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Sunday, January 13, 2008
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From The Denver Post, "As of this morning, all eight river basins in Colorado were above 100 percent of the 30-year average. That is excellent news for water users, especially in light of some forecasts calling for drought conditions later in the year. This morning the statewide average was 127 percent with the heaviest snowpack in the southwest, which struggled last year. This year they lead with the Upper Rio Grande reporting 162 percent and the San Miguel-Dolores-San Juan with 158 percent."
Category: Colorado Water
9:39:02 AM 
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Here's a recap of this week's meeting of the Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District from The Sterling Journal-Advocate. From the article:
In addition to voting eight more irrigation wells into the Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District on Tuesday, board members also heard a report on the Platte River Three States Agreement [pdf]. Jon Altenhofen from the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, who serves as an adviser concerning well augmentation, gave an update on the Three States Agreement between Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming. Checks should be cut next week, he said, to reimburse LSPWCD and other well users' groups for providing 2007 excess augmentation water to meet a portion of Colorado's water obligation to the program.
Noting the future of the program and coordination in the lower river, Altenhofen stated "We've got to have a plan and be flexible for South Platte Water Related Activities Program (SPWRAP). We're going to generate water for the Three States in two ways," he said. The first would be leasing it from owners at the going rate of $40 per acre foot. The other way would be by participating in up-front capital and operations costs similar to the Heyborne and other projects. "Then we can probably get some water there at less than $40," he said. However, it was noted by both Altenhofen and LSPWCD Manager Joe Frank that well depletions must be covered first in either scenario...
Frank reported on a meeting called by John Rusch, held Dec. 18 in Fort Morgan, to consider setting up some sort of cooperative effort to utilize fully consumable excess water between augmentation plans. Water users from Logan and Morgan counties attended. Water banking was discussed by Frank as an option, but needs some refinement. "Right now, the state rules and regulations say this can be done with stored water," Frank said. Others had also suggested that LSPWCD learn the details of each water group's decrees and operations concerning excess water and plan limitations, before proceeding. "We need to sit down and look at all the decrees and the language about excess (water)," Altenhofen said.
Category: Colorado Water
9:04:46 AM
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Don McBee and others plan to protest new efficiency rules for irrigators in the Arkansas Valley on Wednesday, according to The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
A large group of farmers is expected to show up at a meeting in Rocky Ford on Wednesday to protest proposed irrigation efficiency rules for surface irrigation and ask for help in meeting engineering requirements if the rules are put into effect. At approximately the same time, state officials will be huddling on the need and timing of the rules. Don McBee, who farms on the Fort Lyon Canal north of Lamar, has been organizing farmers on ditches throughout the valley to attend the meeting of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District at 10 a.m. Wednesday. "What we're trying to do is get enough people to show up to show how many people these rules will affect," said McBee, who has been encouraging others to attend the meeting through a radio interview, fliers and word of mouth. McBee said he is looking for at least 80 to 100 farmers to show up...
[Steve] Witte will be unable to attend the meeting because he will be in Denver meeting with newly appointed State Engineer Dick Wolfe and Colorado Water Conservation Board Director Jennifer Gimbel on the proposed rules. "We'll be deciding whether to proceed and on what kind of schedule," Witte said. "There is some question about whether to proceed now, or delay the rules to give us more time to study." It is possible the meeting could lead to a series of public meetings to refine the rules, Witte added...
The Lower Ark board has been critical of the rules, and generally is aligned with contentions by farmers that sprinklers do not automatically lead to higher consumptive use. The Lower Ark board also was skeptical that farmers could complete engineering studies in the 90-day period envisioned under the rules...
