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Thursday, January 10, 2008
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Last June we celebrated the delisting of the Bald Eagle from the list of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. It was a success story we wanted to hear. While it's true that Bald Eagle stories are not directly related to water stories or election coverage they still make for a good read. Here's one about the Midwinter Bald Eagle Survey from The USGS. They write:
A key annual event in the recovery of bald eagle populations is entering its 30th year this week as hundreds of observers nationwide take part in the Midwinter Bald Eagle Survey. Observers from federal, state and local agencies, as well as conservation groups and private citizens, will participate in the survey by counting eagles along standard routes from January 2-16.
"The purpose of the survey is to monitor the status of wintering populations of bald eagles in the contiguous United States by estimating national and regional count trends," said Wade Eakle, the national survey coordinator and an ecologist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). This is the first time the USACE is coordinating the survey.
This week, the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) also announces results of a new analysis using the count data from 1986 through 2005. The analysis, based on 178,896 observations of wintering eagles during 8,674 surveys of 746 routes in 43 states, shows counts of wintering bald eagles increasing nationwide at a rate of 1.7% per year. Increases in counts over the 20-year period were highest in the northeast portion of the United States, with a 6% increase each year. In contrast, counts in the southwest portion decreased 1.2% each year over 20 years. Seventy-six percent of survey routes north of 40 degrees latitude had increasing count trends, but only 50% of routes south of 40 degrees latitude showed increasing trends.
Former survey coordinator and USGS scientist Karen Steenhof explains, "The survey is a unique source of long-term, baseline data and is especially useful in monitoring bald eagles following their removal from the U.S. Endangered Species List. The midwinter survey provides information on both breeding and nonbreeding segments of the population at a potentially limiting time of the year."
"The trends detected with the most recent analysis could be due to many factors," said Steenhof who led the analysis. "For example the increases in the north may be due to increasingly warmer winters or they may reflect reversal of some of the declines experienced when DDT was used."
Back during graduate school in the '70s Coyote Gulch used to watch 'em along the Bitteroot River and Clark Fork River. We even made it up to McDonald Creek occasionally when the Kokanee were running up out of Flathead Lake. In Denver we see them along Clear Creek and out at Barr Lake.
Category: Colorado Water
6:17:39 PM 
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Colorado met its obligations under the Rio Grande Compact according to a report from Colorado Division of Water Resources Division Engineer for Division III Michael Sullivan at this week's Rio Grande Basin Roundtable meeting, reports The Valley Courier. From the article:
Combining the totals from the Rio Grande and Conejos Rivers, the state ended 2007 with 7,700 acre feet credit over what it owed downstream states, Sullivan explained. The Rio Grande concluded the year with 6,300 acre feet credit, and the Conejos wound up with 1,400 acre feet to the good according to preliminary numbers, Sullivan added. He said he tried to hold the credit down and keep more of the water in the San Luis Valley rather than storing credit water in the downstream Elephant Butte Reservoir where some of the credit would be lost through evaporation. He said the preliminary figures show the Rio Grande hit 710,600 acre feet with peak numbers of more than 197,000 acre feet in both May and June. Of the more than 710,000 acre feet flowing down the Rio Grande, the state owed 209,300 acre feet to downstream states through the Rio Grande Compact. The projected annual index flow for the Rio Grande in May was only 550,000 acre feet, but those projections changed as the year progressed and the water kept coming. Sullivan said increased flows provided some gain in the system this year. "A couple of good years back to back really does seem to help the system revive," he said.
He said ditch curtailments reached a high of 33 percent from mid-August to mid-September on the Rio Grande, but flows were also higher. Sullivan said the curtailment was about the same pattern on the Conejos River system that encompasses the Conejos, Los Pinos and San Antonio Rivers. Curtailments on the Conejos reached 25 percent in mid-August. The Conejos system ran 279,300 acre feet according to the water division's preliminary data, and 94,900 acre feet of that was sent downstream to meet compact obligations.
Thanks to SLV Dweller for the link.
The Rio Grande Roundtable also voted unanimously to request dough for conservation easements along the river, according to The Valley Courier. From the article:
The Rio Grande Inter Basin Roundtable on Tuesday voted - this time unanimously - to resubmit to the state a request for $1.3 million from statewide water funds and $200,000 from Rio Grande Basin designated funds for the Rio Grande Initiative, a project designed to protect the Rio Grande corridor through voluntary conservation easements. The basin had unsuccessfully submitted the project to the state for funding in 2007. When the roundtable group considered the request the first time last summer, roundtable member Fred Bauder voted against it because he said he did not believe conservation easements were the most economical use of riparian areas. Assured that plenty of developable land would still be available for urban expansion, Bauder on Tuesday voted with the rest of the board to request funding from the state for the Rio Grande Initiative...
