Coyote Gulch's Colorado Water
The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land. -- Luna Leopold
















































































































































































































































































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Thursday, October 16, 2008
 

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From the Aspen Times: "The Roaring Fork Conservancy has raised about one-half of the funds it is seeking to build a river center in a prominent spot in Basalt. The conservancy has collected $1.6 million so far from 'lead donors' in a fund-raising effort, officials with the nonprofit organization reported to the Basalt Town Council Tuesday night. The conservancy hasn't launched a full-blown public fund-raising effort yet. The conservancy plans to build a $3.3 million education center on land it bought from the city beside Old Pond Park. That site is just off the banks of the Roaring Fork River, so the organization's education mission will be enhanced, officials said. The river center will feature classrooms, laboratories and public meeting spaces on the ground floor, with offices for conservancy staff on the second story. Exhibits featuring river ecosystems will be a prominent part of the center."

Category: Colorado Water
6:58:33 PM    


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From the Pueblo West View: "The Pueblo West Metropolitan District's board of directors will hold a special meeting on Oct. 21 to discuss how the district will handle the expansion of its water and wastewater treatment facilities. The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. at the metro district office. Part of the funding mechanism for those plans will be proposed rate hikes for water and wastewater treatment. At a meeting on Sept. 15, the board heard recommendations of 7.9 percent increase each year for the next three years on water rates and 3.2 percent each year for the next eight years for wastewater treatment."

Category: Colorado Water
6:49:28 PM    


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Here's a look at the fallout from Colorado Springs' decision not to build Jimmy Camp Creek Reservoir as part of the proposed Southern Delivery System, from the Colorado Springs Gazette. From the article:

For six years, folks in an unincorporated area east of Colorado Springs have lived with the prospect of moving to make way for the Jimmy Camp Creek Reservoir and adjoining park. When the plan surfaced, many were angry. They didn't want to leave their homes on lots ranging from 5 to 60 acres. Others didn't want to live so close to a 700-acre reservoir and 2,000-acre city park. They feared the noise, crime and other impacts associated with boaters, hikers and campers who would descend on their quiet neighborhood. Some tried to fight Colorado Springs Utilities, which said Jimmy Camp was needed to store Arkansas River water pumped from Pueblo Reservoir as part of its $1 billion Southern Delivery System, or SDS, pipeline project. But most recognized large public works projects can't typically be stopped. And Utilities officials were so confident in the site they spent $6.4 million to buy 400 acres from 14 landowners. It seemed inevitable. Utilities helped the owners make the transition by paying a premium for the properties, according to a city audit. And it allowed them to stay on their places during the long process of getting permits. They were even given the first right of refusal in the unlikely case the SDS project cratered.

More Coyote Gulch coverage here.

Category: Colorado Water
6:45:27 PM    


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Here's an update on Sterling's required investment to bring their water system up to current state standards, from the Sterling Journal Advocate. From the article:

When the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, acting on standards accepted by the Environmental Protection Agency, told the city of Sterliing it was in violation of water quality standards, city officials knew their day was coming. What they didn't expect is how much preparation for water system improvements could cost. The present estimate is the city will have to find an extra $480,000, give or take a little, just to determine what needs to be done and what is the best course of action to accomplish that goal. At Tuesday night's city council meeting, City Manager Joe Kiolbasa was directed to bring options on how to finance the study to the next council meeting of Oct. 28. In the course of Tuesday's meeting, the council approved an agreement with Richard Arber and Associates to conduct the study...

How the city will finance the water quality study will remain the question until at least the next meeting. Earlier, Kiolbasa offered two options, a flat rate increase for all customers of about $8.77 per month, or a use-based increase that would vary from about $4 to as much as $300 per month increase for the largest industrial customer.

Category: Colorado Water
6:18:45 PM    


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Here's a recap of this week's meeting of the Rio Grande Roundtable, from the Valley Courier. From the article:

Members of the Rio Grande Inter Basin Roundtable on Tuesday began formulating an official response to the Colorado Interbasin Compact Committee (IBCC) concerning future water needs in the state. The Rio Grande Basin representatives discussed the qualities they liked about the basin such as the cooperation among diverse groups; what they might like to change such as increased water storage; what methods might have to be used to sustainably meet agricultural and other water needs in the future such as conservation and crop diversity; and how the basin could help ensure fairness in any future water dealings.

