Energy policy — nuclear: Representative Markey and Senator Bennet ask the EPA to shine a bright light on the approval process for Powertech’s injection well

From the Fort Collins Coloradoan (Bobby Magill):

Powertech must obtain, and has applied for, a permit from the EPA allowing it to drill an injection well for solution mining, also known as a “Class III” well. The company has also applied to the EPA for a per-mit for a water injection well – a “Class V” well – at the Centennial Project site. The agency is allowing the public to comment on a draft permit for the well through Dec. 24. “We would respectfully urge you to take every precaution to safeguard the quality of our water,” Bennet and Markey wrote in their letter.

Meanwhile, the mine’s potential impact on water quality in the region will be discussed at a hearing Thursday at the Colorado Department of Natural Resources headquarters in Denver. The Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety is writing rules governing in situ leach min-ing under a law passed in 2008 requiring companies operating such mines to minimize their impact on water quality.

More coverage from The Greeley Tribune.

More nuclear coverage here and here.

Interbasin Compact Committee meeting December 2

Here’s the release from the Department of Natural Resources (Theo Stein):

Water planners and stakeholders will convene to discuss ways to mix and match multiple strategies for meeting Colorado’s future water supply needs at the 25th meeting of the Interbasin Compact Committee, to be held this Wednesday in Denver.

The focus of the meeting will be the introduction of an analytical tool to help the nine river basin roundtables identify the right mix of conservation, new supply development, agricultural transfers, and other strategies to help them meet their future water needs. The Interbasin Compact Committee (IBCC) is a 27-member committee established to facilitate dialogue between basins and to address statewide water issues.

The IBCC is organized around nine basin roundtables covering the South Platte, the Denver- Metro area, the Arkansas, the Rio Grande, the Gunnison, the Colorado, the Yampa-White, the Southwest and the North Platte. These roundtables are the primary forums for on-going discussions related to needs within each basin and the basins’ interactions with each other.

Date: Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Time: 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Location: Sheraton Denver West Hotel 360 Union Blvd. Lakewood, CO
Room: City Lights

All meetings are open and the public is encouraged to attend.

More IBCC — Basin Roundtable coverage here.

David A. Sampson: ‘Water and energy are inextricably linked…Energy is required to transport and purify water, and water is used in energy production’

Here’s the release from Arizona State University:

Climate projections for the next 50 to 100 years forecast increasingly frequent severe droughts and heat waves across the American Southwest, sinking available water levels even as rising mercury drives up demand for it.

Declining water supply will affect more than just water flowing from taps and spraying from hoses and sprinklers. It will also strongly impinge on power generation, testing the capacity of sources like Hoover Dam, with its roughly 1.3 million customers in Nevada, Arizona and California, to generate adequate power with less water.

Now, Patricia Gober and David A. Sampson of the Decision Center for a Desert City at Arizona State University are teaming with David J. Sailor of Portland State University on a $65,000 grant to wade into this deep problem.

Their research will focus initially on water and electricity supply and demand in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, and the effects of extreme heat and drought on them.

“Water and energy are inextricably linked,” says Sampson, a DCDC research scientist specializing in simulation and modeling. “Energy is required to transport and purify water, and water is used in energy production.

“Further reductions within the Colorado River Basin threaten not only water supplies but also energy production and tourism, with a potential economic impact amounting to billions of dollars in lost revenues.”

According to Sampson, Lake Powell currently stands at 62 percent capacity and Lake Mead, which provides the water that drives the Hoover Dam’s hydroelectric plants, is currently at 43 percent capacity and could drop as low as 40 percent.

Such levels raise questions about how providers will supply safe, affordable water to the 27 million residents relying on the Colorado River supply, especially in light of continued development and population growth.

The researchers will attack the complex problem from a number of angles.

The energy research will assess the current sensitivity of electricity supply and demand to weather fluctuations, while also projecting future scenarios of population demographics and climate. Researchers will also develop models that predict and gauge the vulnerability of the electricity generation infrastructure to changes in climate and population.

With respect to water, the researchers will use WaterSim (http://watersim.asu.edu/), DCDC’ s systems dynamics model and decision tool, to investigate how changing climate conditions will affect runoff, which provides the lion’s share of surface water used to supply Phoenix. Adapting WaterSim to a more localized scale, they will also perform a sensitivity analysis of climate change versus future population growth, to determine their relative impacts on water shortages, while also analyzing vulnerability at the water-provider level.