The original Rio Grande Initiative request last year was also for $1.5 million, the largest considered by the roundtable group, but the initial request was solely for statewide funding. Upon the state's recommendation, the revised request also includes $200,000 from the local basin's pool of money. The state legislature in 2006 approved $1 million specifically for each river basin as well as a larger multi-million-dollar pool of statewide funding, the Water Supply Reserve Account, for which projects in all of the river basins compete. Whether from the statewide account or local pot of money, all requests must progress first through the basin roundtable and then to the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) which acts on the requests. Valley resident Travis Smith chairs the CWCB. Smith said when the Rio Grande Initiative came before the CWCB before, the vote to fund it was one short. He said one board member had many questions about conservation easements and one board member was philosophically opposed to conservation easements, so the vote at that time was insufficient to provide the funding requested. "But the general sentiment from the board was they were very interested and supportive of this effort," Smith said, "so I am encouraged that we are going to get another shot at it." He said he was not overly confident the project would get the funding this time but was hopeful. The CWCB will reconsider this request during its March meeting.
Rio de la Vista, coordinator for the San Luis Valley Wetlands Focus Area Committee who presented the Rio Grande Initiative request to the roundtable, said the initiative project was successful in being awarded a $7.385 million Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) Legacy grant in December, the largest in the state, and the $1.5 million state/basin funds would provide a portion of the $2.9 million match for that grant. The GOCO grant will protect six ranches, 5,600 acres and 19 miles of river. Landowners will contribute $3.7 million through the value of their property. The $1.5 million from the Water Supply Reserve Account and Rio Grande Roundtable basin funds would be applied to conservation easements on four of the six ranches proposed to be included in the Rio Grande Initiative, or about 2,220 acres. The eligible group actually applying for the $1.5 million is the Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust (RiGHT.) RiGHT has already secured more than 10,000 acres in easements throughout the Valley since its inception in 1999. De la Vista said the Rio Grande Initiative emerged from a number of local community organizations' desire to protect as much of the river corridor as possible. The project will protect the riparian area through incentive-based voluntary conservation easements, de la Vista said. With those easements, landowners could not sell off their water rights, but the water rights would remain with the land. "That's one of our main motivations for doing this," she said.
Thanks to The Water Information Program for the link.
Category: Colorado Water
6:17:07 AM
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Recent disasters in New Orleans and Minnesota have served to help focus attention on infrastructure in the U.S. Here's a call to arms of sort to fund reviews and rehabilitation of dams from The University of Colorado. From the article:
The experts want to see more economical and effective rehabilitation of the nation's most deficient dams for the protection of the public and other infrastructure. The group of 25 engineers has wide representation from government, the private sector and higher education, and most are members of the United States Society on Dams, or USSD, and the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, or ASDSO. They endorsed the need to fund basic research to support national dam safety initiatives for the protection of life and property at a University of Colorado at Boulder workshop last fall. "Given the limited resources available to address maintenance of our aging infrastructure, we must develop a rational plan for rehabilitation based on thorough scientific research," said workshop co-organizer Victor Saouma, a professor of civil engineering who directs the George E. Brown Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation site at CU-Boulder. "Millions of dollars in rehabilitation and many lives can potentially be saved by properly studying and rehabilitating dams that are unsafe due to aging or at risk of failure from earthquakes or flooding."
The American Society of Civil Engineers' 2005 Report Card for America's Infrastructure gave dams in the United States a grade of D, as compared to a grade of C given to the nation's bridges. Technological advances through research are required for the development of investigative tools and new analytical methodologies to identify and correct deficient dams in the interest of public safety, according to the experts.
Of the 78,000 dams in the United States, 10,000 have a high-hazard potential, meaning that their failure could result in loss of life or severe property damage, according to the Dam Safety and Security Act of 2003. Many of the dams at risk are located along active fault lines in California. Additionally, the ASDSO has estimated it would cost more than $10 billion to upgrade the condition of all critical nonfederal dams -- dams that pose a direct risk to human life should they fail. Robin Charlwood, chairman of the Concrete Dams Committee of the International Commission on Large Dams and a USSD board member, stressed that investing in research now will save both time and money in addressing long-term needs. "There is a need to have more research and development to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the investment we must make in maintaining the availability and safety of our dams," Charlwood said...
Here's the link to Victor Saouma's Dam Research Web Page.
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
5:49:34 AM
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The EPA has ordered a excavator to restore a portion of Rock Creek after doing work in the creek without pulling all the right permits, according to The Rocky Mountain News. From the article:
The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered an excavating company to restore a section of creek and wetlands in city of Lafayette open space, which the firm allegedly damaged in violation of the Clean Water Act. The agency's regional office in Denver said Kenneth L. Schell and Twin Peaks Excavating Inc. dug a new stream channel in Rock Creek, filled nearby wetlands with debris and then filled about 150 feet of the original channel last March and April. The work was conducted without a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and without permission from Lafayette, the EPA said in a news release. The EPA ordered the company to remove unauthorized materials dumped in the creek and to restore the creek and wetlands to earlier conditions.
Category: Colorado Water
5:30:16 AM
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© Copyright
2008
John Orr.
Last update:
1/31/08; 9:13:08 AM.
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