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Thursday, October 9, 2008
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From The Greeley Tribune: "The Central Colorado Water Conservancy District has two measures on next month's ballot. Ballot Issue 4A is for the district as a whole, while Ballot Issue B concerns the district's ground water management subdistrict, comprised of about 1,000 irrigation wells currently curtailed by the state. In both issues, the Greeley-based district asks voters to give it permission to collect, retain and expend all revenue and other funds collected next year and in future years. It is commonly referred to as a de-Bruce measure."
Category: Colorado Water
6:47:21 PM 
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From The Mountain Mail: "In an effort to locate geothermal resources hot enough to generate electricity, Mount Princeton Geothermal recently announced plans for exploratory drilling of six test holes in the Mount Princeton area. Six proposed drill sites are on private land in the Nathrop and Buena Vista areas. Work awaits permit approval from the Colorado Division of Water Resources. State law mandates a comment period for landowners within a half-mile of proposed drill sites. Letters were mailed to each landowner within the specified distance and they may raise 'substantive concerns' about the project until Oct. 24. Before the end of the comment period, the company hopes to contact landowners near each site to discuss the project. When the comment period ends, the company will have 30 days to submit applications to drill, subject to Colorado Division of Water Resources approval."
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
6:42:33 PM
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The west slope showed up at the public meeting for the Windy Gap Firming project EIS in Loveland, according to The Loveland Reporter Herald. From the article:
Several Western Slope residents trekked over the Continental Divide to talk at a hearing in Loveland about their worries if Northern Water is allowed to build Chimney Hollow southwest of Loveland....Harden spoke on behalf of governments in Grand County because, according to the draft environmental impact statement, the plan would affect flow, water quality and fish in the upper Colorado River. Harden and Fraser resident Kirk Klancke, separately, asked Will Tully of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to require conservation and other specific ways to mitigate damage to the river. "The (environmental impact statement) should have conservation as their No. 1 choice and the death of the Colorado River as the last choice," Klancke said.
Representatives of five cities that will use the water -- Loveland, Longmont, Broomfield, Greeley and Erie -- all assured Tully at the hearing that they do conserve water and, even with conservation, Chimney Hollow is key to an affordable, quality water supply for the future...
Environmental impacts:
The draft environmental impact statement for Chimney Hollow Reservoir outlines the following potential effects:
- Water flows in the Colorado River would decrease with or without the reservoir, although the decrease would double with the reservoir.
- Flows in the Big Thompson River would increase about 5 percent.
- Water levels would decrease about 1 foot in Carter Lake and 2-6 feet in Horsetooth Reservoir. This is not likely to impact fish populations.
- Water temperatures and levels of phosphorous would increase slightly in the Colorado River and Granby Reservoir.
- The habitat for adult rainbow trout could decrease 24 percent in the Colorado River upstream of Williams Fork four out of 10 years. However, if the reservoir is approved, Northern Water would work with the Division of Wildlife to implement ways to mitigate that.
- The project will not impact spring spawning of rainbow trout or fall spawning of brown trout.
- Chimney Hollow would provide a new recreation outlet in Larimer County, providing hiking on adjacent open space, nonmotorized boating and fishing. An estimated 50,000 annual visitors would increase traffic.
- Construction of the reservoir also would increase traffic on County Road 18E and County Road 31. However, it also would add jobs and construction-related spending.
- During worst-case-scenario years, the project could deal a combined $556,000 blow to commercial rafting and kayaking in Big Gore Canyon and Pumphouse.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:14:06 PM
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New West is running an article about irrigation in the west along with water requirements for beef. From the article:
In Colorado, some 25 percent of all water consumed goes to alfalfa crops. In Montana, agriculture takes 97 percent of all water used in the state, and just about the only irrigated crop there is hay and pasture forage; more than 5 million acres in the state are irrigated hay meadows. In Nevada, the most arid state in the country, agriculture used 2.8 billion gallons of water per day. Altogether, agriculture uses 83 percent of Nevada's water - and the major crop is hay for cattle fodder. In Nevada, while cow pastures are flood irrigated, wetlands at wildlife refuges and the state's rivers often go bone-dry.