The researchers will feed their results into two different scenarios, a business-as-usual policy and one reflecting a groundwater-sustainability approach. These results, in turn, will provide a foundation for future study of implications of climate change and policy scenarios.

“This research is very much in line with the DCDC’s purpose and goals,” says Gober, co-director of DCDC and a professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and the School of Sustainability. “Figuring out how all the pieces fit together, identifying sensitivities, and making useful predictions and recommendations in the face of climatic uncertainty.”

The National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP), a commission established by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation that takes a bipartisan approach to energy policy, balancing science and politics, funds the project. Energy infrastructure adequacy and siting is one of its three current focus areas, along with oil security and climate change.

Arizona State University’s Decision Center for a Desert City is one of five National Science Foundation-funded centers nationwide fostering better decision-making under climatic uncertainty. It was founded to apply this principle to water-management decisions in the urbanizing desert of Central Arizona.

Source:
David A. Sampson, dasamps1@mainex1.asu.edu
Decision Center for a Desert City

Contact:
Nick Gerbis, ngerbis@asu.edu
Decision Center for a Desert City

S.1777 and S.796: What do the bills mean for acid mine drainage cleanup efforts?

From the Colorado Independent (Katie Redding):

…toxic waterways around the state and country — are at the center of a legislative tug of war. So-called Good Samaritan laws seek to lift liability so clean-up work can begin. Those laws, however, are opposed by environmentalists who argue they might erode the strong federal Clean Water Act. The better approach, they say, is to make mining companies pay to properly clean up the messes they have made and are making by revamping the nation’s 1872 Mining Law, which has let the extraction industry off the hook for more than a century…

Proponents of Udall’s Good Samaritan legislation, however, argue that the legislation is not meant to substitute for the new 1872 Mining Law reform bill introduced in the U.S. Senate by fellow Democrat Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, a bill that would at last set up severance taxes to pay for cleanups. Good Sam legislation, they argue, is a necessary corollary to Bingaman’s legislation. “You need all the pieces,” said Peter Butler of the Animas River Stakeholders Group. “Even if you did set up a fund with severance taxes, you’ve got to have someone who is going to use that money, and they’re not willing to use it if they’re going to be liable.”[...]

DRMS Abandoned Mine Program Manager Loretta Pineda said fear of legal liability is real and a major stopping point in clean up projects. Pineda said the state is stymied by fear of incurring the Clean Water Act financial burdens that currently faces any third party that would take it upon itself to drain an abandoned mine. “There are several projects we’d like to work on, but we’re unable to do so because of liability,” said Pineda flatly.

In the Animas River Watershed, the Animas River Stakeholders Group has determined that of the 1,500 historic mine sites contributing cadmium, copper, aluminum, manganese, zinc, lead and iron to the watershed, about 34 waste sites contribute roughly 90 percent of the waste-site pollution, and about 33 draining mines contribute 90 percent of the draining-mine pollution. Bill Simon, a member of the group, explained that the group can address the waste sites without incurring liability, because no water is involved. But work on most of the 33 draining mines — apart from 5 addressed by a mining company and several that are on federal land — await some kind of liability waiver, said Simon. Even if the group had funding, neither the Animas River Stakeholders Group nor any other agency is willing to risk being sued for a problem not of their making, according to Simon.

More S.1777 coverage here and S.796 coverage here.

Summit County: Emerging contaminants

From the Summit Daily News (Bob Berwyn):

“This is turning into the next big issue for water treatment plants,” said local water quality expert Lane Wyatt. With new, extra-sensitive monitoring equipment, agencies like the EPA and the U.S. Geological Survey have been able to detect trace amounts of various substances — including Viagra and ibuprofen — that may be adversely affecting fish. Scientists also are concerned that a build-up of antibiotics in the environment could eventually lead to a significant impact on a massive scale, with changes to the way naturally occurring bacteria process vast quantities of biomass like dead wood, recycling the material into nutrients. Wyatt said the Colorado Division of Wildlife has been finding hermaphroditic trout in some Colorado rivers. Research in other areas suggests that the chemicals are starting to accumulate in the food chain. Studies from Sweden show that some of the pollutants are starting to show up in breast milk…

