Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Southern Delivery System update Here's an update on Colorado Springs Utilities' plans to drop the Jimmy Camp Creek Reservoir from their proposed Southern Delivery System, from The Colorado Springs Gazette. From the article: Colorado Springs Utilities and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation have scrapped a plan for the proposed Jimmy Camp Creek Reservoir east of Colorado Springs in favor of a less-controversial man-made lake six miles south as part of the Southern Delivery System water pipeline. Despite years of planning and spending $6.4 million to buy land for the Jimmy Camp Creek Reservoir, Utilities agreed with a report issued Friday by the Bureau of Reclamation that proposes creating the Upper Williams Creek Reservoir near Drennan Road... Friday's changes are intended to address some environmental concerns over the project. The original plan was to pump water from Pueblo to the Jimmy Camp Creek site for storage. Water would be treated, pumped into the public water supply and then flow back to the Arkansas River via Fountain Creek... During a public comment period earlier this year, fossil experts worried about the preservation of prehistoric relics, residents below the reservoir worried about the dam breaking and others were concerned about the reservoir's impacts on wetlands and the potential for waterfowl to interfere with nearby Colorado Springs Airport. Excavating and moving the fossils and relics would have cost as much as $10 million, Utilities officials said. "By moving over to Upper Williams Creek, we address a number of issues," said Keith Riley, Utilities' project planning and permitting manager... Upper Williams Creek Reservoir would hold the same water volume as Jimmy Camp Creek Reservoir, 30,500 acre-feet, and it is 300 acres larger. Return flows - treated effluent - would be pumped into Williams Creek Reservoir to the south, part of the original plan. The cost of SDS with the new reservoir would be $19 million more, though that would be offset by $12 million less in maintenance and operating costs, according to the updated environmental impact statement. The land for Upper Williams Creek Reservoir is uninhabited prairie, a mix of state-owned and private land, Riley said. Unlike the Jimmy Camp Creek site, no residents would be displaced. Officials have not decided whether Jimmy Camp Creek-area residents, some of whom remain in their homes paying rent to Utilities, will be given the option to buy back their property, or if the land will be sold, said CSU spokesman Steve Berry. The agency plans to hold onto the land until the approval process is complete... Utilities officials said they don't expect the change in reservoirs to impact the timeline of the Southern Delivery System, expected to deliver water by 2012. The Bureau of Reclamation expects to release a final environmental impact statement by the end of the year, incorporating any changes, followed by a record of decision, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. Along with the reservoir change, several other modifications to the SDS plan were included in the Bureau of Reclamation's report: - Adding a pump station for untreated water at the Upper Williams Creek Reservoir site. - Moving the water treatment plant at Upper Williams Creek Reservoir northwest to near the intersection of U.S. Highway 24 and Colorado Highway 94. - Building a pipeline from the lower Williams Creek Reservoir to Fountain Creek, instead of using the channel of Williams Creek, to minimize erosion and impacts to aquatic life. More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here. Category: Colorado Water 6:27:37 AM     Climate Change in Colorado: A Synthesis to Support Water Resources Management and Adaptation Here's a look at climate change and its projected effect on Colorado water supplies, from The Rocky Mountain News. They write: Colorado likely will heat up 2.5 degrees to 4 degrees over the next 40 years, causing stream flows to shrink as spring and summer become hotter, according to a study commissioned by the Colorado Water Conservation Board. "There have been a lot of reports out there, (but) this one really focuses on Colorado," said Jennifer Gimbel, director of the water conservation board. Among the report's findings: * Summers will become extremely hot, registering as warm or warmer than the hottest 10 percent of summers between 1950 and 1999. * Little change in annual precipitation will occur, but temperature increases alone are expected to have a significant impact on snow and water supplies. * Stream flows in the Colorado River Basin will shrink from 5 percent to 20 percent, exacerbating water shortages already forecast because of population growth. * Spring runoff will arrive earlier, altering the times when farmers and utilities can expect their water to arrive. * Summer water demand by homeowners will rise because of temperature increases. * Despite warmer winters, temperatures above 8,000 feet will remain well below freezing, helping preserve snowpack and mountain environments. The report was compiled by the University of Colorado Western Water Assessment, a partnership between the university, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the CU Cooperative Institute for Research into Environmental Sciences and the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University... "We need to be very careful about how we use our remaining Colorado River allocation," [Brad Udall director of the Western Water Assessment] said. "That water is a moving target under climate change. We don't know how much of it there is or how consistently we can expect it to be there." As a result, he said, Colorado needs to ensure it can keep enough water in the bank - Lake Powell - so that it can meet its obligations to downstream states while protecting Colorado's portion. Whether that means Colorado needs to build a major new reservoir in the state isn't clear yet, Udall said. Category: Climate Change News 6:18:54 AM     Northern Integrated Supply Project The Colorado Water Quality Control Commission has outlined several problems with the environmental impact statement for the proposed Northern Integrate Supply Project which includes the controversial Glade Reservoir, according to a report from The Rocky Mountain News. From the article: The state health department said significant water quality problems should be addressed before the proposed Glade and Galeton reservoirs project in northern Colorado moves forward. The state's concerns, outlined in a Sept. 12 letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, are likely to delay the reservoirs, several officials said. The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which is sponsoring the reservoirs, had hoped to have the federal approvals necessary to begin design work by early next year. "We have raised substantive questions that will need to be answered," said