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Wednesday, March 5, 2008
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The cutthroat trout in Trapper Creek have attracted a donation from an mysterious source according to The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. From the article:
A small population of Colorado River cutthroat on the Roan Plateau will receive some much-needed attention this summer, but it's still a mystery where some of the money for the project is coming from. According to a press release from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a group called the Western Native Trout Initiative recently was given official recognition as a "National Fish Partnership" by the National Fish Habitat Board, an arm of the Fish and Wildlife Service. That means the Initiative qualifies for some federal matching funds for 22 trout projects across the West, including one on Trapper Creek on the Roan Plateau. How much money? According to a press release from the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Initiative will receive $600,000 for the projects, which include rebuilding a mile-long exclosure around a section of Trapper Creek to keep cattle away from the stream. Robin Knox, formerly the sportfish manager for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, is the Initiative coordinator and said the project is funded by an Initiative grant of $7,750 matched to another $24,000 coming from the Bureau of Land Management ($18,000) Colorado Trout Unlimited ($3,000) and Colorado Big Country ($3,000).
The latter's full name is Colorado Big Country Research Conservation and Development Council, a nonprofit group working in 10 northwest Colorado counties to "improve land conservation, land management, water management and community development," according to its Web site. Research Conservation and Development Councils were established in 1962 and work under the National Resources Conservation Service. The Colorado Big Country RC&D, one of eight in Colorado, was designated in 1972. After learning Colorado Trout Unlimited had no knowledge of the Initiative grant or the $3,000 supposedly promised by CTU, I talked to John Trammell, a member of the Grand Valley Anglers Chapter of TU and one of the many volunteers who have worked on Trapper Creek over the past 20 years or so. Trammell has been working on the latest Trapper Creek project and was surprised to hear of the Colorado Big Country money because he thought the request deadline had been missed. Trammell said CTU wasn't giving money, it was the local TU chapter but he thought it was only $1,500, not $3,000. "The GVA committed $1,500 as matching funds for a TU Embrace-A-Stream grant, but we didn't get the grant so I asked the chapter to chip in a little more," Trammell said. No decision has been made on adding to the local grant, Trammell said.
Category: Colorado Water
7:17:03 AM 
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Officials from the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District have had their interest piqued for a different route for the Southern Delivery System than the preferred alternative named by Reclamation, according to The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
The possibility that a water supply pipeline to Colorado Springs downstream of the confluence of Fountain Creek and the Arkansas River could be more cost-effective than one from Pueblo Dam should make the city take pause and re-examine the option, the chairman of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District said Tuesday. "I'm not telling them how to run their water system, but they need to run it so it stops hurting us in the lower valley," said John Singletary, Lower Ark chairman. "In order to use Fountain Creek in a meaningful manner, we need to address the issue of flows together."
Singletary said a project like Prairie Waters, which Aurora is building to physically recycle its return flows, makes sense for Fountain Creek, in light of the fact that cost estimates in the Bureau of Reclamation's draft environmental impact statement show the firm yield from a downstream intake would be 60 percent greater than the dam route for the proposed Southern Delivery System. The alternative would add $700 million to the $1.7 billion cost of SDS over a 40-year period, but would produce a higher firm yield of water because most return flows could be directly recaptured. The cost over the life of the program would be about 12 percent less. In the dam route, flows are exchanged into Lake Pueblo, and opportunities for exchange would be limited by decrees, river conditions and flow management programs...
The Fountain Creek route costs more to build initially, $1.27 billion versus $1.07 billion, because it includes an additional pump station. It costs more to operate over the 40-year life of the project because reverse osmosis treatment and disposal would be needed. Colorado Springs is allowed to reuse return flows from transmountain water deliveries and some fully consumable native rights. Singletary suggests using a series of reservoirs along the pump-back route to help clean the water returning to Colorado Springs. Economically, it could make sense because of the higher yield of the downstream alternative and the potential to attract partners like Colorado State Parks and the Division of Wildlife by improving Fountain Creek, Singletary said. "At first blush, and all I know is what I've read in the paper, it looks like Colorado Springs Utilities would be doing the right thing for its ratepayers by taking out below the confluence," Singletary said. "My goal in negotiations is to match water quality for water quality (from the dam and from Fountain Creek). I see this as a potential boon for Colorado Springs."[...]
Under the proposal to build a pipeline from the dam, Colorado Springs proposes to send its unused return flows down Fountain Creek, which would double its releases over a 40-year period. Singletary said the additional water in itself is not necessarily detrimental, if it is of the same quality as the Arkansas River at the confluence and if the flows are adequately managed. "If a dam is feasible, we need to look at that too," Singletary said. Singletary also bristled at Fredell's suggestion Monday that Colorado Springs is entitled to use the dam route because it has paid more than 70 percent of ad valorem taxes for the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. The statement is often made by Colorado Springs officials in public presentations. "I take great umbrage at that statement," Singletary said, pointing out that only $150 million of a $585 million federal project is being repaid through the ad valorem taxes, and has not yet been fully repaid. "Colorado Springs has benefitted manifestly in the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project because of Lake Pueblo, the Fountain Valley Pipeline, Twin Lakes and Turquoise Lakes. They would never have grown the way they did without it, and they've recovered their investment tenfold...Their statements offend the hell out of me, because the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project was intended to benefit the lower valley."