Cows are poorly adapted to arid environments. They are profligate consumers of water. Beef production demands an estimated 3,430 gallons of water just to produce one steak! Most western rangelands simply don't provide enough forage alone - because the climate is too dry - to run livestock economically. Supplemental feed and irrigated pasture are also needed. Many of the ecological and health impacts of livestock production in the West are associated with the use and abuse of water: the livestock industry alters water quantity and quality and water flow regimes.
The removal of water from streams and aquifers for irrigation threatens many species with local extinction. Rivers and springs are often completely dewatered. According to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, some 3,778 miles of river are dewatered in Montana annually. Dewatering of streams is a major factor in the decline of many fish species across the West, including most native trout and many salmon stocks.
Category: Colorado Water
6:05:14 PM
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From The Fort Morgan Times: "The council voted 3-3 on whether to reinstate a contract to continue the Wiggins Project, a plan to buy 10 shares of Weldon Valley Ditch Co. water to use in augmenting a well near Empire Reservoir to replace the current Wiggins wells, which are falling. Councilman Richard Vance was absent. Council members Vince Longcor, Jim Musgrave and Brad Weese voted against the project, and council members Pat Rogers, Stephanie Bates and Mike Bates voted for it."
More from the article:
Before the vote, Jeff Canfield, owner of Canfield Drilling Co., told the council that buying more water in the closed Kiowa Basin would be a short-term fix at best. Canfield does a lot of the testing and repairing of local wells, he said, and presented statistics showing that wells around the town had fallen just as the town wells have. Town wells had water at a depth of 111 feet in the 1980s. That fell to 115 feet in 1992, 122 feet in 1997, 138 feet in 2002 and 142 in the most recent measurement, he said. A nearby farm well had water at 89 feet when it started and at 138 feet this year, Canfield said. Another farm well went from water at 101 feet in 1981 to 140 feet last spring. Its production rate also fell from 1,200 gallons a minute to 600 gallons a minute, he said. The conclusion of water experts is that the Kiowa Basin is ending its useful life. As that happens, the minerals in the water become more concentrated, Canfield said. Also, since the basin is not like a swimming pool, its bottom tends to narrow, which means the final water it holds will be used up even faster, he said...
He said Wiggins has explored just about every local option, including Morgan County Quality Water District, Fort Morgan water and tributary water like that for the Wiggins Project. "Ignoring the problem is not going to make it go away," Canfield said.
Northeast Colorado Health Department environmental health director Julie McCaleb said water quality has fallen and the state expects something done about it. Nitrates in the water can cause "blue baby syndrome," in which infants cannot process oxygen, and hurt pregnant women, she said. Wiggins' nitrate levels had been at about a measurement of 0.99 on the state's scale until the level spiked to 8 in 2003. The levels were gradually increasing over the next three years. The town opened up another well, helping dilute the water and stabilize the nitrates, but the state wants levels at 2 or 3, McCaleb said. Some of the town's options are to find another source of water, use reverse osmosis, or use an ion exchanger to further blend water, she said.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
From The Sterling Journal Advocate:
The city of Sterling recently received a letter from the state health department stating that it is in violation of water quality standards. According to City Manager Joe Kiolbasa, the letter says action must be taken. The action will result in higher water bills, in part because the city does not have the luxury of first pursuing grants or an increase in the mill levy.
How much water costs will increase has yet to be decided, but the city council learned at its work session Tuesday night that an increase is inevitable. The reason for the increase is the city's need to contract for a study that will eventually lead to upgrades in the water system. The study alone will cost the city nearly a half million dollars, according to Kiolbasa...