The issue is so new that there currently are no water-quality standards to address the new class of contaminants, Wyatt said. Upgrading water treatment plants to remove the chemicals is likely to be expensive. Keeping the pollutants out of the water in the first place could help address the problem…

Wyatt said local waters were tested with the new equipment in recent weeks to get some baseline data on the emerging contaminants. Similarly, local residents had a chance to fill out a mail-in survey on the same topic in the past few weeks in advance of publicizing the prescription drug take-back. EPA officials said they wanted to get an idea of how much the public knows about the subject before launching an education push. “This hasn’t been done in very many places,” said the EPA’s Jean Mackenzie, who is also coordinating an interagency effort to clean up pollution at the abandoned Pennsylvania Mine. She said many of the emerging pollutants act as pseudo-estrogen, leading an increased incidence of inter-sex fish. “We need to keep them out of the water because treatment is not set up to take them out,” she said.

More water pollution coverage here.

Windsor: Potable water plan forecasts shortfall

From the Windsor Beacon (Ashley Keesis-Wood):

The town had commissioned a potable water master plan at the beginning of the year, and [Clear Water Solutions] was chosen to create that document, which is intended to act as a guide in future water acquisition decisions. “The upshot is that build out, with all the water dedication planned on being taken into account, you’ll have a gap of about 8,731 acre-feet of water,” [Steve Nguyen, President of Clear Water Solutions] said.

Currently, the town relies on the Colorado Big Thompson (CBT) project for all its water needs. “Because of caps put into place on CBT to allow smaller communities to purchase water rights in CBT, you are not able to purchase any more CBT rights on the open market,” Nguyen said. “You can still accept them through dedication as projects are developed.”

The town is one of the participants in the North Integrated Supply Project (NISP), and Nguyen said that is a good project, which will help diversify the town’s portfolio. But, it won’t be enough. “You’ll need to make sure you have other sources, including the upcoming Windy Gap project or the Water Supply and Storage Company water,” Nguyen said. “We recommend you initiate discussions with those groups.”

More Windsor coverage here and here.

Dick Wolfe: Prior appropriation, ‘the system that works in times of scarcity’

From the Twin Falls Times News:

Recognizing early on the effects that groundwater pumping can have on senior surface-water rights, Colorado officials tried a proactive solution, said Dick Wolfe, state engineer and head of the Division of Water Resources since 2007. Junior well users since the early 1970s have generally had to file court-approved “augmentation plans” before they can operate, describing how they will replace the water they use in times of shortage. The system worked — until a severe drought in 2002 pushed it to its limits. The ’80s and ’90s had been among the wettest on record for the South Platte Basin in northeast Colorado, the state’s largest basin in terms of water use. Then the drought hit, Wolfe said, and augmentation plans developed for shortfalls decades before were insufficient to handle the sheer level of need. Stream flow only reached 25 percent of usual. Groundwater pumpers scoured the market for water supplies, competing with cities and other water users who were also reluctant to part with their extra water. Prices skyrocketed: What once cost only $10 to $50 per acre-foot commanded sums as high as $700 per acre-foot, Wolfe recalled. Tension and conflicts rose with the increased competition for costly, limited supplies…

The agency faced the daunting task of examining about 8,200 physical, high-capacity irrigation wells, some of which would have to be completely shut down. Employees started with the wells along the main stem of the South Platte River, creating an inventory of several thousand in the curtailment’s first year and notifying the owners of wells that had to be shut off as they went. Only 5,800 wells were legally able to operate after the first couple years of work. Many of those were still “severely” restricted due to the drought, Wolfe said. Half of the remaining 2,400 wells were records errors and didn’t exist any more. At least 500 to 1,000 belonged to people who had no augmentation plan in place…

The inventories and inspections are still going on seven years later. And though water issues continue to be fought out in court, the basic process Wolfe follows has been upheld by the state Supreme Court. Given the task his agency faced, he feels it’s been handled well — even quickly. And the work has only strengthened his confidence in his state’s approach to water management. Prior appropriation, he said, is “the system that works in times of scarcity.”

More South Platte River Basin coverage here.

