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Wednesday, October 8, 2008
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The Larimer County Commissioners are taking is slow establishing their 1041 rules, according to The Loveland Reporter Herald. From the article:
In addition to preparing to expand their control over power and water projects, the Larimer County commissioners must work out the details of reviewing those projects. The Larimer County Board of Commissioners decided Tuesday to postpone establishing fees for 1041 projects until further review. On Oct. 20, the commissioners will consider adopting additional zoning authority -- called 1041 powers after the number of the bill that created them in 1974 -- over power plants, electrical transmission lines and substations. Chief planner Russ Legg brought a list of recommended application fees for different 1041 projects, after looking at the fees charged for similar reviews by neighboring Weld and Boulder counties. The recommended fees are $5,800 for power plant applications and electrical transmission lines; $1,500 for substations and additions; and $600 plus mail notification costs for appeals.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:39:16 PM 
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Here's a recap of the first hearing on the proposed Chimney Hollow Reservoir. From the article:
"If you deny this [Chimney Hollow Reservoir], you're going to basically dry up this area for agriculture," Chilson said at the first of two public hearings...
The cities and water districts involved already have rights to the water from the Fraser River but nowhere to store the water from rainy to dry seasons. Chimney Hollow would provide that storage and guarantee water supply during dry years. Representatives of some of those cities -- Loveland, Greeley, Longmont and Broomfield -- said the reservoir is key to their future water supply, along with continued conservation. Loveland has set aside $21 million to pay its share of the $270 million project.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:30:23 PM
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From The Fort Collins Coloradoan: "[T]he public is invited to the Thompson Fall Cleanup on Saturday to help clean up Love-land's historic river. The annual fall cleanup day is from 10 a.m. to noon, beginning at the Fairgrounds Park to work in and around the Big Thompson River focusing between Wilson Avenue and U.S. Highway 287...
"Volunteers can learn more about the Adopt-a-Waterway Program at the cleanup event Saturday. For more information or to register, call 962-2794. Volunteers also can register at the event."
Category: Colorado Water
6:23:55 PM
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From The Denver Post: "Colorado Springs residents and businesses could face hefty rate increases for electricity, natural gas and water starting in February. The city-owned utility said Tuesday that residential customers will likely pay a combined rate increase of 23 percent. Commercial customers are facing a 27 percent increase and large industrial users face a 16 percent jump."
Category: Colorado Water
6:05:53 PM
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Here's an update on the proposed Southern Delivery System and its effects on Fountain Creek flooding, from The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
A realignment of reservoirs on tributaries of Fountain Creek would do little to reduce the threat of flooding the creek poses to Pueblo, according to a new report on the Southern Delivery System. The report, released Friday by the Bureau of Reclamation, is a supplement to its draft environmental impact statement on SDS. The report looks at water quality impacts to the Arkansas River, Fountain Creek and the Western Slope from the $1.1 billion proposal to build a pipeline from Pueblo Dam...
Colorado Springs, the prime sponsor of SDS, has applied for a 1041 land-use permit from Pueblo County and would also need approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for its impacts on Fountain Creek.
Colorado Springs has changed its alignment for terminal storage - where water from the pipeline would be first stored and then moved into the water system through a new treatment plant. The new preferred alternative is a site on Upper Williams Creek, rather than Jimmy Camp Creek six miles to the north. The Upper Williams Creek reservoir would store up to 30,500 acre-feet of water, while a second reservoir on Williams Creek would store up to 28,500 acre-feet to regulate return flows to Fountain Creek. Rather than put return flows into the typically dry Williams Creek, a 4-mile pipeline would put them into Fountain Creek south of Fountain. None of the reservoirs would do much to prevent periodic flooding on Fountain Creek, according to the draft EIS. Controlling floods was never stated as one of the purposes of SDS, and was not included in Reclamation's top 10 concerns during scoping meetings in 2003, a dry year. Concerns about flooding have increased since sewer lines washed out in Sand Creek in 2005. A storm centered over Sand Creek last month washed out embankments of a major bridge...