McBee also wants to use the gathering Wednesday to help organize efforts to talk to state officials about the proposed rules, since irrigators from different canals all would be in the same place. McBee said unity is needed. "What gets me is the division in farm owners. Already, you've got well owners opting out, saying they're already under rules," McBee said. "There's going to be fighting words either way." Well owners were placed under 1996 state rules that require measurement and augmentation of flows to offset pumping depletion, as a result of a Supreme Court decision that said Colorado well pumping violated the compact. The most dangerous part of the proposed rules would be artificially restricting irrigation diversions, McBee said. "If they took away the water now, and later told us we were right, you can bet they won't want to give us the water back," McBee said.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
8:49:41 AM
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From The Denver Post: "The serendipity of Tuesday's program for the Cutthroat Chapter of Trout Unlimited isn't difficult to grasp. The home water for most members is the upper basin of the South Platte River. No one knows more about the stretch of the river, its tributaries and reservoirs than Jeff Spohn. As area biologist for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, Spohn during the past half-dozen years has dealt with a variety of management challenges related to maintaining the best angling experience. He will address these biological issues, then host a discussion session. The event, at the South Metro Denver Realtors Association Building, northeast corner of South Broadway at Mineral, will begin at 7 p.m. For information, call 303-688-8541."
Category: Colorado Water
8:39:19 AM
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Here's the sixth of The Durango Herald's series on water availability in the Colorado River Basin. From the article:
For the last six weeks, The Durango Herald has examined water availability in the Colorado River Basin. The river and its tributaries are the last good source of water for the entire state. But how much is left? Is the state near the end of its legally allotted water from interstate treaties? Will oil companies claim most of Colorado's remaining water under their decades-old water rights? Will climate change cause drier years than we experienced in the 20th century? Should the Front Range be allowed to support its population growth with another pipeline from the Western Slope? The answer to these questions will determine what kind of a society Colorado will be.
There's a history for this sort of long-term thinking, right here in Southwest Colorado. The original inhabitants of Mesa Verde National Park knew how to capture water in reservoirs. Morefield [Farview] Reservoir operated for 350 years - longer than the United States has been a country, said Ken Wright, a water engineer who has written books about Mesa Verde's waterworks. "These people were industrious, and they had a social organization that was pretty darn good, with a hierarchy. Someone had to keep the reservoir in operation over 20 generations or so," Wright said...
Millions of people depend on the Colorado River. The complicated legal arrangements that govern the river mean all Coloradans are in it together - the first person to take water in violation of the Colorado River Compact will bring punishment upon the whole state. If downstream states sued upstream states for violating the compact, and Colorado lost, the state engineer would have to order many users to cut back on their water use. It remains an open question as to how much water Colorado really has left under the compact...
The ancestral Puebloans found their answers in the reservoirs they built under gnarled juniper trees on red mesa tops, with a view that stretched far to the south. Today, Colorado's water experts are more likely to be found in a beige conference room of a Holiday Inn Express. For two years now, hundreds of Coloradans have been working on committees set up under the Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act, passed in 2005 at the urging of Russ George, former director of the Department of Natural Resources. Their goal is to find long-term ways for Coloradans to use their water. With the state nearing the end of its legally available water under the 1922 compact, the people on these committees want to use what's left without touching off a Western Slope-Front Range water war...
For the first time, people from all corners of Colorado are getting to know each other's hopes and fears for their water. "The era of one basin imposing its will on another is over. There's got to be a win-win," said Harris Sherman, who took over as chairman of the IBCC when Bill Ritter became governor after the 2006 election...
It's all about helping local basins figure out their water needs and finding ways to meet those needs, said state Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, sponsor of the bills that created and funded the roundtables. "This wasn't created just to move water from one basin to another. It was created to meet the needs one basin at a time," Isgar said. The IBCC is waiting on each basin to finish an assessment of its own needs. Only then will the group start talking about moving water. Sherman wants the needs assessments to be done by the end of 2008...
The group has not yet dealt with a major new water project. But leaders of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, who have proposed a long pipeline from the Yampa River to the Front Range, said the IBCC would be a good place to talk about the plan...