Rio de la Vista pointed out that the Valley has fought major battles in the past to keep its water from being exported, and she said she would like to have some sense of security that exportation would not occur in the future. Steve Vandiver, who represents the basin on the IBCC, said, "It doesn't wash that we can meet all the demands that are foreseeable much less the ones that are not." He said Colorado is not able to meet all of the existing needs ranging from municipal and agricultural to environmental and recreational. One alternative that is unacceptable to the Valley, he said, is "buy and dry" where big money buys up farms and ranches and dries them up. That kind of program would drastically change the entire Valley as it has changed other parts of the state already, he said...

The group talked about how water sales or trades between two parties could affect third parties. For example, if large municipalities bought up the water rights of several farms and those farms went out of business, then the businesses and governments that depend on that agricultural base and tax base would be negatively affected...

Craig Cotten, Colorado Division of Water Resources, Division III, said the San Luis Valley (Rio Grande Basin) is probably in the most dangerous position of any other basin in the state as far as third-party impacts from water transfers out of the basin because other areas have more diverse economies to fall back on when the agriculture is gone. Ralph Curtis said when Aurora bought up water rights on the Front Range, the city provided funds to the communities and school districts that would be affected by the water sales and agreed not to come back in to buy large amounts of water in the lower Arkansas Basin for a number of years. Gibson suggested that the roundtable make a statement to the effect that when water transfers would occur the parties involved should be cognizant of third-party impacts and/or be willing or required to mitigate those impacts in some way...

Vandiver said fewer people want to stay on farms and ranches so there is a propensity to sell out. For some older farmers, their properties represent their retirement, he said. If it is just the money the property owner is after, he explained, agriculture could never compete with the kind of prices municipalities can pay for water rights.

Nature Conservancy Manager Paul Robertson said, "The only way we can really protect ourselves is to tie our water up in some way ... buy everybody's water and put it into some sort of communal pool ... socialize our water locally."

"colorarado water"
6:13:39 PM    


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Here's a recap of Wednesday's meeting of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservation District, from to the Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:

Larvae from zebra or quagga mussels almost certainly have made their way downstream from Pueblo Dam in the Arkansas River, Bessemer Ditch and state fish hatchery. While their spread has not been as dramatic as populations on the Colorado River, it's only a matter of time before the mussels start causing problems along the Arkansas River, said Fred Nibling Jr., invasive species team leader for the Bureau of Reclamation...

It's believed that the mussels cannot live in most of the ditch systems downstream once the water is shut off for the winter. Although the mussels can survive for up to two weeks out of water, freezing temperatures will kill them, Nibling said. However, mussels could survive the winter in lakes, ponds or structures like siphons, causing concern that they could appear in new places next year. The mussels could cause big headaches for farmers if they find their way into sprinkler systems or pipes...

The first Colorado sighting was in Lake Pueblo in January, and at a much earlier stage than on the Colorado River. Biologists believe the mussels breed up to six times a year in the warmer reaches of the Colorado River, but only two to three times a year in the higher, cooler climate of Colorado...

There are several ways the population and effects of the mussels could be controlled, Nibling said. Although natural predators here do not eat mussel larvae, catfish, carp and even ducks will eat the adults - just not fast enough to keep up with an adult female mussel that can produce up to 30,000 offspring at a time and millions of eggs over a lifetime. Nibling showed a photograph of carp in the Colorado River system eating mussels off a dam "like corn on the cob." Reclamation is looking at filters, acoustic barriers, electric fields and ultraviolet light to protect the areas around diversion structures, Nibling said. The federal agency is also looking at coating structures with chemicals or substances that repel mussels from attaching to them. Nibling said copper is among least favored surfaces for mussels to attach to, while they seem to like concrete, stainless steel and plastic pipe. The New York State Museum is researching the possibility that a common bacteria found in soil could be cultured to develop a strain that would be lethal to quagga and zebra mussels and the veligers, but not to other species. "It appears to work even if the bacteria are dead," Nibling said. "There's something in the cells." Because there are not as many irrigation systems in the East, methods to control mussels in ditch systems need to be researched, Nibling said.

More coverage of the meeting, from the Pueblo Chieftain:

The formula now used to account for transit loss in the Arkansas River basin is a variant of a method developed in a 1944 court case in use since the 1970s. It basically applies a flat rate of 0.07 percent loss per river mile from Twin Lakes to the Colorado Canal headgate to releases from Twin Lakes or Pueblo Dam. The numbers were largely decided before the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project enlarged Turquoise and Twin lakes and built Lake Pueblo. The Colorado Water Conservation Board is launching a $120,000 study, proposed by engineer Russell Livingston, who had done much of the previous work, to refine the model and measure its predictive ability against past conditions. The study will look at the reach of the river from Pueblo Dam to John Martin Reservoir under different conditions...