Pueblo County land-use attorney Ray Petros has suggested a flood-control dam on Fountain Creek that would also provide storage and recreation. While Sen. Ken Salazar has promoted a bill that would study that possibility, the Corps has determined a dam strictly for flood control is not cost-effective. There is little stopping power for floodwaters in any of the SDS proposals...
Dam failures, largely brushed aside in the original draft EIS, are directly addressed in the supplemental report issued by Reclamation Friday. The report reveals that an "unlikely" failure of both the reservoirs on Williams Creek when they were full would send a wall of water flowing at more than 500,000 cubic feet per second toward Fountain Creek. The water would spread out as it traveled downstream, but would still be flowing at a peak rate of more than 250,000 cfs - six times the catastrophic flood of 1965 - when it reached Pueblo. "Flood inundation would be substantial" for Fountain and Pueblo, the report stated...
In terms of water quality, the new report compares each alternative to existing conditions, a request made in many comments to the original draft EIS. The levels of E. coli in Fountain Creek would be reduced under all alternatives that include the return flow reservoir on Williams Creek, since effluent from Colorado Springs treatment plants would be discharged into the reservoir. Overall, however, the levels in Fountain Creek would remain above recreational water standards. Presently, Fountain Creek exceeds those standards, especially when flows and water temperatures are high. Levels of selenium - an element vital to life but toxic to fish and birds at concentrations below human impact - would increase in both Fountain Creek and the Arkansas River as a result of most of the SDS alternatives. Increased flows on Fountain Creek are likely to increase the leaching of selenium from natural formations north of Pueblo. The report also reveals there could be some additional erosion south of Fountain where the pipeline from the lower Williams Creek reservoir would discharge because the water would be "sediment hungry." The area could be reinforced with structures to minimize the effects. The new report shows little change in sulfates in the Arkansas River as a result of SDS and says there would be no impact on the ability of wastewater treatment plants at Pueblo or Rocky Ford as a result of changes in water quality caused by SDS...
Reclamation will have a public meeting on its new report 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 29 at the Pueblo Convention Center, 320 Central Main St. Colorado Springs plans a series of meetings on SDS impacts to Pueblo County beginning Oct. 16 at Lake Pueblo State Park in the visitor center auditorium. An open house will be from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., followed by a presentation and question-and-answer session from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:41:33 AM
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From The Fort Collins Coloradoan: "CSU will get nearly $1 million from Shell Oil to study revegetation of oil shale developments in Colorado. The $950,000 research grant to Colorado State University's Warner College of Natural Resources will allow researchers to look at the 1970s restoration of shale-harvested land in the Piceance Basin. Lack of funding prevented researchers from studying the results of that three-decade-old revegetation."
Meanwhile, from The Deseret News: "Four environmental groups this week accused the Bureau of Land Management of skipping a step on its way to amending land-management plans that they say will 'expedite' commercial development of oil shale in the Green River Basin.
"The Wilderness Society, Western Resource Advocates, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity sent a letter Monday to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. In the letter, they claimed the BLM bypassed a public protest period when the federal agency decided to amend 12 land management plans impacting 2.5 million acres of public lands in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
"The BLM also denied the governors of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah the opportunity to conduct formal consistency reviews with the policies and programs of their state, 'affecting air, water and wildlife,' The Wilderness Society said in a news release Tuesday."
Update More coverage from The Glenwood Springs Independent. From the article:
The Wilderness Society has asked the U.S. Department of the Interior to withdraw proposed plans that would open up about 360,000 acres in Colorado to possible oil shale development. The group made its request in a letter to Dirk Kempthorne, secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, this week. The group's appeal largely stems from concerns that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) hasn't allowed the public a chance to protest or allow governors to perform a consistency review of a final programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) about potential oil shale and tar sands development in the American West.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Climate Change News
6:28:44 AM
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© Copyright
2008
John Orr.
Last update:
11/1/08; 7:50:20 PM.
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