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Wednesday, September 10, 2008
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Club 20 reversed it's former stance on Saturday and now opposes the proposed fall ballot issue, Amendment 52. The Amendment is designed to tap the growing pot of severance taxes to fund improvements to I-70.
The amendment would come at the expense of water projects and that was the basis for the reversal. Water providers all over Colorado are struggling to deal with tougher regulations from the EPA and the state. Infrastructure repairs and new construction are also taking their toll on budgets. These providers need state help in many cases.
Spending earmarks do not belong in the state constitution. It is way too hard to remove them in the future. Voters need only to revisit the perfect storm of Amendment 23, TABOR and the Gallagher Amendment when state tax revenues plunged earlier this century.
For a list of the many fall ballot issues check out the Wash Park Prophet.
Category: Colorado Water
7:26:00 AM 
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From The Aspen Daily News: "The city of Aspen will bond for $5.5 million in long-term debt to pay for a new hydroelectric generation facility along Castle Creek. The facility, approved by voters in November 2007, is still in the design and engineering phases. It must go through a Federal Energy Regulator Commission review, as well as a local land-use review through the city's Planning and Zoning Commission. The plant is expected to generate about 5.5 million kilowatt hours of electricity -- enough to power 655 average homes per year."
Category: Climate Change News
7:07:02 AM
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From The Sky-Hi Daily News: "Workers are about two-thirds of the way through the $700,000 project to replace portions of Kremmling water line...The main transmission water line was installed in the early 1970s. The town was losing 60 percent of its water production at the water plant to leakage because of steel pipe corrosion and corrosive soil conditions, he said. Crews are replacing 8,700 feet of the 12,000-foot water transmission line to provide the town a 'reliable' transmission line. It will stretch from the town's water plant, located more than two miles west of Kremmling, to the town's western edge, behind Alpine Motor Sports."
Category: Colorado Water
6:56:35 AM
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Here's a recap of Tuesday's Colorado Supreme Court hearing over the challenge to Summit County's cyanide heap leaching ban, from The Denver Post. From the article:
Concerns over cyanide mining go back to the 1993 Summitville Mine disaster, which left a square mile of waste and contaminated the Alamosa River. The federal government had to take emergency action at the bankrupt operation to prevent an earthen dam from releasing a pool of cyanide-laced water. In the wake of the mine disaster, the state adopted tougher rules and oversight for mines using toxic chemicals. The legal clash focuses on whether state statutes pre-empt the county's ability to regulate mining.
The case is one of a string of lawsuits that have reached the Supreme Court or appeals courts over the role of counties in regulating activities such as oil and gas drilling. The power to regulate mining is vested in the state under the Mined Land Reclamation Act, argued Paul Seby, attorney for the mining association. Seby told the justices that the act explicitly gives the power over mining and reclamation activities to the state.
Josh Marks, representing Summit County, countered that the same section of the act Seby cited also requires operations to comply with local land-use and zoning rules.
"The intent was that the counties have a place at the table," Marks said.
Justice Alex Martinez pressed Seby, noting that the reclamation act clearly states mining operations have to comply with local zoning. Seby said that the state statute had "narrowed the county's balance of power." "Then what's left for the county?" asked Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey. Counties still have the power to zone mining out of areas such as waterways and residential areas -- the county just can't issue a total ban, Seby said. Summit County's Marks said "zoning is the power to ban or restrict." "There is a land-use authority, or there isn't," Marks said. Justice Gregory Hobbs Jr. pointed out that the legislature did not ban cyanide mining -- even after the Summitville emergency -- so how could counties? "Where is the authority?" Hobbs asked. "What happens when all the counties in Colorado ban cyanide mining?" Hobbs said. Marks said that each county would be making its decisions based on local conditions and risks. Four other counties -- Gunnison, Gilpin, Conejos and Costilla -- have cyanide-mining bans. The state's only operating cyanide heap-leach mine -- the Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mining Co. -- is in Teller County.
More coverage from The Summit Daily News. They write:
Attorneys for Summit County and the Colorado Mining Association made oral arguments in a case stemming from the county's 2004 adoption of strict regulations that forbid mining operations from spraying a cyanide solution over heaps of low-grade ore to extract remnant gold.