The council was presented two options for paying for the study, expected to cost $480,000. The first would be a flat increase of $8.77 per month per customer. Another option under discussion is to add a rate increase of 50 cents per 1,000 gallons consumed. That scale would equate to monthly increases from about $4.40 per month to $300 per month for Sterling's largest industrial consumer. The consumption-based cost increase would average $6 to $7 per month increase.
This cost increase does not include the cost of the new filtration system. That part of the process has not yet been addressed. The study is expected to answer many of the questions regarding what is needed for the city's water system. What can't be fully answered is how much of a filtration system does the city and its residents want. The more effective it is, the more costly the bill.
Kiolbasa said the low end figures for filtration upgrades are estimated at $10 million. Costs could increase to $15 to $17 million, depending on how extensive of a plant the council and city residents choose.
Category: Colorado Water
5:55:52 PM
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From The Boulder Daily Camera: "What it means: If approved, Amendment 52 would direct money raised by severance taxes on the oil and gas industry into a transportation fund set aside for road improvements throughout the state. The first priority would be relieving congestion along the Interstate 70 corridor.
"What supporters say: The amendment is a way to fund new transportation projects with no new taxes and no new tolls.
"What opponents say: The measure focuses too much on I-70, and adjusting severance tax funds away from water projects could cause problems in the future."
Category: Colorado Water
5:21:19 PM
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From The Boulder Daily Camera: "Voting 'yes' on this issue would allow Nederland to go into debt to build, operate and maintain a new water treatment and wastewater treatment plant. The town would not increase taxes, but it would use utility fees and existing sales tax to repay the debts."
Category: Colorado Water
5:18:11 PM
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Here's a recap of the first day of the Govenor's Conference on Drought and Climate Risk, from The Rocky Mountain News. From the article:
More than 200 water managers, scientists and elected officials gathered for the three-day event, designed to help lay out a strategy for coping with water shortages fueled by growth, climate change and energy development. "We must be careful stewards of Colorado's water supply," said Gov. Bill Ritter. "If we fail, we fail at the peril of our children and our grandchildren."
Colorado, like other states, is hampered in its response to warming because little local data exists on the phenomenon. But a study commissioned by the Colorado Water Conservation Board found that Colorado will warm significantly during the next 40 years, from 2.5 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Summers are expected to be extremely hot, causing water demand to rise and stream flows to shrink, perhaps as much as 20 percent in such areas as the Upper Colorado River Basin. Even as the state continues to warm, its energy industry is growing , [Harris] Sherman said. Western Slope oil shale production is expected to require billions of gallons of new water supplies. But how rain and snow patterns will change is less clear, scientists said.
Existing climate models have difficulty predicting what will occur in Colorado's unique high altitude, according to Brad Udall, director of the Western Water Assessment, which coordinated the research effort. And because the state lies in the middle of the continent, it's difficult to discern how warming will affect weather patterns that shift and change as they move over giant land masses. What is clear, said Joe Barsugli, a scientist at the Boulder- based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, is that water utilities must change the way they forecast water supply and demand. "You can't assume the past is going to be your best guide to the future," Barsugli said. In response to the uncertainty, Colorado's largest water utilities, including Denver, Aurora and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, are gearing up to do their own risk analysis, to examine how warming will affect the Front Range and its water supplies.
More coverage from The Pueblo Chieftain. They write:
Policies put into place today to counter the worst effects of climate change will take years to take hold, but could reduce the rate of change and improve Colorado's long-range planning, Gov. Bill Ritter said Wednesday. "At no time has our water been threatened so much by drought, climate change and population growth," Ritter said. "As we assess the impact of climate change, water absolutely has to be a part of the discussion."[...]
