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Wednesday, September 17, 2008
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Here's a "A simple syllogism to expose the flaws in our GHG debate," fromgrist:
1. Fossil fuels cost money.
2. When burned, fossil fuels emit CO2.
3. Therefore, burning less fossil fuel saves money and CO2.
The logic is impeccable (even if not quite as entertaining as Lewis Carroll's syllogisms). And yet our entire GHG debate continues to be framed as those who would damn the economy against those who would damn the environment. The debate is false, and it's time to get beyond it."
Category: Climate Change News
7:21:05 PM 
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From email from Reclamation (Kara Lamb): "After the conference call this morning with water interests across the Upper Colorado River basin, it was decided that Green Mountain releases would increase. As of this afternoon there should be about 1100 cfs in the Lower Blue. It's anticipated this cfs rate should last through the weekend."
Category: Colorado Water
6:44:47 PM
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Here's an update on the efforts of the Interbasin Compact Committee, from The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
An update on the IBCC effort was shared last week at the Arkansas Basin Roundtable meeting in Trinidad. Earlier this year, Colorado Department of Natural Resources Director Harris Sherman began a quest to have the state's nine basin roundtables and the IBCC - all created in 2005 to deal with statewide water issues - develop a vision on where the state is heading in the next 50 years when it comes to water. Part of the question he asked the IBCC was whether they preferred that vision or would rather do something to change it. During discussions last spring, the IBCC agreed to take any recommendations back to the roundtables for grass-roots input. The Arkansas Basin Roundtable will take up the issue at its Oct. 8 meeting to report back to the IBCC at its Oct. 29 meeting...
Danielson said the traditional way to develop water in Colorado was to find a supply and take it. At first, that meant claiming water to divert from the rivers, but later led to agricultural dry-ups by growing cities desperate for a source of water. On the Front Range, many transfers are from adjacent farmland, but some transfers have meant moving point of diversion for the water hundreds of miles from the historic use. "We are now looking at how we take water from one user and how to minimize the impact," Danielson said. "How do we meet that urban need and still protect recreational, environmental and agricultural users with minimal dislocation?"
The IBCC's proposed vision statement reads: "We envision a Colorado that sustainably meets municipal, industrial, agricultural, environmental and recreational needs by promoting cooperation among all water users."
The big hang-up in the statement is defining "sustainable," said Wayne Vanderschuere, a Colorado Springs Utilities executive and a governor's appointee to the IBCC. "When you look forward to all uses, the math doesn't work," Vanderschuere said. "Sustainability is a word everyone will read a little differently."
Under Sherman's plan, the IBCC is now developing goals, and then will move ahead on strategies to meet those goals. Building strategies may meet resistance from some on the West Slope. At a July meeting with the Gunnison Basin Roundtable, Gunnison rancher Bill Trampe voiced his concern about moving too far ahead with strategies without knowing the specific nature of projects. The Gunnison River basin has for years resisted attempts by the Front Range to export water from the area, and that thinking is still pervasive, Danielson said. Meanwhile the state is moving ahead on a study of water availability in the Colorado River basin, and its tributaries, to determine how much the state could use under the seven-state Colorado River Compact. The Colorado River Conservation District is taking up the issue of what an intrastate compact for use of the Colorado would look like at a meeting Friday in Grand Junction. Roundtable President Gary Barber encouraged the roundtable members to look at the full IBCC proposal, which outlines potential goals and strategies, at the Oct. 8 roundtable meeting in Pueblo.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
7:11:50 AM
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From TheDenverChannel.com: "Colorado authorities have started dredging out 30 years of sand buildup in a creek near Vail Pass. The Black Gore Creek is choked with sand that comes from Interstate 70 in the winter. The Colorado Department of Transportation and the U.S. Forest Service will dam the creek and send clear water down a quarter-mile pipe 3,000 feet downstream. Once the exposed creek bed dries up, crews will scoop out sand and silt, which have choked native aquatic life."