More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.
Category: Colorado Water
7:06:25 AM
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Here's an update on the push to build the Arkansas Valley Conduit from The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
Officials from the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District will travel to Washington next week to testify before a U.S. House committee on the need for the Arkansas Valley Conduit. They also will talk about a concept by Executive Director Jim Broderick to finance the conduit and other underfunded parts of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project using revenues from excess-capacity leases. "This might be the only way to pay for it," Southeastern President Bill Long said Tuesday. "I think I may have been naive - we all may have been naive - when we were talking about an 80-20 match."[...]
Last year, U.S. Reps. John Salazar, D-Colo., and Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., introduced legislation to authorize the project. The legislation was similar to bills by U.S. Sens. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and Ken Salazar, D-Colo., and proposed 80 percent federal funding for the conduit. The bills have languished since early 2007, although a $79 million authorization through the Water Resources Development Act passed later in the year. On March 13, the water and power subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee will have a hearing on the conduit, and Long will testify. The committee is chaired by U.S. Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Calif., who came to Pueblo last year to hear concerns about the Fry-Ark Project. During that hearing, she heard Long testify about the importance of the conduit and agreed a hearing on the project is needed...
Broderick has proposed using lease revenues for excess-capacity contracts with the Bureau of Reclamation as a way to reimburse the federal treasury for the cost of building the conduit. Contracts for storage, exchange and carriage of water have increased in recent years, especially in Lake Pueblo, which has been on average 58 percent full since it began storing water in 1975. While the primary storage mission for the lake is holding Fryingpan-Arkansas Project flows, Reclamation began issuing excess-capacity contracts in 1986. To date, those revenues have helped pay off the debt obligation of the Southeastern district, and operation and maintenance. After the obligation is paid off, the excess-capacity revenues would go into the treasury. Broderick has asked federal agencies to evaluate a plan that would redirect those future revenues to pay off project costs which otherwise would not be reimbursed. In addition to funding the conduit, the plan lowers the estimated federal match for the conduit to 65 percent, and pays off Ruedi Reservoir (compensatory storage on the Western Slope) and part of the municipal outlet at Lake Pueblo.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:56:52 AM
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Here's an update on Greeley's new pipeline running from Bellvue to the city, from The Greeley Tribune (free registration required). From the article:
Greeley may sell $35 million worth of bonds to pay for the next portion of its controversial water pipe project that would bring water to the city from its plant in Bellvue. The Greeley City Council introduced an ordinance Tuesday night that would approve the competitive sale of the bonds in late March. If approved at the March 18 council meeting, Greeley water users and new businesses would pay for the $35 million loan plus an estimated $18 million interest it will cost Greeley to continue its expansion of a 5-foot water pipeline from a water treatment plant in Bellvue to the city. About half the pipeline -- a segment from Windsor to Interstate 25 is complete, said Jon Monson, Greeley director of water and sewer. Greeley Finance Director Tim Nash said Greeley also will probably have to bond $22 million more for the project in another two years to finish the project. Officials say the 30-mile pipeline, which will allow only gravity to bring water to Greeley, will cost the city $2 million per mile. After bonding, the total cost including interest could be much more.
Also as part of the bond, Greeley will get permits to expand its Milton Seaman Reservoir northwest of Bellvue. Officials hope a future, separate $90 million water purchase will help the city store water in the reservoir. Greeley residents will pay for the bonds in the form of increased water rates during the next 10 years. Officials estimate a 9 percent raise in rates during the next two years. Water rates increased 7 percent this year compared to 2007. The average household in Greeley paid $38 per month in 2007 for water.
The pipeline project itself is not without controversy. Residents in Laporte, near Bellvue, say the proposed water line will run through their backyards and will disturb a historic, abandoned railroad. Rose Brinks, whose house in Laporte is close to where Greeley officials propose to put the water line, said the Colorado Historic Preservation Review Board has recommended to the federal government that the railroad and a nearby bridge be designated on the National Register of Historic Places. It will take at least 60 days for the National Park Service to rule on the railroad's historic designation. A historic designation would mean Greeley and federal agencies may have to look at other routes around the railroad in Laporte, even if the water line ends up staying where its proposed. "We're just hoping they'll leave us and go around Laporte," Brinks said.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:50:47 AM
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Here's a look at potential runoff from The Aspen Times (free registration required). They write:
The runoff volume in the Roaring Fork River from April through July is expected to be 40 percent above average, Mike Gillespie, snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), said Tuesday. The NRCS currently is projecting that the runoff volume flowing into Ruedi Reservoir will be 30 percent above average...
The Roaring Fork River Basin's snowpack level was 53 percent above average Tuesday. That was one of the highest levels among the basins throughout the state, according to NRCS data. Only a few areas in the southern mountains had levels that were a higher percentage of average. Statewide the snowpack is 35 percent above average, according to a report released Tuesday by the NRCS.
Category: Colorado Water
6:44:11 AM
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© Copyright
2008
John Orr.
Last update:
4/1/08; 8:07:22 AM.
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