opportunities and save farm land. "We have urban segments and rural segments," Shanks said. "In order to ensure the health of the creek, we will have to look at all of those assets." The group is also working closely with the Fountain Creek Vision Task Force to make sure its goals fit in with the direction of that effort. "We're looking for every single partnership and trying to do everything that can be done," Shanks said. A big part of fixing Fountain Creek will be to realize that changes come both from man and nature, Grimes said. Grimes showed the water board slides of stretches of Fountain Creek that are already functioning well as wetlands, such as the Clear Springs Ranch area owned by Colorado Springs Utilities near Pikes Peak International Raceway.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:54:52 AM
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The Pueblo Board of Water Works and the city of Aurora have finalized their agreement for the operation of the Busk-Ivanhoe system, according to The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
An agreement that formalizes the operation of the Busk-Ivanhoe system has been reached between the Pueblo Board of Water Works and Aurora. The water board unanimously approved the agreement Tuesday. Pueblo purchased half of the Busk-Ivanhoe system from the High Line Canal in 1971, while Aurora bought most of the remaining shares in 1988. The system collects water from three ditches, bringing it into Ivanhoe Lake, located at 11,500 feet elevation on the Western Slope...
The system provides an average of more than 5,000 acre-feet annually (roughly 2,500 acre-feet to each partner) and costs about $130,000 to operate, mostly to pay caretakers who live at Ivanhoe Lake from April to October to maintain the system. Another $1 million in improvements are planned in the next three years to improve living quarters, make some dam repairs and build a shop, said Bud O'Hara, water resources manager. The first priority will be building two new homes, at $400,000, to replace the relatively primitive 1950s-era cabins at Ivanhoe. "It's a lot, but water is precious," O'Hara said. "Used to be, we could hire guys who wanted to be mountain men, but after being outside in the cold and wet all day, they want to come inside where it's warm, maybe watch some TV."[...]
Ivanhoe is a glacial lake, which has a dam to back water into the Carlton Tunnel, a railroad structure that has collapsed in places. Right now, there are no plans to repair the tunnel, because it is still capable of carrying about 52 cubic feet per second, the maximum diversion rate, O'Hara said. An emergency plan would bring water through excess capacity in the Boustead Tunnel, part of the Fryingpan-Arkansas System if the Carlton Tunnel becomes unusable in the future. Ivanhoe sits above the Fry-Ark system's Western Slope collection system, O'Hara explained. Water from the tunnel flows down Busk Creek into Turquoise Lake, where it can be stored until needed in either the Pueblo or Aurora water system. The water can flow down the Arkansas River into Lake Pueblo for the water board's use, while Aurora diverts through the Otero Pipeline at Twin Lakes through the Otero Pumping Station and into Spinney Mountain Reservoir in the South Platte River basin...
Under the agreement approved Tuesday, Pueblo will retain ownership of the system's infrastructure and there will be few changes in how the system is operated, O'Hara said. The current operating agreement dates back to a deal reached "on a handshake" with the High Line Canal when the water board first purchased its half. Aurora picked up the obligations to share costs. The new agreement clarifies the roles of each city.
Category: Colorado Water
6:47:25 AM
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From KJCT8.com, "The Grand Valley's largest domestic water provider says it'll raise water rates an average of 10% in the new year. Officials with the Ute Water Conservancy District announced yesterday that rates will go up as of January 1st. Residential customers currently pay $11 monthly for the first 3,000 gallons, $2.60 per thousand for the next 6,000 gallons, and $3.50 per thousand for the following 6,000 gallons. The base rate will remain the same under the new plan, but succeeding rates will jump to $3 per thousand and $3.50 per thousand gallons, respectively...Tap fees will also rise by $300 by $5,800."
More coverage from The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. They write:
Ute Water officials say the rate increase is designed to promote water conservation by forcing people who use the most water to pay the largest increase in price. "Our water rate system is a reflection of our continuing efforts to promote efficient water use in the Grand Valley," Ute Water spokesman Joe Burtard said. Tap fees will increase 5 percent from $5,500 to $5,800. Revenue from tap fees pays for infrastructure and maintenance. Property owners within Ute Water's boundaries can expect to see their tax bills decline. The district's 2008 mill levy will decrease from 1 mill to one-half mill, saving taxpayers an estimated $650,000 next year. Ute Water's board of directors voted Dec. 12 to increase water rates and tap fees and reduce the mill levy.
Category: Colorado Water
6:31:47 AM
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Here's a background piece on the Ogallala Aquifer from Ethanol Producer Magazine. They write:
The High Plains aquifer, also known as the Ogallala aquifer, lies under portions of eight states: South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas. It is one of the largest aquifers in the world, spanning about 175,000 square miles. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, approximately 27 percent of the irrigated land in the United States is in this region, and about 30 percent of the groundwater used for irrigation in the United States is pumped from the Ogallala aquifer. In 2000, irrigation withdrawals were 17 billion gallons per day and 1.9 million people were supplied by groundwater from the Ogallala aquifer with total public supply withdrawals of 315 million gallons per day, according to the USGS. The aquifer is not only large, but it's also accessible. "It's relatively shallow, the quality is relatively good, so it's very user friendly," says David Hume, a hydrogeologist and senior associate at Leggette, Brashears & Graham Inc.
The aquifer was formed over millions of years, but has since been cut off from its original natural sources and is being depleted faster than it can be recharged. The water table in the Ogallala Formation is separated from overlying land-use practices by as much as 400 feet of unsaturated sediments, and recharge has been estimated to take at least 50 years. Over extraction has led to substantial declines in the water table in many places, complete exhaustion of extractable groundwater in others, and debate and legislation about the aquifer's future, according to a report by Environmental Defense, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group formerly known as the Environmental Defense Fund. The report, "Potential Impact of Biofuels Expansion on Natural Resources; a case study of the Ogallala aquifer region," was released in September. Large portions of the aquifer show declines in the water table of more than 100 feet. Some reports have found that the water level is dropping by 3 to 5 feet a year in some areas. Estimates for its lifespan range from 60 to 250 years, depending on the area...