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:57:43 AM
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Here's an article about the Pine River Watershed Group's Upper Pine River State of the Watershed Report 2008 [pdf], from the Durango Herald. From the article:
Water quality in Vallecito Creek and the Pine River, upstream from their confluence that creates Vallecito Reservoir, is very good, [Win Wright, the coordinator of the volunteers who monitors water condition] says. But heavy concentrations of mercury, ammonia, iron and manganese have been trapped over many years. The pollutants are being released from the sediments and are being consumed by fish, said Wright, the owner of Southwest Hydrologic. Human activities, such as residential development, recreation and overgrown forests that lead to massive wildfires, have contributed to pollution in the Pine River watershed, Wright said. Dust from the growing Four Corners region and pollution from its two coal-fired power plants - the Four Corners Power Plant and the San Juan Generating Station - have added to the mess.
Other problems he mentioned:
- In 2006, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Prevention recommended limited consumption of northern pike and walleye caught in Vallecito Reservoir because of mercury concentrations that are toxic to pregnant women and small children. In 2007, one of the highest mercury readings ever recorded in the United States came from Vallecito.
- In August and September 2007, a sample of Vallecito water and bottom sediment showed a concentration of mercury of 3,500 parts per trillion. The mercury toxicity standard is 10 parts per trillion.
- Manganese was found in reservoir water at 1,910 parts per billion in 2005. However, fish should be exposed to only 1,200 parts per billion of manganese for survival.
- Ammonia concentration in Vallecito were as high a 0.09 parts per million in 2006 while its toxicity level for aquatic life is 0.02 parts per million.
About 150 grams of selenium, known to correlate to mercury in coal-fired power plant fallout, were found on the reservoir. Among other elements found in rain and snow at Vallecito were ammonia, boron, chloride, manganese, nitrate and sulfate.
Despite the problem areas, the water quality of the Pine River and Vallecito Creek upstream continues to be very good, according to the report.
Category: Colorado Water
6:53:48 AM
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Here's a recap of a recent debate over the Colorado Springs initiatives that would gut the city's stormwater enterprise, from KRDO.com. From the article:
Council member Scott Hente and State Representative Douglas Bruce debate ballot initiatives 200- and 201. Those two initiatives counter the city's storm water enterprise fee. Bruce petitioned to have the issues on this upcoming ballot...
One initiatives seeks to make the storm water fee voluntary and not mandatory and the other gives the city ten years to phase out the fee. Council Member Scott Hente says, "they would do great harm to the city of colorado springs move us backwards in terms of our over 300 million in strom water enterprise." Bruce's opinion on the fee, "if they get to set the fee and we don't get a chance to vote and they can also impose fees for police and fire and park maintenance whatever they want and we'll never get a chance to vote again."
Council members say the storm water enterprise fee pays for drainage improvements and flood prevention, but Bruce says only half of that money actually goes toward the projects. The fees generate around 16-million a year and the city estimates it will take almost 300 million to fix everything in need of repair. Bruce has a total of 34-thousand signatures for both petitions, only 11-thousand are required for a spot on the ballot.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:44:47 AM
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From The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel: "A measure that would lift the federal ban on oil shale leasing passed the U.S. House on Tuesday, putting two supporters at least temporarily at odds with the moratorium's prime backer, Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. The oil shale provision was inserted into H.R. 6899, the Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act, by a Utah congressman, Democrat Jim Matheson."
