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Tuesday, January 8, 2008
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Say hello to H2O Conserve. They're into educating water users about conservation. Check them out.
Thanks to The Environmental News Network for the link. They write, "America's waterscape is changing. Climate shifts and population increases are putting pressure on our fresh water sources, leading to record-setting droughts and unprecedented water shortages. As we look for answers to this daunting problem, a new website called H2O Conserve is coming online to show us the way."
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
6:16:00 PM 
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The possible wetland violation near Granby is in the news again. According to a new study irrigation and ranching activities created the wetland conditions according to The Sky-Hi Daily News. From the article:
In response to an allegation concerning possible jurisdictional wetlands on the Byers Peak Ranch Property, owner Clark Lipscomb wants to make something clear. "We did do a wildlife study, we have had biologists work on this, and we feel we followed regulations." The piece of land that Lipscomb is referring to is located next to the Fraser Tubing Hill along the Fraser Valley Parkway (CR 721). In the fall of '07, an access road and parking lot (unpaved) were constructed on the lower section of the property to create a possible tubing hill in the future, and to provide a place to store machinery and equipment for farming during spring and summer months. But the construction prompted a call by a concerned member of the community to the U.S. Corps of Engineers; placing fill material on an area that could contain naturally occurring wetlands is against the Corps' regulations, and requires a 404 permit.
The concerned citizen believed Lipscomb was placing fill on jurisdictional (naturally occurring) wetlands, based on a study completed in 2003 by a company called Cedar Creek Associates. The 2003 study was completed because of plans for the Fraser Valley Parkway. Based on a different study, however, by Western Bionomics, a natural resource management company hired by Lipscomb, the 2003 study did not include the property in question, or take into account that it is heavily irrigated. Lipscomb did not obtain a 404 permit, he explained, because the wetland consultants he hired studied the site beforehand and concluded the wetlands are caused by irrigation, and therefore are not naturally occurring, he said. The Western Bionomics study was sent to the Sky Hi Daily News last week...
Nick Mezei, environmental engineer with the Frisco office, is analyzing the property in question. Mezei said he suspects there are wetland patches on the Byers Peak Ranch Property due to the presence of wetland vegetation, but whether they are jurisdictional will most likely be known in the spring, when a true test of whether the soils are naturally saturated can be conducted. Mezei is basing some of his analysis on the Cedar Creek study, but the Western Bionomics study states: "None of this development is within an area delineated by Cedar Creek as jurisdictional wetlands." A more thorough analysis will have to wait until springtime, but Lipscomb plans to keep developing his property until that time, once he receives approval from the town of Fraser and Grand County. The property is awaiting annexation into Fraser and requires a special use permit from the county for its winter activities, such as the tubing hill. The permit would grant permission to install a lift on property.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:49:21 AM
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Here's a look at conservation easements and the win-win they enable between riparian habitat and agriculture from The Cherry Creek News. From the article:
A flurry of year-end activity to finalize conservation easements on unique properties across Colorado has protected significant new parcels from future development, according to land conservation groups from around the state. The new conservation deals encompass lands in San Miguel, Rio Grande, Chaffee, Saguache and Eagle counties. Tens of thousands of acres in every corner of the state were protected during all of 2007. "We've seen conservation easements finalized across the state just in the last few weeks that will conserve farms and ranchland, scenic areas, wildlife habitat, migration routes and unique spaces that otherwise would be lost to development," said Jill Ozarski, executive director of the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts...
Hughes Ranch and Bray Ranch Conservation easements were finalized on two properties in San Miguel County in December. The 640-acre Hughes easement and the 400-acre Bray easement are parts of larger ranch holdings that are adjacent to or near large protected areas. Together these two easements protect traditional agricultural landscapes and they conserve native biodiversity, migratory links for the imperiled Gunnison sage-grouse and habitat for the rare Canadian lynx. The Hughes Ranch consists largely of irrigated high mountain meadow and grassland, while the Bray Ranch provides habitat for the Gunnison sage-grouse.
Wilson Ranch: This conservation easement in Rio Grande County was completed on Dec. 17, and will protect more than 1,600 acres of property where the Rio Grande River flows for more than two miles. The property also includes several hundred acres of irrigated meadows with water rights that provide critical wildlife habitat for a variety of native species. The land was donated in full by Virginia and Roland Wilson and adds to an initiative to protect the Rio Grande Corridor from Creede to Alamosa. "We feel fortunate to own such a beautiful ranch and to know that with the conservation easement, it will always stay that way for future generations to enjoy," said the Wilsons.