Years of drought have made aquifer resources even more important in the Plains states. Now that ethanol has moved into all corners of the aquifer people are starting to express concern over the industry's impact. Ethanol brings an increased demand for corn, which must be irrigated, and production of the fuel also requires significant amounts of water. Like many industrial processes, water is vital to ethanol production. The majority is used in the cooling process; the amount used can be influenced by the quality of the water, Yancey says. The production process uses between 3 to 5 gallons of water for every gallon of ethanol produced. In the past few years, the lack of water has stopped the development of some plants. Proposed plants from Florida to northern Minnesota to California have faced opposition from those concerned about the facilities' water use. "Regulatory agencies and the public are more aware of the volume of water required," Hume says. "Opposition at public meetings has certainly increased in the past few years compared with when the industry first took off -- you might have a few residents who would be concerned about the impact a plant could have on their water supply. In general, the industry has become more aware of possible oppostion and the importance of water for plant operations." Some of the awareness likely comes from media coverage of recent reports about ethanol's water requirements...
The Ogallala aquifer is certainly stressed. "This aquifer is currently being pumped at a rate of more than 1.5 billion gallons per day for agriculture, municipalities, industry and private citizens," the report [National Research Council titled "Water implications of biofuels production in the United States"] reads. "Thus, 15 million gallons per day for bioethanol would represent only 1 percent of total withdrawls. But it is an incremental withdrawal from an already unsustainable resource. Current water withdrawals are much greater than the aquifer's recharge rate (about 0.02 to 0.05 foot per year in south-central Nebraska...), resulting in up to a 190-foot decline in the water table over the past 50 years. It is equivalent to 'mining' the water resource, and the loss of the resource is essentially irreversible."[...]
Read the whole article, there is a lot of detail there. More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
6:27:46 AM
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Here's a report on Aurora's rates from The Aurora Sentinel. They write:
In November, the city reservoirs' total storage was at 82 percent of capacity, up from 68 percent at the same time last year. If there's an average or better spring runoff in 2008, water officials believe the city's reservoirs could reach capacity.
The Aurora City Council is grappling with a way to revamp the rate structure while still raising the funds necessary to pay for the $750 million Prairie Waters Project. Some individual residents and homeowners associations saw their water rates skyrocket this summer when an overall 12-percent increase affected residents differently. Mayor Ed Tauer and members of City Council acknowledged the city made a mistake and have said they're working to remedy the situation. The city is also offering rebates to residents who used less water this summer than last summer, but still saw their bill jump by more than 30 percent. The rebates are expected to affect about 1,000 residents and will refund between $500,000 and $600,000. Next month the water policy committee plans to meet twice in hopes of sketching out a new rate plan in time for next year's irrigation season. The city is also planning to hold two public meetings for residents and one meeting for homeowners associations in January to address their concerns.
Category: Colorado Water
6:13:59 AM
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Here's a look at generating electricity from ocean wave motion from The Los Angeles Times (free registration required). From the article:
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. went surfing Tuesday, becoming the first U.S. utility to commit to buying electricity generated by the tumult of the sea. The San Francisco-based company, which this year proposed a test facility for producing power from ocean waves, said the electricity in its new contract would come from a wave project planned by Canada's Finavera Renewables Inc. for the waters off the coast of Northern California's Humboldt County.
The PG&E Corp. subsidiary said power from the 15-year deal would be delivered beginning in 2010 and would provide a relatively meager boost to the grid: just 2 megawatts, or enough to power about 1,500 homes. But the company said the power deal was a significant milestone for a promising technology that could be a major source of renewable energy for the state. "Given the potential for wave power off the coast of California, it's definitely something that's exciting for us," said Uday Mathur of PG&E's energy procurement department. "This shows the marketplace that there is a demand for it."
Finavera, based in Vancouver, is one of many companies chasing technologies designed to harness the force of the ocean to produce power. Some hope to tap the sea's below-surface tidal forces, some target the power of breaking waves, and Finavera and others have focused on surface waves offshore...
Finavera's "wave park" would include eight bobbing buoys set up about 2 1/2 miles offshore from Eureka, Calif. The up-and-down motion of the Pacific Ocean would power a pump that creates electricity, which would be delivered to a PG&E substation via an underwater transmission cable. PG&E and Finavera wouldn't disclose the cost of the project or the power, but both acknowledged that the electricity would be pricier than more established alternatives. The power contract must win approval from the California Public Utilities Commission; the wave project must pass muster with a host of federal and state agencies. In Humboldt County, 100 miles south of the Oregon border, residents welcomed the notion of adding new alternative energy sources, but they were concerned about the effect on the region's fishing industry and surfing culture. Some groups also worry that whales and other sea life could be harmed by the equipment. "If we can make sure it's done in the most environmentally friendly way, then I'm all for it," said Pete Nichols, an activist who hosts two environmental shows on local radio stations.
Bill Lydgate, an avid surfer, was worried that the facility would alter conditions at the region's best surfing spots. The locations "become very important in our small minds, and anything that would take away from their majesty is a threat," he said. Lydgate also said locals were concerned because the technology was so new. "I'd hate for them to experiment in our backyard. I'd like to see proven technologies come in rather than have unknown impacts from an experimental technology," he said.
Thanks to The Water Information Program for the link.
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
6:02:37 AM
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© Copyright
2008
John Orr.
Last update:
1/1/08; 1:25:48 PM.
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