Arkansas River Compact Administration to meet December 8 in Garden City, KS

From the High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal:

The Arkansas River Compact Administration annual meeting will be at 9 a.m., Dec. 8, at the Clarion Inn, 1911 E Kansas Ave, in Garden City, Kan. On or before Dec. 1, the meeting agenda will be posted on the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s website at www.ksda.gov/interstate_water_issues/content/143 and on the Colorado Water Conservation Board’s website at http://cwcb.state.co.us. The Arkansas River Compact Administration administers provisions of the Kansas-Colorado Arkansas River Compact, including how John Martin Reservoir operates. Topics to be covered at the meeting include a review of John Martin Reservoir operations and updates from state and federal agencies…

The administration’s engineering, operations and administrative/legal committees will meet at 2 p.m., Dec. 7, also at the Clarion Inn.

More Arkansas River Basin coverage here.

Summit County: Drought Early Warning System organizational meeting

From the Summit Daily News (Bob Berwyn):

State water experts hope to develop an early warning system for drought using a grassroots network of trained weather watchers. Summit County and Grand County will be part of the data-gathering effort for the Upper Colorado River Basin, relying on readings from more than a dozen local volunteers who measure and report precipitation to help fill in the gaps between the National Weather Service’s three official stations in the county — Breckenridge, Dillon, and Green Mountain Dam…

Doesken has been interviewing dozens of water users, planners and managers in recent months, determining that water planners would like to have an accurate forecast of drought two years in advance. “That sounds like a reasonable request, and weather forecasts continue to get better. But accurate forecasts weeks to months in advance are still a very tall order,” he said…

For more information about this “drought early warning system,” contact Nolan Doesken, State Climatologist, Colorado Climate Center, Colorado State University. (970) 491-3690 nolan@atmos.colostate.edu

To sign up to help measure and report precipitation, go to http://www.cocorahs.org and click “Join CoCoRaHS” or contact dmatthewsdss@comcast.net or Gerry Divine cjdivine@comcast.net.

For more information on the National Integrated Drought Information System, go to: www.drought.gov.

Here’s the meeting information:

Drought Early Warning System for Summit County – Meeting Dec. 2
Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the meeting starts at 6 at the Summit Senior Center in Frisco.
This program is free and the public is invited.

More Colorado water coverage here.

Carbondale: Proposed water and sewer rate hike halved

From the Glenwood Springs Post Independent (John Stroud):

What was planned to be a 3 percent annual water/wastewater rate hike was cut in half by Carbondale town trustees at their Nov. 24 meeting, as a way of bringing some financial relief to town residents…

At 3 percent, the new monthly base rate for in-town residential and commercial water customers would have been $16.83 each, and for out-of-town users $25.24, plus the incremental charge based on water usage. Wastewater rates would have been $10.83 and $16.23, respectively, under the original proposal. Those rates will now be slightly less given the agreed-to 1.5 percent increase.

More infrastructure coverage here.

Denver Water: Public hearing in Summit County for proposed Moffat Collection System Project

Update:

Here’s the release from Denver Water. There are four meetings starting Tuesday in Boulder:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will hold four Public Hearings on the Draft EIS. At each location, Denver Water will hold an Open House from 4 to 6 p.m. The Public Hearings begin at 6 p.m.:

Tues., Dec. 1 — Boulder Country Club, 7350 Clubhouse Road, Boulder, CO 80301
Wed., Dec. 2 — Inn at Silver Creek, 62927 U.S. Highway 40, Granby, CO 80446
Thurs., Dec. 3 — Doubletree Hotel, 3203 Quebec Street, Denver, CO 80207
Tues., Dec. 8 — Keystone Conference Center, 0633 Tennis Club Road, Keystone, CO 80435

From the Summit Daily News (Bob Berwyn):

As described in a draft environmental study, the Moffat Collection System project in Grand County would also have impacts on flows on the Blue River. Flows in the Blue River at its confluence with the Colorado River could be cut by as much as 4,800 acre feet annually, about 2 percent of the river’s flow, according to figures released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the draft study. Denver Water project manager Travis Bray said those figures apply when at full build-out of Denver Water’s existing system, and with the Moffat Tunnel on-line. Under the new configuration of diversions that would result from the Moffat Tunnel project, Denver Water would take between 4,000 and 5,000 acre feet of additional water from Dillon Reservoir each year. Bray said the draft study shows there would only be a negligible long-term impact to boating and no impact to fisheries in the Blue River…

Although 2 percent doesn’t sound like much, peak flows are important for the river’s ecosystem, said Becky Long, water caucus organizer with the Colorado Environmental Coalition. “If the project goes forward, the Blue River would see reduced flows in the summer months during wet and average years,” she said. The peak flows in wet years help flush sediment out of the river, create new habitat and support rafting and kayaking, she said.