More from the article:
Matheson's provision "puts Colorado at risk" for an environmental disaster, said Keith Hay, energy advocate for Environment Colorado. Two Colorado supporters of the ban, Democrat Reps. John Salazar and Mark Udall, said in a joint press release that the measure has a "safety valve" that would allow states to control the pace of oil shale development within their borders "regardless of the (Bush administration's) desire to rush ahead with oil shale development at all costs." Salazar's 3rd Congressional District includes most of the West Slope, which contains all the state's oil shale reserves. Udall, whose 2nd District includes the rest of the West Slope, is running for the state's open Senate seat, which is being vacated by Republican Wayne Allard. Sen. Salazar has repeatedly defended the moratorium as necessary because it prevents not merely leasing, but the drafting of regulations governing commercial production from oil shale. It's not possible to draft regulations without knowing the amount of water and power required to produce petroleum from shale, Sen. Salazar contends. Critics of the moratorium, including Allard, say industry needs to know its costs, including the royalties it would have to pay to produce from shale on public lands, before it can move forward. "A moratorium on rule making is foolish and short-sighted," Allard spokesman Steve Wymer said Tuesday.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Climate Change News
6:35:38 AM
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Here's a recap of a recent Colorado Trout Unlimited river restoration outing on the Middle Fork of the South Platte River, from The Denver Post. From the article:
The conservation organization is hip-deep in a project designed to improve habitat on 3 1/2 miles of a stream whose fish-holding capacity has been diminished by variety of ills. A first phase, nearing completion with a price tag of $300,000, addresses a 1 1/2-mile reach immediately downstream from the Garo bridge. A second phase would complete the span downstream to the popular Tomahawk State Wildlife Area; a third involves a three-fourths-mile parcel above the bridge. Trout Unlimited and other volunteers provide much of the manpower for an initiative funded largely by the Colorado Division of Wildlife's Fishing Is Fun program. Park County, mindful of the economic impact from angling tourism, chipped in with $37,000. Private donations and grants complete the fund. On a recent weekend, several dozen TU volunteers from chapters across the state gathered to put finishing touches on Phase I, planting willow and rose bushes for bank stabilization along point bars. "Our main goal from the start is to improve overwintering habitat for trout, which is the limiting factor for resident trout," said Sinjin Eberle of Denver, project director.
In one of the coldest spots in the state, a broad, flat stream profile is the worst enemy of trout. Anchor ice forms quickly to the detriment of insects; trout bunch like sardines into whatever deep water exists. Eberle's army enlisted the help of Evergreen-based ERC stream design to install rock features that pinch the flow creating many deeper holding areas. Work crews that often include anglers who arrived with no knowledge of the project did the planting while removing barbed wire and various flotsam accumulated over the years. The river received a respite this season when cattle at least temporarily were removed from the property, allowing a season of repair. As workers shoveled and shifted, trout splashed noisily to a mayfly hatch. It sounded a lot like applause.
Category: Colorado Water
6:28:37 AM
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The U.S. Agriculture Department declared 22 eastern Colorado counties primary disaster areas on Monday, according to The Denver Post. From the article:
On Monday, the U.S. Agriculture Department designated 22 Colorado counties as "primary natural disaster areas" because of what the agency described as drought conditions since Jan. 1. The declaration is the latest in a string of hard times for ranchers and farmers in an area stretching roughly from Interstate 25 east to the Kansas border and from the New Mexico border north to Lincoln County. "Southeast Colorado had unprecedented drought in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005. We just had continual drought," said Chuck Hanagan, the executive director for the Otero Crowley Farm Service Agency, a branch of the U.S. Agriculture Department. That was followed by blizzards, cattle deaths and trouble getting enough trucks to get crops to market. Now drought -- again...
Quizy Lusk, the executive director for the Farm Service Agency in Baca County, said the problem is that because of the drought, ranchers and farmers have been unable to grow the supplemental food supplies that ranchers usually spread out for the cattle in the winter. Now they face a fast-approaching winter not knowing if their cattle will survive. They may have to liquidate their herds. "There is no feed to be had," said Lusk. In addition, what feed is available will be very expensive.
Category: Colorado Water
6:18:22 AM
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It's great to be at the top of the hill. Congratulations are in order for Denver Water, the Tri-County Water Conservancy and the city of Loveland for finishing 1-2-3 in a taste taste at the Rocky Mountain Section of the American Water Works Association conference in Colorado Springs. Here's a report from The Loveland Reporter Herald. They write:
...the judges weren't looking for the taste and bouquet of wine. They were judging taste, smell and clarity of tap water for 15 cities and water districts from across Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. The city of Loveland placed third, said McGee, the city's water plant manager. Ahead of Loveland were Denver Water and Tri-County Water Conservancy District, which serves the area around Montrose. "It gets down to a matter of opinion," said McGee. "Any of us three could have taken first." The water was judged by a panel of water and news media professionals at the Rocky Mountain Section of the American Water Works Association conference in Colorado Springs. Cities turned in bottles of tap water Monday, and the results were announced Tuesday.
Category: Colorado Water
6:08:56 AM
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© Copyright
2008
John Orr.
Last update:
10/1/08; 6:41:03 AM.
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