Post Office Ranch On Dec. 28, the first working ranch in Chaffee County to be protected from development was placed under a conservation easement. The family owning the property chose to pursue a conservation easement to ensure that the next generation would be able to continue ranching the property. The land includes irrigated hay meadows along both sides of more than one mile of the South Arkansas River. "Doing this, first and foremost requires a love for the land," said Dean Roberts, owner of the Post Office Ranch.
Jordan Ranch: The 160 acre Jordan Ranch conservation easement is the latest purchase of the Colorado Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust (CCALT) in the Saguache Creek Corridor in Saguache County, an intact working ranch landscape which runs 25 miles west from the Town of Saguache. The Jordan Ranch is almost entirely irrigated hay meadow, lies on both sides of Highway 285, and is highly visible to travelers. The ranch is CCALT's 15th conservation easement in the Saguache Creek Corridor, where nearly 11,000 acres have been protected with conservation easements since 2001.
Gates Ranch Covering 740 acres in Eagle County, this ranch has been held by the same family for five generations since 1898. The property is located in an established ranching community on the Derby Mesa in the northwest section of the county. It includes a diverse landscape with irrigated hayfields, forested areas and bottom land near Derby Creek. The sale of this conservation easement will allow one of the Gates' sons to remain on this property while enabling the other son to purchase his own ranch, and thus continue their ranching heritage for yet another generation.
The conservation community in Colorado came together in 2007 to help pass a new state law (House Bill 1361, sponsored by House Majority Leader Alice Madden and Sen. Jim Isgar) which increases the standards, transparency and accountability under the state tax credit for conservation easements. Many of these changes from the new law went into effect on January 1, and include additional reporting requirements for taxpayers who claim conservation easement tax credits that will make enforcement easier. Requirements for public reporting on lands preserved with tax credits and organizations that hold conservation easements were increased, as were standards for conservation easement appraisers. Conservation groups have partnered with legislators on a state task force that is recommending additional reforms for the coming legislative session to tighten up the program even further.
Category: Colorado Water
6:31:48 AM
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Climate change deniers accuse those of us that are certain that the planet is warming of cherry picking the facts. Then they turn around and cherry pick the facts to support their view. Here's a look at Antarctica's ice sheet from IndyBay. They write:
The climate change deniers never miss a chance to tell us that research is showing the Antarctic ice sheet is actually growing. That sounds like the total amount of ice is increasing and things are just fine ... the globe isn't heating up if it's not happening there ... right? That IS enough to make some people disbelieve the climate scientists because, after all, no one wants to think the climate is going to steadily get worse. We all secretly hope that the deniers are right. Yes, the Antarctic ice sheet is growing in height in the central region, but making just that one point is very misleading and quite dishonest. There is an enormous amount of research that has been conducted on the poles and there is much more to the story than just the increase in snow in the middle of the continent. Indeed the coast is where the real action is.
The leading U.S. climate scientist Dr. James Hansen responded via email saying "The most precise data on the mass of the ice sheets, from the gravity satellite, show that, overall, Antarctica is losing mass, as is Greenland, even though East Antarctica is gaining a small amount of mass."
"All of the models, and the observations, have the central parts of Greenland and Antarctica growing faster because of global warming. This is a consequence of warmer air holding more moisture, thus increasing snowfall. But the net effect of warming on both continental ice sheets is mass loss, the increased melting being a larger effect than the increased snowfall. He also said "The fact that West Antarctica is shedding mass at a substantial rate, even though there is only small warming of surrounding sea surface temperatures, is a telling fact in my opinion, and a likely consequence of the warming ocean at depth, which affects the ice shelves that buttress West Antarctica, as discussed in our paper "Dangerous human-made interference with climate: a GISS modelE study." [pdf]
Read the whole article, they include a lot of detail about the current melting at the poles.
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
6:22:59 AM
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From The Colorado Springs Gazette: "The state health department has told customers of a tiny northern El Paso County water district to boil their water after an open valve allowed untreated water into the system. The boil order, which went into effect Friday, affects the 285 homes in the Forest View Acres Water District located between Monument and Palmer Lake. 'It will probably be Wednesday or Thursday before the boil order is lifted,' said Forest View board president Rich Crocker. The trouble started Thursday when operators, who were installing new filters at the water treatment plant, accidentally left a valve open, letting water from Lower Monument Creek flow into the district storage tank, Crocker said. That caused the tank level to rise, setting off alarms Friday morning, Crocker said. Operators closed the valve later that day, he said."