Colorado law gives the state "exclusive authority" to regulate mining, said attorney Paul Seby, presenting the mining industry's challenge to Summit County's land-use powers.
Not true, countered attorney Josh Marks. "We believe very strongly the county properly enacted its land use authority...There just is land-use authority, or there isn't," Marks said. "We're saying those types of mining activities are inappropriate, just like hydraulic mining," he said, referring to the historic practice of washing away entire hillsides with high pressure water jets to expose gold ore...
Arguments in the case hinged on a provision in Colorado mining law that addresses both state and local permitting power. The mining industry asserts that modern safeguards allow for cyanide mining to be used with minimal risk. Summit County's ban of a method that is authorized by state law goes far beyond a county's power to regulate land uses, Seby said. He cited language in the law that characterizes mining as "necessary and proper activities," and argued that the state's role is to "foster and encourage ... orderly development of the state's natural resources." Seby pointed out that the statute prohibits any entity other than the Mined Land Reclamation Board from issuing mining permits or requiring reclamation standards different from those established by the mining law.
But in another section, the same law specifically states that mining operations are subject to local land-use authority, Marks replied. Just because the state powers are stated first, doesn't make them any more valid, he added.
Without tipping her hand, Chief Justice Mary Mallarkey [ed. Mullarkey] asked the attorneys whether the Summit County rules establish an absolute ban on cyanide mining, or whether the rules would permit cyanide to be used in some other form. Heap-leach mining is the only cost-effective use of cyanide for extracting gold from low-grade ore, Seby answered. Justice Greg Hobbs explored the intersection of state and local power, asking whether the state mining board has the authority to ban cyanide heap-leach mining. Seby said the board couldn't enact a blanket ban but makes site-specific decisions based on individual mining-permit applications. Hobbs also questioned the wide-ranging nature of the county regulations, saying that the mining rules don't address areas traditionally covered under local land-use powers including the protection of waterways and wetlands. "This is kind of an eye-opening exercise of county authority," Hobbs said.
Marks said Summit County is primarily concerned about the catastrophic consequences of another Summitville-type disaster -- the nation's worst cyanide spill that contaminated 17 miles of the Alamosa River and required a massive federal cleanup -- and said that regulating potential impacts to streams are part of a county's traditional land-use powers under state law. The state mining board is not set up to determine local land uses, Marks said. "It doesn't have a mechanism to determine the appropriateness of this type of mining for the surrounding areas," he said. "...The county basically said the risks of this type of mining are too great."
The justices also raised the point that there have been similar issues with oil and gas drilling, as well as uranium mining. "Here's the thing: Whenever the legislature is confronted with this controversial thing, they didn't ban it. They gave the board the authority to regulate it," Hobbs said. "Where does the county get the authority to override this careful look by the legislature?" Local powers determine where and if mining should occur, while the state regulations are in effect to say how the mining should be done once it's approved locally, Marks responded, trying to outline the line between state and local authority succinctly...
The county commissioners adopted the ban to protect local watersheds from the risk of a cyanide spill and to protect the health and welfare of citizens, said former County Commissioner Bill Wallace. Colorado Counties, Inc. has backed the Summit County regulations. "I voted for it (the ban) because the mining industry couldn't convince me there weren't any risks," Wallace said. During hearings on the regulations at the time, mining industry officials acknowledged that they couldn't guarantee there won't be any release of the poison into the environment...
Affirmation of the local ban could lead to widespread restrictions. Four other counties already have enacted similar regulations, including Conejos County, in south-central Colorado, home to the Summitville complex. Clean-up costs there have climbed to more than $150 million. In Montana, voters twice approved a statewide ban on cyanide mining. The mining industry lost a challenge to the prohibition in the Montana Supreme Court and failed in its bid to have the U.S. Supreme Court hear the case.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here, here and here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:42:02 AM
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Here's a report on the results of the attempt in March to simulate natural flooding in the Grand Canyon by releasing water from Lake Powell, from The AP. From the article:
Newly built-up sandbars crucial to wildlife in the Grand Canyon have rapidly eroded in the last four months, some shrinking back to the size they were before a costly manmade flood. Torrents of water were released from the Glen Canyon Dam on the Arizona-Utah line in March to mimic natural flooding and rebuild sandbars along the 277-mile river in the Grand Canyon, where the ecosystem was forever changed by the dam's construction more than four decades ago. Officials had expected erosion following the three-day flood, but they hadn't expected so much so fast. "Circumstances conspired against our being able to protect the beaches as long as we had hoped," Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Steve Martin said Tuesday. "Substantial erosion has occurred."