Ritter called for communities to put new emphasis on planning for drought. "While many communities have developed water conservation plans, drought planning has to be a part of the equation," Ritter said. Ritter tied in his concept of a "new energy economy" with the reduction of greenhouse gases in the future, praising Vestas, a wind turbine manufacturer building plants along the Front Range, including Pueblo, and Conoco Phillips, which is building a major climate and energy research center in Denver. Quoting the late congressman Wayne Aspinall, Ritter said "water touches everything" and has to be central to any discussions of growth in Colorado. He talked about growing up on a dryland wheat farm, taking time off lately to squeeze in fishing trips and the need to furnish water to a booming state population. Ritter called for the state to begin building a framework to determine the scope of obstacles facing water users. He called for innovative solutions...
The conference unveiled a new report by the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the University of Colorado at Boulder that projects vast changes for Colorado agriculture, recreation and cities. The Colorado Water Foundation issued its own report on how climate change affects water. The reports predict a new climate for Colorado that will mean less intense winters, less snowpack, more reliance on rainfall, longer growing seasons and higher temperatures. Harris Sherman, director of the Department of Natural Resources, called for all state municipal water providers to come up with drought plans. "Only 27 percent of the state's water suppliers have drought plans," Sherman said, adding that they are mostly the larger cities in the state. "We need to do better."[...]
Climate change has been incorporated into the most recent phase of the Statewide Water Supply Initiative, which in 2004 predicted an 18 percent gap in meeting future municipal water needs in the state. The state also is looking at a boom in oil shale, uranium, coal and natural gas development that will increase demands on water, particularly on the Western Slope. At the same time, flows in the Colorado River basin are projected to drop 6-20 percent. "Our traditional assessment about the amount, form and location of precipitation has become a moving target," Sherman said.
Climate change will create challenges in water quality as well as supply, said Martha Rudolph, environmental director for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. "We would likely find more water bodies are impaired by the loading of pollutants and water temperature change," Rudolph said. Less snowfall and more rainfall will mean more runoff from urban areas as storms wash contaminants off streets and parking lots and salinity could be increased. If more forest land burns in wildfires, there could be more sediment from erosion flowing into reservoirs. Reusing municipal water on crops could be detrimental to production, Rudolph said.
More coverage from The Denver Post. They write:
The majority of water utilities and providers in Colorado have failed to submit required water conservation and drought plans, state officials said Wednesday
The failure raises questions of how prepared Colorado is for the next drought.
"Some of this planning may be going on. We just don't know," said Harris Sherman, executive director of the state Department of Natural Resources...
"The law requires filing plans, but the law has no teeth," said Jennifer Gimbel, executive director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board -- which is responsible for water project planning and financing. A water purveyor cannot get state funding for a project without submitting the plans, but if it isn't seeking state money, there is nothing to compel the provider to file. "There is no enforcement mechanism," Gimbel said. Under state law, the approximately 110 utilities and systems that use 2,000 acre-feet of water a year or more -- an acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons -- must file conservation plans with the state. Only 25 percent have done so, according to the state water conservation board. Water providers also also required to have drought plans. A survey of 350 by the water conservation board found only 27 percent had plans...
The water conservation board can provide planning grants and technical expertise, Gimbel said. The major water systems in the state have filed both conservation and drought plans, according to the state water conservation board survey.
Update More coverage from The Cortez Journal:
Colorado water providers are looking at a future that's hot, dry and crowded. To prepare for this future, hundreds of water experts gathered Wednesday for the Governor's Conference on Managing Drought and Climate Risk...
Most large water utilities have drought plans, but three-quarters of the state's municipal water providers don't, Sherman said. He wants opinions from water managers on whether the Legislature should pass a law requiring drought plans from city water providers...
People at the conference got a copy of the Colorado Water Conservation Board's brand new report on climate change in Colorado. It is one of the only reports to try to show the effects of global warming in the state. There is strong consensus among climate scientists worldwide that the Earth is getting hotter, and humans are the likely cause. But scientists tend to shy away from using their global models to predict local climates. The new report reviews a variety of previous studies. It predicts an average temperature increase in Colorado of 2.5 degree Fahrenheit by 2025 and 5 degrees by 2050. In the mountains, that means the climate common at lower elevations will move up toward the peaks. Western Slope valleys will feel more like the desert Southwest, the report says. Most concerning to water managers, the report predicts 6 percent to 20 percent drops in streamflows in the Colorado River Basin, which includes Southwest Colorado.