The main focus of the project is on increased diversions from the Fraser River, but conservation groups are concerned about overall effects on the entire Upper Colorado ecosystem. They advocated for the Summit County hearing when the draft study was released a few weeks ago. Long said the Corps was responding to requests from Summit County residents by scheduling the local hearing…

Conservation groups have identified several broad environmental goals that should be included in the project’s mitigation plan, including:

— Adequate baseline flows in the Fraser throughout the year to sustain fisheries and recreation.

— Sustained peak flows at key times of the year to mimic a natural flow regime and ensure the health and resilience of the river.

— Aggressive urban water conservation and efficiency measures to save more water, such as incentives for homeowners to replace Kentucky bluegrass with drought-tolerant landscaping. More than half of residential water use goes to watering lawns.

— Ongoing monitoring of the river’s health and a mitigation plan with the flexibility to adapt to changing conditions…

A summary of the draft environmental impact statement is online at: https://www.nwo.usace.army.mil/html/od-tl/eis/moffat.deis.vol1.exec-summary.pdf (pdf)

Here’s the public meeting information:

What: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hearing
When: December 8 —Open House: 4 p.m.; public hearing begins at 6 p.m.
Where: Keystone Conference Center (0633 Tennis Club Road, Keystone)

More Denver Water coverage here.

Pueblo West: Pumpback plan update

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

Pueblo West is seeking state health department approval of a pumpback plan it says will not harm Lake Pueblo, which is contested by State Parks and the Pueblo Board of Water Works. The Pueblo County commissioners and Pueblo Area Council of Governments have balked at approval of Pueblo West’s plan to return treated sewer flows into a gulch behind the golf course above Lake Pueblo. Right now, all options are open, said Pueblo County’s water attorney Ray Petros…

“On the one hand, they say they have the science,” Petros said. “Then why are they so reticent about putting in an application for a 1041 permit so there could be public scrutiny and independent verification of that science?” The county still would have to permit a discharge into Lake Pueblo, even if state approval is given. There also likely would be issues with the Bureau of Reclamation for long-term storage contracts in Lake Pueblo, Petros said…

The pumpback option would allow Pueblo West to use more of [transmountain] flows because there would not be the transit loss associated with Wild Horse Dry Creek.

More Pueblo West coverage here.

Republican River Basin: Senator Bennet and Representative Markey broker a deal to expand the CREP program in Washington and Lincoln counties

From the High Plains Journal:

The agreement allows the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program from 35,000 to 70,000 acres and add areas of Washington and Lincoln counties. CREP allows water rights to be permanently retired: the once-irrigated farmland must be put into a grass habitat for 15 years, after which it may be used for grazing or dry land farming. “This will take acres out of production, yet it shows producers will do their part to help rural Colorado as a whole, not just themselves,” said Greg Larson of Haxtun. Larson is a farmer, vice president of the Republican River Conservation District, and secretary-treasurer of Colorado Corn Growers Association. “We are helping to preserve the aquifer and the basin, overall.”

Pueblo West: Discharge site request change spawns ill will

From The Pueblo West View (Mike Spence):

The 3-0 vote to reject the site application plan came after a 30-minute debate in which Pueblo West officials accused the county commissioners of singling out the Pueblo West project for rejection, of going back on their word, and connecting this project with the county’s battle with Pueblo West over the Southern Delivery System.