Others see a chance to discuss the big picture. "Is muddling through with our current arrangement good enough, and if not, what else do we have? Well, we have the IBCC and the roundtable process," said Chips Barry, head of Denver Water and a member of the IBCC. "The issue at the heart of all these discussions is risk. How much risk are you willing to bear?" Barry said. The risk comes from the Colorado River Compact, which calculates the state's obligations to downstream states on a 10-year moving average. It's like a scale that tells you how much you weighed 10 years ago. You can pack on the pounds for a decade before you realize you're in trouble. Today in Colorado, the next big water project - maybe a pipeline, maybe oil-shale development - could push Colorado into violation of the compact. But it could take a decade or more for Colorado to discover it has taken too much water. Then, all parts of the state would have to cut back their water use. All of these choices eventually get into the hands of elected officials, and thus to the voters, Sherman said. The first way that citizens can get involved is by learning more [ed. Read Coyote Gulch  ], he said. "I think people in Colorado need to have a better understanding of how water works," Sherman said. "It's really important for people to become more knowledgeable in where water comes from."
More Coyote Gulch coverage here, here, here, here and here.
Category: Colorado Water
8:34:55 AM
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Here's a look at Senator Jim Isgar's influence in the state legislature and the water bills he's working on for this session, from The Telluride Watch. From the article:
Isgar served on a task force that is attempting to clean up massive fraud in the wildly popular conservation easement program, which allows tax credits on land that is protected from development. "There is no process to eliminate the fly-by-night land trusts and unscrupulous appraisers," said Isgar, who is working with House Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder, on the bill. "We want to do whatever it takes to protect the program."
Water-related bills that Isgar will sponsor include the annual construction bill from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which includes money to study the availability of water in the Colorado River system, and refining the revolving fund intended to help pay the upfront costs of potential water projects. "There is still a lot of work to be done to come up with good numbers before we start talking about any (diversion) projects," he said. "We know how much people divert, but we don't measure with great certainty what gets returned and how much is reused."
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
8:05:06 AM
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From email from Reclamation (Dan Crabtree): "The first seasonal runoff volume forecast for April through July is in. The Gunnison River Basin is forecasted, at this time, to have a runoff volume of 780,000 acre-feet for the April through July period, which is 108 percent of normal. The basin snowpack is currently 143 percent of normal as of today. In order to avoid large bypass flows later in the spring Reclamation needs to begin higher reservoir releases now. So, on Thursday Janaury 10th, releases from Crystal were increased by 200 cubic feet per second (cfs) going from 1100 cfs to 1300 cfs."
Category: Colorado Water
7:47:39 AM
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Routt County and Steamboat Springs are requesting dough to step up water quality monitoring on the Yampa River, according to The Steamboat Pilot & Today. From the article:
Routt County and the city of Steam-boat Springs are moving forward with their joint efforts to increase water quality monitoring on the Yampa River by requesting a $106,600 grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board. The grant would help fund the consolidation of available water quality information into a readily available format, an assessment report on both water quality and quantity and the development of a monitoring plan. The Yampa/White River Basin Roundtable, a group that addresses water issues in Northwest Colorado, has unanimously supported the grant request.
"We want to develop monitoring devices in the Routt County portion of the Yampa River Basin and hopefully monitor water quality on a continual basis," [Mike] Zopf said. "We want to be able to track changes in water quality over time. ... This study ultimately, and the monitoring that takes place eventually, will give us a better idea of what the overall water quality is." The U.S. Geological Survey would be contracted to perform the work. David Litke, a database and GIS specialist with the USGS said there is plenty of water quality data already available; the challenge is organizing it. "There's data spread out all over the place," Litke said. "But it's often hard to find the data. We've got together with several watershed groups to gather data into one database." After the existing data is consolidated, Litke said the USGS would identify gaps and recommend locations for additional water monitoring devices. In the end, all the information will be available on the Web for anyone to access. Litke said the Web site's main users would be government workers but said the information would be useful to the public as well, for example, if someone is suspicious about a discoloration in a stream and wants to make sure the water is safe...
[Geoff] Blakeslee said that the conservation board has never dedicated money from its "water supply reserve account" for a water quality project, but he noted that the fund is relatively new and that he thinks this project meets the requirements for approval. "This is an important piece of the entire puzzle as far as water supply for our future needs," Blakeslee said. Former Steamboat Springs City Councilman Ken Brenner, an outspoken advocate for water quality issues and a potential candidate for the state Senate, stressed that the project would monitor both ground and surface water.
Category: Colorado Water
7:43:50 AM
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© Copyright
2008
John Orr.
Last update:
1/31/08; 9:15:31 AM.
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