Steve Gunderson, director of the water quality control division at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment... Key concerns are that the project, because it reduces flows, could increase concentrations of selenium, a metal that can be toxic to fish. Lower stream flows also could make it more difficult for Fort Collins to treat its water, the state said... More coverage from The Fort Morgan Times: The Northern Integrated Supply Project, or NISP, had been scheduled to begin construction in 2011. But due to delays in the review process for the environmental impact statement on the project, it was the consensus of the project participants to delay the implementation schedule another year, Fort Morgan Utilities Director Gary Dreessen told the city's water advisory board Thursday... In addition to delaying the start of construction -- which still depends on the issuance of a permit by the Army Corps of Engineers -- the action also pushes back the largest payments Fort Morgan and the 14 other NISP participants will have to make. "Everyone's OK with it, and it's OK for Fort Morgan too," Dreessen said. "It gives us more time to get our financing lined up. Nobody's in a growth mode, nobody's chasing water right now." According to the new financial commitment projections, Fort Morgan will have to contribute $270,000 to NISP in 2009, as well as $648,000 in 2010 and $527,000 in 2011. The biggest payments of about $5.87 million each year will now start in 2012 and continue through 2016, according to the projection... Water advisory board chairman Jack Odor said that as the permitting process for NISP continues to play out, it is important for Fort Morgan to continue buying C-BT water shares in the meantime. "You have to stay in both games," Odor said. "NISP is long-term."[...] The water board also discussed further revisions to a draft of the city's water development policy at Thursday's meeting. The policy outlines the requirements for new developments to purchase water either from the city or on the open market, and includes residential developments as well as small and large commercial and industrial water users. The board has been working on revisions to the policy for several months, and with the changes discussed Thursday the water board felt it was time for the city council to review the document. Among the changes was to use a three-year rolling, weighted average of the cost paid by the city for water as the selling price of the water to new customers. Dreessen said this makes more sense than the city's previous practice of using the most recent price paid by the city, because the water market fluctuates so much. Dreessen will make another revision to the policy document based on Thursday's discussion and include it in the packet for the water board's next meeting, but only for the board's review -- it will not be placed on the agenda for any further discussion by the board. City Manager Pat Merrill, who was at Thursday's meeting, said he would try to schedule a discussion of the water development policy at a city council work session in November. More coverage from The Greeley Tribune: Questions about water quality and water temperatures highlight the Colorado Water Quality Control Division's response to the proposed Northern Integrated Supply Project, a letter released Monday indicates. The Save the Poudre coalition, which opposes the controversial water storage project, released the letter from the division to the Army Corps of Engineers. The letter was dated Sept. 12 -- one day before the deadline to submit comments to the Army Corps concerning the project. Among the issues raised, the division points out that the draft environmental impact statement does not account for upcoming water temperature standards, the letter said, which could be important as low water flow could raise water temperatures and harm fish populations. It also gives "inadequate" mention of possible selenium dissolution within the Galeton Reservoir and asks for more information on E. Coli impairment in relation to the possible reduced water flow... More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here. Category: Colorado Water 6:10:09 AM     Tamarisk control update Here's an update on the battle against tamarisk, from The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article: After beetles brought to the valley from the State Insectary at Palisade were released in July and August in Pueblo, Prowers and Baca counties, none could be found in follow-up searches. On the other hand, there is a thriving population of beetles in Fremont County, where there have been no known releases. "We've heard nothing good (from Southern Colorado)," said Dan Bean, director of the insectary. "We have not seen plants being defoliated or populations building near where the beetles were released." Except in Fremont County. On the drive back to Grand Junction after visiting Pueblo in July, Bean noticed the tamarisk at the U.S. 50 bridge over Beaver Creek were yellowing - a tell-tale sign of beetle defoliation. He stopped, and sure enough there was a thriving beetle population in the trees below the bridge. Where the beetles came from is anyone's guess. The Bureau of Reclamation has, for years, done controlled releases of beetles on trees below Lake Pueblo, but Bean knows of no official releases of beetles upstream of Lake Pueblo. "If the conditions were just right, they could migrate upstream," Bean said. The beetles were found in a rocky canyon, which is similar to the areas where the same type of insects have thrived in eastern Utah and Western Colorado... The beetles were first released in Colorado by permit after they had migrated from Utah, where they wiped out thousands of acres of tamarisk along the Green River. The beetles have knocked back Tamarisk along 90 miles of the Dolores River and dozens of miles on the Yampa and Green rivers in Colorado, Bean said. The beetles are all from a mountainous strain found in Kazakhstan, where tamarisk are native plants... A variety of beetle from another region of Central Asia has been cultivated at the insectary, and successfully released in Texas, Bean said. This winter, the insectary will attempt to get a permit to release that variety in Colorado. Last summer, more than 50,000 beetles were released on two separate occasions in Pueblo County on Fountain Creek just north of Pueblo and on the Arkansas River near Boone... While some speculate the amount of daylight hours could affect the reproductive cycle of the beetles, Bean said it is more likely predation that is decimating the populations. Bean remains hopeful that the right combination will be found, because the large populations established in Utah sprang from the initial release of only a few hundred beetles, rather the thousands released last summer in Southern Colorado. More Coyote Gulch coverage here. Category: Colorado Water 6:00:35 AM

© Copyright 2008 John Orr. Last update: 11/1/08; 7:48:23 PM.