Those charges brought a rebuke from Commission Chairman Jeff Chostner. “It was the procedural compliance that is the problem,” Chostner said. “We are not hostile to your option. I have no opinion on your option. Until it comes to us formally, we are going to hold you to strict procedural compliance…

The war of words was over the metro district’s filing of an application with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to relocate the discharge site of its wastewater plant from the Arkansas to Lake Pueblo. The application is one of the first steps in the metro district’s attempt to build a pump back project that will clean wastewater from its wastewater plant and pump it six miles to the Golf Course Wash and into Lake Pueblo. Pueblo West’s water is non-native to the Arkansas Basin, so it can be re-used to extinction, according to state law. It also would negate the need for exchanges from Lake Pueblo, metro district officials said. Currently, Pueblo West cleans its wastewater and pumps it to Wild Horse Dry Creek and into the Arkansas River. Pueblo West is given credit for that water and exchanges those credits for water from Lake Pueblo.

More Pueblo West coverage here.

Colorado Springs: Which stormwater efforts will be funded now that the enterprise fund is kaput?

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

a vote on Tuesday confirmed the [Colorado Springs city] council’s position to phase out the stormwater enterprise within two years. Unless another funding mechanism is found, Colorado Springs will absorb only the minimal funding for federal requirements, maintenance, health, safety and emergencies in its general fund beginning in 2012. Colorado Springs council adopted the new policy in response to Doug Bruce’s Issue 300, which implies the voters chose to end the stormwater enterprise, without actually saying so. Bruce campaigned for the issue as an end to what he and others called a “rain tax” and celebrated by tearing up his stormwater bill on television.

Council also agreed to include a $4.24 million-$6.7 million project to upgrade the Templeton Gap levee, which protects thousands of homes, was not on the critical projects list. In all, about $9 million of work on projects from the critical list are likely to be completed under the two-year phase-out.

Council members did not come up with an alternative for funding the remainder of critical projects on the list, although some talked about developing a regional approach with other El Paso County communities or putting a stormwater question on a future municipal ballot.

At the same time, Colorado Springs is planning on spending $46.2 million on SDS in the coming year, according to its published 2010 annual operating plan. The city has issued bonds for the project.

Colorado Springs also will spend almost more than $27 million for maintenance, repair, inspection and replacement of sanitary sewer lines in the city, including $7.5 million for ultraviolet treatment at its Las Vegas Street treatment plant, $7 million for sewer line upgrades and $6 million to fortify stream crossings, according to the operating plan. The city committed to spend at least $75 million in sanitary sewer upgrades, which are costs paid by customers and have nothing to do with the stormwater enterprise.

The city is obligated to make some of the repairs to its sanitary sewer system under state compliance orders, which are also a factor in a federal lawsuit won by the Sierra Club.

More stormwater coverage here.

Colorado will score $42 million from ASARCO reorganization plan

From the Cortez Journal (Joe Hanel):

A Texas judge on Tuesday finalized the reorganization plan for ASARCO Inc., a copper mining and smelting company that owned mines around Silver Lake, which sits west of Silverton at 12,000 feet. In all, Colorado will get $42 million from the $1.7 billion reorganization plan. The state will use $16 million for ASARCO’s smelter in north Denver. The rest will go to mine cleanup around Colorado, including the Summitville site in Rio Grande County, according to a news release from Attorney General John Suthers.

“ASARCO’s reorganization is exceptional in that Colorado and the federal government will recover every dollar they claimed for environmental remediation – plus interest,” Suthers said. “These funds will go a long way to improving and remediating sites ASARCO operated at throughout the state.”[...]

The settlement was a happy surprise for Bill Simon of the Animas River Stakeholders Group, which works on mine cleanup around Silverton. “It seems like $4 million would be more than we expected,” Simon said. “That sounds very good.” ASARCO owned property and mines around Silver Lake, including the lake itself, Simon said. The area saw heavy mining in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and now waste and tailings from the mines are stacked next to the lake and cover the lake bed. At least one mine is draining acid into the lake, Simon said. However, cleanup of the lake hasn’t been the top priority for the Animas River Stakeholders. “That area is so remote and so difficult to remediate, we would probably like to use those funds in a more appropriate area and get more bang for our buck,” Simon said.

More coverage from The Denver Post (Tim Hoover). From the article:

The Globe plant has been the site for smelting or refining a number of heavy metals since 1886, and neighborhoods around it have undergone intensive environmental cleanup efforts for decades. Rep. Joel Judd, D-Denver, whose district includes the neighborhoods around the plant, said he hoped the bankruptcy plan would move the Globe site closer to being reused. “That thing’s been sort of a blight on a hill looking down on Globeville for a century,” Judd said. “It has the potential to be a residential site.”