Category: Colorado Water
6:05:22 AM
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The Colorado State Legislature is set to kick off this week and they have some serious issues to tackle including a possible Colorado
River call and legislation to deal with stream flow, according to The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, has long been concerned about what the state should do if such downstream states as California, Nevada and Arizona place a call on their portion of water that flows down the Colorado River. He said that under a 1922 compact, those lower basin states are allocated 75 million acre-feet of consumptive water over a 10-year period. Colorado and other upper basin states share whatever is left. But when the West experienced one of its worst droughts in recent history in 2002, Colorado and the other upper states were only able to comply with that compact due to a full storage supply. What would happen if a drought hit when storage supplies are low, Isgar asked. "I'm not satisfied that we all wait until the Colorado River goes on a shortage allocation," he said. "While we're developing how we deal with a shortage, we should also talk about how we would prevent a shortage in the first place."[...]
Since Isgar first came to the Colorado Senate in 2001, he's been saying that people don't already realize that when water is diverted from the Yampa River in the Northwest corner of the state, it affects the state's downstream obligations for everyone else, including folks in his southwest corner of the state. That's why Isgar was considering introducing a measure that would have put strict limits on new water allocations in any one of the four river basins on the Western Slope that ultimately feed into the main channel of the Colorado River. Short of banning interbasin water transfers altogether, Isgar said the state needs to adopt a more long-term, regional approach to water transfers. But because that idea was proving to be too controversial, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee decided it was enough, for now, to get funding for a study that would look at ways the state could deal with the issue. "I wanted to elevate the discussion, and to a large degree I've done that," Isgar said. "We need to take a look at what we might do to be pro-active to prevent or alleviate a shortage."[...]
In the meantime, Rep. Randy Fischer, D-Fort Collins, is working on a measure designed to increase flows in the state's rivers. Part of a package of environmental measures backed by some of the state's biggest environmental groups, Fischer said his measure is designed to protect water owners' rights. Fischer said he hopes the measure, the details for which are still being worked out, will encourage them to allow more of their water to remain in the state's rivers without jeopardizing their ownership. "For a lot of different reasons, there are legal and economic barriers for folks entering into long-term contracts with the CWCB (Colorado Water Conservation Board) on use of their water rights for in-stream flow," Fischer said. "The issue is, if there's been a change of water rights, the value of that right can go down. This would protect the consumptive use of that water, and it would protect (water owners) from claims of abandonment."
More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.
Category: Colorado Water
5:56:49 AM
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Here's a report on snowpack up in Northwest Colorado from The Craig Daily Press. From the article:
Measurements taken Jan. 1 show the Yampa and White river basins didn't benefit from December snowstorms as much as the state's southern regions, leaving the local area with below-average snowpack...
Based on current measurements, the Yampa and White river basins are "predicted to have a little less spring and summer runoff," said Chris Pacheco, NRCS assistant snow survey supervisor. Still, the region has surpassed last year's snowfall and its snowpack has increased since Jan. 1. Northwest Colorado has achieved 118 percent of last year's snowpack, Pacheco said. Six days after its initial study, the conservation service found the Yampa and White river basins had accumulated 95 percent of their average snowpack -- a situation that, "unless something unusual happens," is unlikely to change soon, Pacheco said. Northwest Colorado receives 40 percent of its average snowfall by Jan. 1, he said.
More snowpack news from The Pueblo Chieftain. They write:
At the Cumbres Trestle measuring station near the New Mexico border, the U.S. Geologic Survey snow-measuring gauge had been overwhelmed by the snowfall Monday but still was registering water content - a whopping 22 inches of water - hinting at two or three times that amount of snow. "It's not a record amount of snow but we're doing pretty well in the mountains right now," said Peter Juba, water resources supervisor for the Pueblo Board of Water Works...
Below are snow depths reported by USGS snow-measuring stations at various locations in the Southern Colorado mountains as of Monday:
1 - Cochetopa Pass 15"
2 - Whiskey Creek 22"
3 - Medano Pass 22"
4 - Rough and Tumble 21"
5 - Glen Cove 8"
6 - Cumbres Trestle 22" (water)
7 - Clear Creek 29"
8 - Grizzly Lake 59"
Juba noted that at Grizzly Lake on the Western Slope side of the Twin Lakes Tunnel in central Colorado, caretakers were reporting nearly 60 inches of snow Monday with more falling. Farther south on the Arkansas River, there was nearly 30 inches on the ground at Clear Creek Reservoir.
More coverage from The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. From the article: "According to the National Resource Conservation Service, water content of snow in the Gunnison River Basin is 142 percent of normal levels."
Here's the link to the Colorado Snotel website.
Category: Colorado Water
5:41:28 AM
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© Copyright
2008
John Orr.
Last update:
1/31/08; 9:12:21 AM.
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