Category: Colorado Water
6:28:16 AM
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Here's an update on Colorado Springs' efforts to shore up their sanitary sewer system to prevent spills and their plans for the proposed Southern Delivery System, from The Colorado Springs Independent. From the article:
In 1999, flooding wiped out large portions of the Colorado Springs Utilities collection and treatment system, releasing 68 million gallons of untreated sewage into streams. There would soon be more spills. Lots of bad press. More finger-pointing from Pueblo leaders angry that Colorado Springs waste was flowing downstream, into their community. There would even be lawsuits, one of which is still unresolved...
While this was happening, Utilities was struggling to push the Southern Delivery System, a massive water project that Colorado Springs leaders say is needed to provide drinking water in future years. That project requires cooperation from Pueblo -- the city where the Springs-owned water is located -- and a good environmental record. Today, the latter piece of the puzzle is coming together. Utilities' last major raw sewage spill happened nearly three years ago. In 2007, the city-owned utility spilled around 1,000 gallons of sewage; it treats about 40 million gallons a day...
From 2000 to 2008, Utilities invested more than $100 million in the inspection and upgrading of wastewater pipes, according to spokesman Steve Berry. In the next few years, Berry expects spending to reach $250 million. And the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which oversees Utilities and has mandated improvements to the wastewater system, says improvements have followed. Writes Steve Gunderson, director of the department's Water Quality Control Division, in an e-mail: "Raw sewage spills since [January 2006] have greatly diminished in size, which is remarkable given the magnitude of spills in prior to 2006 and the size of the Colorado Springs sewer system, which is the largest system with respect to number of miles of sewer lines in the state." Berry says Utilities has been upgrading, repairing and replacing sewage pipes, a project it expects to complete by 2015. It now sends crews to check pipes for damage after storms. It has installed about 2,500 locking manhole covers to prevent vandalism. It has upgraded treatment plants and pumping stations, and installed the Fountain Creek Recovery System, a $10.5 million emergency system -- yet to be used -- that can capture and treat up to 18 million gallons of water from Fountain Creek if a spill occurs. Meanwhile, the city's Stormwater Enterprise is helping to control erosion and sediment in the city's waterways, a major cause of damage to utility lines in the past...
The Sierra Club sued Utilities in 2005, accusing the utility of violating the Clean Water Act. (In 2005, two large spills, one caused by vandalism and another by a flash flood, dumped more than 300,000 gallons of raw sewage into Fountain Creek.) That trial concluded earlier this year, but a judge has yet to render a verdict...
After years of struggle, SDS is moving closer to reality. The Bureau of Reclamation recently tweaked Utilities' preferred layout for the system. Among the changes: Utilities would need to use Upper Williams Creek Reservoir instead of Jimmy Camp Creek Reservoir for terminal storage. The change would protect wetlands and cultural and paleontological sites in the Jimmy Camp Creek area, but also would increase the price tag on the preferred option -- already approximately $1 billion -- by about $19 million. Utilities says it would make up $12 million with savings on maintenance and operation, and would also realize millions in savings by not having to mitigate the Jimmy Camp area. The bureau is currently taking public input on the updated option. It could still choose one of the other, more expensive, alternatives Utilities presented, or turn down the plan all together.
While it weighs its decision, Utilities is trying to resolve land use issues with Pueblo. If an agreement can't be reached, Utilities would have to stray from its preferred option and take a different route, costing an extra $100 to $150 million.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here, here and here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:22:29 AM
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© Copyright
2008
John Orr.
Last update:
11/1/08; 7:54:22 PM.
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