Randall Weiner, an attorney who has represented Globe ville residents in a lawsuit against Asarco, said the bankruptcy plan appeared to also be good for his clients. “I suspect that moneys will be released, and they (residents in the lawsuit) will all receive the moneys that Asarco promised them 10 years ago,” Weiner said.

More Colorado Water coverage here.

S.796, Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2009: Senator Udall signs on as a sponsor

From the Colorado Independent (Katie Redding):

U.S. Sen. Mark Udall has taken a careful look at mining reform proposals and has announced that he is co-sponsoring the Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2009, a Senate bill sponsored by New Mexico Democrat Jeff Bingaman…

The bill has the backing of Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, a former senator from Colorado and the Obama administration. However, observers expect Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, to block the reform measure, as he has in the past, to cater to gold mining interests in his home state.

More S.796 coverage here.

Center for Biological Diversity files lawsuit to gain protection for the Colorado River cutthroat

From the Associated Press via the Vail Daily:

The federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington, D.C., by the Center for Biological Diversity challenges a 2007 decision that kept the fish off the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision said there was evidence of an increased number of populations of the fish. But Noah Greenwald of the Portland-based Center for Biological Diversity says the trout is gone from 87 percent of its historic range, which included parts of Arizona and New Mexico.

More endangered species coverage here.

El Niño setting up in eastern Pacific

Both farmers and ski area operators spend a lot of time with one eye on the sky. Here’s a report about this year’s El Niño and what to expect from Brittany Havard writing for the Telluride Daily Planet. From the article:

The exact reason an El Niño weather pattern occurs is not certain, but during El Niño winters areas in the far Pacific Northwest and Gulf of Mexico react strongly to weather signals, producing excess precipitation. States like Colorado that lie directly in the middle of these strong signals receive fewer storms, according to the National Weather Service.

“We typically only get about six storms a winter that produce over a foot of snow per storm. If we get four, it’s a dry year. If we get eight, it’s wet. It looks like December, January, and February will be below average in precipitation, but hopefully we’ll get some bigger storms this spring,” said Joe Ramey, a forecaster at National Weather Service’s Grand Junction office…

Typically with an El Niño winter, states west of the Continental Divide get big storms in the fall and spring, though this year, the fall has been relatively dry — a concern for a tourism-driven Telluride economy. One hope for powder hounds is that the Farmer’s Almanac is in complete disagreement with the National Weather Service. “We continue to be at odds with the Farmer’s Almanac who continue to do their own thing. They’re saying it’s going to be a cold winter with significant snowfall, which is exactly opposite of what we’re saying,” said Ramey…

2008 and 2008 were La Niña winters, meaning the waters off the Peruvian coast were cooler, providing more snowfall for some states west of the Continental Divide.

Flaming Gorge pipeline update

Here’s an in-depth look at Aaron Million’s proposed pipeline from southwestern Wyoming to the Front Range and points south in Colorado, from Joel Warner writing for Westword. Here’s an excerpt:

Disclaimer: I’m quoted in the article.

Along the Green River in Wyoming, cities and towns are massing to fight a proposal that would pump up to 250,000 acre-feet of water per year from their river to thirsty cities and towns in Colorado. One meeting on the topic was so contentious that attendees have referred to it as a “Guantánamo Bay waterboarding.”

The focus of the uproar is a relatively unknown Fort Collins entrepreneur named Aaron Million, who came up with the plan to bring the much-needed water to Colorado. And these days, he has as many enemies on this side of the border as he does in Wyoming. Some of Colorado’s most powerful water suppliers oppose the project, while one is trying to build a similar pipeline himself. One ensuing squabble nearly came to blows.

Here’s a follow up the the Million story detailing the disappearing glaciers that are part of the Green River’s source waters, from Joel Warner writing for Westword. From the article:

When [Charlie Love, a colorful geology and anthropology professor at Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs, Wyoming] isn’t busy living with New Guinea cannibals or erecting dinosaur displays on WWCC’s campus, he’s spent a lot of time over the past 25 years climbing around and flying over the glaciers that cling to the sides of the Wind River Mountain Range in western Wyoming, glaciers that feed the Green and several other major river systems. And what Love says he and his WWCC colleagues have discovered about these glaciers is disturbing: “They are going extinct before our very eyes.”