The accelerated erosion is the result of a requirement to release extra water from Lake Powell above the dam into the Colorado River, said John Hammill, chief of the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center. The requirement says that when Lake Powell has extra water, some of it needs to be released and go to Lake Mead on the Arizona-Nevada line. The requirement is designed to ensure that Colorado River states all get an equal share of water, a precious and limited resource in the West. Lake Powell rarely has extra water because of extended drought, but a wet winter led to the highest water level in the reservoir in six years. That triggered the requirement in April, a month after the three-day flood in the Grand Canyon. Between April and Sept. 1, officials increased flows from the Glen Canyon Dam by 20 percent. Time-lapse videos taken by the U.S. Geological Survey of two sections of the Grand Canyon show that the three-day flood created sandbars as large as football fields. But the sandbars began shrinking in April and by August, appear to be much smaller and about the same size they were before the flood...
Martin said some benefits remain from the three-day flood, and despite the erosion, more floods should be released into the canyon whenever there's enough sediment to be deposited along the shoreline -- about every one to two years.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:28:59 AM
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Here's a recap of yesterday's meeting of the Larimer County Commissioners, from The Fort Collins Coloradoan. From the article:
The Larimer County commissioners agreed Tuesday to beef-up their formal comments on Glade Reservoir and the Northern Integrated Supply Project but declined to take a stand on the controversial water-storage proposal. The commissioners' comment to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on a draft Environmental Impact Statement on NISP will include concerns about the potential impact of the project on water quality and wildlife habitat along the Poudre River.
The county's comments also will question the impact NISP would have on agricultural lands as described in the draft EIS, which estimates 69,000 acres of farmland would be lost if the project is not built. The assumption is entities participating in NISP would buy agricultural water to meet their needs if they don't have the storage capacity Glade Reservoir would provide...
The commissioners chose not to take an "up or down" position on the project as other local governmental entities have done. Last week the Fort Collins City Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing NISP as it is described in the draft EIS. Commissioner Kathay Rennels said the county should be cautious about taking a stance on a regional water project when it is involved in another. The county has a financial stake in the proposed Chimney Hollow Reservoir project, which is also going through a federal EIS process, she said. Chimney Hollow would be a 90,000-acre-foot reservoir built west of Carter Lake. The county would manage recreation on the reservoir and the surrounding property. "I would hate to have us criticized for supporting something when we have taxpayer dollars in it and not supporting something that we don't have taxpayer dollars in," she said. Commissioner Randy Eubanks, who participated in the commissioners' meeting via telephone from Washington, D.C., said he believes NISP "is not in the best interest of Larimer County" but understands the reason for not yet taking a formal stance on the project...
The county's formal comments include input from various volunteer boards and commissions, including the Environmental Advisory Board and the Open Lands Advisory Board. Opponents of NISP said the county's comments, while more in depth than originally proposed, did not go far enough. "Their comments overall are woefully inadequate," said Gina Janett, a former Fort Collins City Council member. "They're just tweaking around the edges. They are not making a finding that this analysis is totally inadequate to determine the impact."
Here's an article about the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District's rebuttal to Fort Collins' objections to NISP, from The Fort Collins Coloradoan. They write:
Last week the City Council passed a resolution opposing NISP as it is described in a draft Environmental Impact Statement. The council was reacting to a city-financed study that listed numerous potential adverse impacts from the project. Concerns included the possibility that the city might have to spend $50 million to $90 million to upgrade its water treatment if water from Glade, which would draw from the Poudre River, is piped into Horsetooth Reservoir. In addition, decreased flows on the Poudre could force the city to upgrade its wastewater facilities to the tune of $75 million to $125 million, according to the study.
Officials with the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which would build NISP for 15 regional municipalities and water districts, said Tuesday that Fort Collins would not have to pay for new facilities if they are even needed. "The idea that NISP is going to increase costs for citizens who get their water from the city of Fort Collins is simply not true," said Eric Wilkinson, general manager of Northern Water in a prepared statement. NISP participants, which include the Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, would be required to pay all costs associated with the project as a condition of federal permits needed to build it, Wilkinson said.
