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Friday, March 14, 2008
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Here's an update on HB 08-1346, Water Conservation Board Construction Fund and the proposed Dry Gulch Reservoir, from The Durango Herald. From the article:
With more than $80 million to spend around the state, there's enough money in the Legislature's annual water-projects bill to please friend and foe alike. House Bill 1346 is one of the most-expensive bills the Legislature will consider this year. It includes an $11.2 million loan to the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District to buy land for a new reservoir. It also includes $1 million to buy water rights for environmental preservation. Trout Unlimited backed that plan. Trout Unlimited and the Pagosa district were recently rivals in the state Supreme Court, in a case that overturned the water right for Pagosa's proposed Dry Gulch Reservoir. Dry Gulch is the major project for meeting fast-growing Archuleta County's future water needs, said Carrie Campbell, manager of the Pagosa water district. Last October, the Supreme Court denied the district's application for a water right for the reservoir, because it was based on a 100-year growth projection - too long, according to the Supreme Court. The case is back in district court, where Pagosa is waiting on Judge Gregory Lyman to rule on its latest application for a water right. But the district already has started on the reservoir project. The $11.2 million from the state will let it pay back a short-term loan from Wells Fargo that it took out to buy 666 acres of land for the reservoir. It might need 140 more. The water district is planning for the long haul, Campbell said...
The House Agriculture Committee approved the loan - as well as the other two dozen projects in HB 1346 - on a 13-0 vote Wednesday evening. Funding comes mostly from the severance tax on gas and oil production. For the first time, the annual bill includes money to buy senior water rights for in-stream flows. The state Water Conservation Board is allowed to hold rights to keep water in the stream for environmental values. Although the program has existed since 1973, it has relied on donations from senior rights holders or new filings of junior rights. "We think it's hugely important. We don't think the program can continue to rely on donations," said Drew Peternell with Trout Unlimited. "A junior appropriation is a fine tool for protecting the status quo, but a junior right can't put water back into a stream that's already been appropriated." The bill sets aside $1 million this year and in future years to buy senior rights and convert them to in-stream flow rights. It won't buy much, Peternell said, but it's enough money to get the program off the ground. Other projects include a $500,000 study supported by Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, to examine the possibility of a call on the Colorado River from downstream states. The bill now goes to the House Appropriations Committee.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.
Category: Colorado Water
7:23:51 AM 
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Here's a primer of sorts on Colorado Water law and the effects along the South Platte River from The Fort Morgan Times. They write:
The founders of Colorado included water doctrine in the state constitution because they knew that water would be critical for the semi-arid northeastern plains, according to Don Jones of McFeeders Realty...
There has usually been enough water in the South Platte River for all farmers to use the water they need, Jones said. "As long as there is plenty of snowpack in the mountains and it rains in the summer, everyone gets along," he said. "There's generally enough water to go around." But when there is a water shortage, Jones said, those with the youngest rights may receive nothing. The water resources in the state provided most farmers with an adequate supply until the 1930s, when the first major drought hit northeast Colorado, Jones said. Another drought hit in the 1950s, he said, when the Colorado state engineer's office encouraged farmers to drill wells along the South Platte to insure their future water supplies in drought years. Many farmers drilled new wells and cultivated farms along the South Platte River, which led to a whole new set of problems, Jones said. Priority water-rights holders along the river claimed that they could not get their legal allocation of water because it was being intercepted underground by the wells. "The result of the proliferation of wells was that stream flows in the South Platte River theoretically declined," he said. Well owners began diverting water out of the system into ponds, he said, so it would sink underground to replace the depletion created by the wells. But in 1969, the legal system placed restrictions on how much water each well could pump and where and what the water could be used for. The interpretation of the law resulted in all wells becoming junior in priority, regardless of the date they were drilled. Jones said well owners received their needed water from about 1970 to the early 1990s, but another drought prompted surface-right owners to again go after well users. The result was the permanent shutdown of more than 4,000 wells along the South Platte River in northeast Colorado, he said.
Category: Colorado Water
7:12:38 AM
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From Mongabay.com: "Water held in man-made reservoirs is masking the true extent of sea level rise from melting ice and thermal expansion, report scientists writing in the journal Science. The researchers, from the National Central University in Taiwan, calculate that sea levels would be 30 mm (1.2 inches) higher without water stored behind dams. The findings are significant in that they increase by a third the annual rise in sea levels observed since 1961, from 1.8 mm to 2.4 mm. Rising sea levels have been attributed to thermal expansion of warming sea water and melting of polar ice caps and glaciers. According to the University of Colorado at Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, about 60 percent of total global sea rise from ice loss can be attributed to glaciers and ice caps, 28 percent from Greenland, and 12 percent from Antarctica."
Category: Climate Change News
7:01:28 AM
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Early results are in from the manmade flood down the Colorado River from Glen Canyon Dam last week. Here's a report from the AP. They write:
The Grand Canyon boasts new sandbars ranging in size from small nooks and crannies to ones as large as football fields, the results of a manmade flood designed to nourish the ecosystem of the Colorado River, an official said. "On a couple of big sandbars there were already beaver tracks, bighorn sheep tracks," Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Steve Martin said. "You could see the animals already exploring new aspects of the old canyon." The three-day flood last week was designed to redistribute and add sediment to the 277-mile river in the Grand Canyon, where the ecosystem was forever changed by the construction of a dam more than four decades ago. The sediment provides a habitat for plants and animals, builds beaches for campers and river runners and helps protect archaeological sites from erosion and weathering...