The study is expected to look at rates of loss and time of delivery for more than 130 miles of river under varying river conditions and be complete by 2010. On Wednesday, the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District board voted to provide $20,000 of matching funds toward the state project. The Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District is expected to contribute a like amount to the project, said Executive Director Jim Broderick, who added there may be other partners as well.

In other action Wednesday, the Lower Ark board voted to increase its contribution next year for planning the Arkansas Valley Conduit to $70,000, up $20,000 from this year.

More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.

Category: Colorado Water
5:53:45 PM    


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CNW Group: "On October 3, United States President George W. Bush signed the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact. His signature followed the ratification of the compact by eight Great Lakes states - Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - and the U.S. Congress. This step enacts in U.S. law a historic cross-border partnership among Ontario, Quebec and the Great Lakes states to protect the waters of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin."

Category: Colorado Water
5:36:17 PM    


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We're behind in our posting and hope to catch up this evening.


6:48:31 AM    

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We attended the Metro Roundtable meeting last night.

Lost Creek Designated Ground Water Basin

The roundtable approved -- with Aurora voting no -- to fund part of a study of the Upper and Lower Lost Creek designated groundwater basin to assess its potential for storage. The basin is east of Denver International Airport, running northeast from a little north of I-70 to the South Platte River, in Arapahoe, Adams and Weld counties.

Senate Bill 06-193 mandated and funded a study of potential groundwater recharge areas in Colorado. Results from the study identified Lost Creek as having good potential for recharge -- the best in the South Platte Basin. Groundwater storage has advantages over surface storage. The obvious advantage is no evaporation. However with all the problems inherent in permitting new surface reservoirs providers are looking at aquifer storage as an easier -- more environmentally acceptable -- path to take.

The study will attempt to map the geological characteristics and determine the potential storage capacity in the basin. The Metro Roundtable approved $80,000 towards the overall budget of $173,000. The South Platte Roundtable also approved $80,000 the day before at their meeting. The Colorado Geological survey plans to spend $10,000 while the Lost Creek Ground Water Mangement District plans to throw in $3,000.

During discussion questions were raised about the source of the water for recharge. Ralf Topper from the CGS told attendees that it's too early in the process right now to say. He and his team are evaluating potential. Private interests will have to develop the storage if it turns out to be viable.

Amendment 52

The Metro Roundtable voted unanimously to oppose Amendment 52. The amendment -- if it passes -- will allocate a portion of oil and gas severance taxes to improvements along I-70. However it would take money from other areas including water projects.

Grand County Stream Management Plan

As part of the outreach required by the Colorado Water Conservation Board the roundtable heard about the Grand County Stream Management Plan from Caroline Bradford. She reminded the group that Grand County is host to many reservoirs and transmountain diversions. Denver Water and Northern both have large operations there. The county is spending $1 million on the study, said Bradford.

During her presentation Bradford mentioned that the county is worried that there is, "not enough water for local development." She said that the small communities in Grand County depend on their, "environmental resources," for their livelihood. She added that, "agricultural users in the valley can't always take as much water as they," are allowed, "as they can dry up the river." One of the purposes of the plan is to enable Grand County to deal with Denver Water and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District with, "scientifically defensible positions."

Bradford lauded Denver Water's willingness to work with the county. Denver Water's Chips Barry told the roundtable that although there, "wasn't any legal reason to participte," in the plan that they were willing to find the right management techniques to help out. For example Denver Water's Moffat Project (including the expansion of Gross Reservoir) is slated to take water from the county in wet years only. He said the study should help all concerned answer the question, "What do you need water for, where and what time of year," do you need it and that, "Some things can be done."

Agricultural water transfers

The roundtable also approved sending a letter in support of the Colorado Corn Growers Association's grant application for determining new ways to handle agricultural water transfers. The hope is to prevent more dryups in the South Platte and Arkansas basins. The goal is to find methods that will keep farms profitable and in business. They're tackling the problems of changing Colorado water law, measurement of consumptive use and how to meet historical return flows.

Category: Colorado Water
6:45:57 AM    


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