The city's findings were based on information in the 700-page draft EIS and supporting technical documents, said John Stokes, director of natural resources. The city is following the process for commenting on the document as laid out in the National Environmen-tal Policy Act, he said, as are many other entities. "I think we have participated in the process in good faith and responded appropriately to what's in the written record," Stokes said. "We have to respond to the written record." The city's study, which cost $700,000, has raised legitimate issues with the draft EIS and the project, he said. Ultimately, the city's research may help Northern Water "build a better project," he said.
If the Glade-to-Horsetooth pipeline is needed, it would likely not be built for 10 to 20 years, said Brian Werner, spokesman for Northern Water. Several measures could be taken to ensure the quality of water in Horsetooth is not degraded and advanced treatment facilities are not needed, he said. "We have no intention of doing anything that would adversely impact the quality of water in Horsetooth Reservoir," Werner said. "That's our reservoir, and we'll do everything we can to protect it."
Stokes said mitigation efforts described in the draft EIS are "vague and nonbinding." The document does not address how Fort Collins would be made whole if its costs increase because of NISP.
More coverage from The Greeley Tribune. They write:
Brian Werner, spokesman for the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, said the water district wanted people to know the project would not cost Fort Collins millions of dollars, as the city said it could last week. "We're hearing from too many people that they've bought into that, that it's going to cost the citizens of Fort Collins hundreds of millions of dollars," he said. "It's not going to cost hundreds of millions. That's probably our bottom line." Should Glade Reservoir require Fort Collins water treatment facilities to be upgraded, the people paying for Glade would pay for that, too, Werner said...
In a 15-page report prepared for the city council last week, Fort Collins city staff estimated that Glade-spurred upgrades to wastewater and water treatment facilities could cost between $75 million and $125 million. Fort Collins discharges its treated sewer water into the river, so if there was less water in the river to combine with it, that could force changes to the system. What's more, the city's water treatment plant could require upgrades if water from Glade, which would contain a frothy mix of spring snowmelt full of organic matter, is mixed with water in Horsetooth, which is somewhat clearer. Werner disputed the city's claims about those changes and added that if they proved necessary, the 15 communities that want to build Glade would have to pay for them. "If there are costs associated with it, for, let's say, advanced treatment systems, that's a project cost. That will be part of permit conditions," he said. "We want the people of Fort Collins to understand they're not going to have to pay for that."
But the Army Corps of Engineers' draft environmental impact statement doesn't say that directly, which city officials cited as a chief concern. John Stokes, director of Fort Collins' Natural Resources Department, said estimates of water infrastructure improvements and associated costs should be addressed in a separate environmental impact statement. "In any permitting process, we would be seeking binding commitments from the Army Corps of Engineers and the proponents to indemnify the city against any fiscal damage, or, for that matter, other kinds of damages, to quality of life issues, wildlife and vegetation," he said. "Right now there is nothing in the written record, in their permit application, that would lead us to believe that we would be indemnified from financial harm."
The city has 14 "themes" it will include in its formal comments to the Army Corps, which will be submitted by the end of the week, Stokes said. They include effects on water infrastructure but also on the local economy and on the environment in the river corridor. On Tuesday, Werner challenged one other issue: Fort Collins officials' concern that water from Glade will taint the water in Horsetooth, the city's main drinking water supply. He said that would only happen if a pipeline is built between the two reservoirs, which is not a sure thing. Werner also added that correspondence from the city has been null since the environmental study was released April 30, but Northern Water hopes to work with the city to address its concerns. They'll have to do so before the project can move forward. The Army Corps must react to every substantive question raised during the past few months, according to federal law.
Stokes said that's exactly the point. "Part of the reason for the process is to reveal issues and disagreements just like this," he said. "This is how this process is actually supposed to work. You are supposed to put out a proposal, and people have a chance to critique it, and based on that critique, we continue to have a process or a dialogue to resolve some of these issues."
More coverage from The Northern Colorado Business Report.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here, here and here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:08:03 AM
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© Copyright
2009
John Orr.
Last update:
1/8/09; 10:38:33 AM.
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