Martin, who returned on Tuesday from a five-day trip down the river to see the initial impacts of the flood, said even the ambience of the canyon has changed.
"It changes the feeling of the canyon as you see the sediment along the shoreline from a feeling of increased sterility to one of a greater amount of vibrance," he said. "The benefits are substantial." During the flood, flows in the Grand Canyon increased to 41,000 cubic feet per second for nearly three days -- four to five times the normal amount of water released from the Glen Canyon Dam. Water levels along the river rose between 2 and 15 feet and left sediment behind when the four giant steel tubes releasing the water from the dam were closed...
Officials released similar manmade floods into the canyon in 1996 and in 2004.
But those floods actually resulted in a net reduction in overall sandbar size because they were conducted when the Colorado River was relatively sand-depleted, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Officials believe this year's flood will be beneficial because sand levels in the river are at a 10-year high and are three times greater than 2004 levels.
Whatever benefits come from this year's flood, however, will be eroded within 18 months without additional floods every year to 18 months depending on the amount of sediment available, Martin said.
From UNM Today: "Up until recently, it was thought the Grand Canyon was approximately six million years old. That was until researchers in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of New Mexico discovered otherwise. Using a technique called uranium-lead isotope (U-Pb) dating of water table-type speleothems or cave formations, researchers Victor Polyak, Carol Hill and Yemane Asmerom, were able to determine the western portion of the Grand Canyon actually began to form some 17 million years ago. That revelation, or "Eureka moment" as Asmerom called it, makes the Grand Canyon almost three times older than originally thought."
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:53:59 AM
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An MIT scientist made a presentation to this week's Arkansas River Basin Roundtable on modeling the social impacts of changes in water use, according The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
In the past, water deals involved things like acre feet, cubic feet per second and historical court decrees, as well as the money changing hands. In the future, the impacts of the deals on schools, roads and hospitals could become the most important elements of a change in water use. A model to help anticipate the social dynamics and economics that accompany changes in the location of water diversions was proposed Wednesday to the Arkansas Basin Roundtable by Beaudry Kock, who is working on a research project through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the U.S. Geological Survey. "This is a management tool that is not predictive, but shows potential outcomes and the dimensions of decisions," Kock said.
He said the computer model could build on hydrology studies now in progress, by adding some boundaries for changes in local economies as a result of water transfers or changes in use through leasing programs. "This would expand the hydrologic model that (Colorado State University professor) Tim Gates is working on," said Gary Barber, president of the roundtable. Sound science provided by MIT and the USGS could be "peer reviewed" through the roundtable to lead to useful decisions, Barber said.
Wayne Vanderschuere, a Colorado Springs Utilities executive, asked how the effort would fit in with a decision-support tool which the Colorado Water Conservation Board is developing for the Arkansas Valley. Barber said both tools could work toward the same goal and complement one another.
Category: Colorado Water
6:47:25 AM
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Students in the limnology program at Colorado State University - Pueblo are helping local officials study Fountain Creek with an eye towards identifying point source pollution, according to The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
"We're taking a snapshot of Fountain Creek, looking for E. coli and metals to try to find the sources of contamination," [Krystal] Tezak explained. The three students comprised one of 10 teams of 24 students sampling 27 sites along Fountain Creek in a one-hour period Thursday to see how the creek looks from top to bottom. The procedure is called a synoptic sampling. The students are in the limnology program - the study of lakes and rivers - at Colorado State University-Pueblo, and the study of the creek is part of a three-year inspection that CSU-Pueblo is conducting. The study is aimed at looking at the biological communities along Fountain Creek, rather than just water quality.
Tezak waded to the far side of the creek and uncapped her plastic container, partially filling it. She stopped to add more water four more times on her way back to the bank. "You want to get an equalized sample, so you separate the river into five parts," she explained. Her sample would be taken back to a lab, where an inductively coupled mass spectrometer later would analyze it for metals. The high-tech machine is at the heart of the study. It allows researchers to quickly determine levels of any element in the water. Tezak, the team leader, is a veteran when it comes to collecting Fountain Creek samples. Last summer, when flows were higher, she helped collect samples every two weeks...
One of the reasons for sampling in March is that flows are relatively low, and it should be easier to spot sources of contamination, explained Del Nimmo, coordinator of the project. "The idea is that we're moving into spring, so it's a good time to sample for E. coli. The flows aren't too high," said Nimmo, who was working with students at another site. The metal testing was added since students were already in the field. At some sites, there was additional testing for organics, which require a different sampling technique. "This is a way to get students into the field, doing real work," Nimmo said. This is the first attempt at a synoptic sampling of Fountain Creek, Nimmo added. Professor Scott Herrmann of the CSU-Pueblo biology department said the analysis of the synoptic sampling should be complete in about one week.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:07:09 AM
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© Copyright
2008
John Orr.
Last update:
4/1/08; 8:11:52 AM.
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