More Flaming Gorge pipeline coverage here and here.

Snowpack news

From the Stemboat Pilot & Today (Tom Ross):

[Art Judson, Steamboat weather observer and retired avalanche forecaster] explained how the density of the snowpack increases in the hours after a fresh snowfall. Density is an expression of how much water is contained in standing snow of a certain depth. “To get the density, you divide the snow depth into the water equivalent,” he said. Snow measuring sites maintained by the National Resources Conservation Service remotely sense the weight of the snowpack (revealing the water content) and its depth.

Snow depth had settled on Buffalo Pass on Wednesday to a depth of 37 inches and contained 9.5 inches of water. Simple division indicates a density of 0.256. “In Steamboat, the average density of new snow is 0.07. (actually 0.072),” Judson said. “One inch of snow with 0.07 water-equivalent equals a density of 0.07. To get the density, you divide the snow depth into the water equivalent. The main thing to remember is that snow is always densifying until it reaches the density of ice, which is 0.917.”

Inaccuracies in published data underestimate the amount of organic pollutants in raw sewage

From Highlights in Chemical Science (Amaya Camara-Campos):

High quality analysis of raw sewage is crucial to measure pollutants in the environment and the efficiency of wastewater treatments plants. Suspended solids in sewage can block analytical apparatuses and complicate analysis so samples are commonly filtered before analysis. But, appropriate corrections for the filtration step are not always made say Rolf Halden and Randhir Deo at Arizona State University, Tempe.

Some hydrophobic organic compounds adsorb onto these solid filters and disappear from the sample, so the analysis of the resulting aqueous phase does not show the total amount that was present before filtering, explains Halden. Halden and Deo studied reported data for 33 organic compounds in the aqueous phase and found that between 15-60% of some compounds’ mass was adsorbed onto the suspended solids, which led to estimates of organic pollutants being 50% lower than actually present. And at higher pH levels, the underestimation became more frequent.

More wastewater coverage here.

Rio Grande Basin: Aquifer recharge underway

From the Valley Courier (Ruth Heide):

Colorado Division of Water Resources Division III Division Engineer Craig Cotten explained that the currently low water levels in the river are the result of recharge diversions this fall…

“We are still diverting some water in some ditches,” Cotten said on Tuesday. He clarified that the water being diverted now is solely in ditches that are able to take water for recharge. Those diversions will end in about a week, at the end of November. The Rio Grande will then begin to show higher levels…

One of the reasons for the recharge diversions this fall was expressly to reduce the amount of water that will be over delivered downstream as part of the interstate Rio Grande Compact, Cotten explained…

If the water division had not allowed more water to be diverted in the Valley, Colorado would have ended the year with a higher over-delivery downriver. Water delivered over the amount obligated through the Rio Grande Compact would be stored in the Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico where it would remain as “credit” water for Colorado. “We do lose some for evaporation,” Cotten explained. That would be like putting money in savings but having less in the account when the depositor was ready to draw the money back out. “We think it is better to keep the water up here and recharge the aquifers,” Cotten said.

More Rio Grande Basin coverage here.

Fryingpan River: Late summer releases from Ruedi hurt trout fishing but helped the Colorado Pike minnow and other fish in the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program

From the Glenwood Springs Post Independent (Scott Condon):

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said it released water purchased from Ruedi by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when the agency demanded or “called” it in August. “We don’t have a lot of flexibility there,” said reclamation bureau spokeswoman Kara Lamb. “That’s their water. They can call for it when they want.” The Fish and Wildlife Service is running a recovery program for four species of native fish in the Colorado River: The pikeminnow, razorback sucker, bonytail club and humpback chub. Water is needed during dry times to enhance habitat in what’s called the 15-Mile Reach, a stretch of the river in the Grand Valley near Grand Junction.

The reclamation bureau’s data shows there were 33 days with flows at or above 300 cubic feet per second on the Fryingpan River between Aug. 5 and Sept. 24, when the water was needed for the recovery program. The flows exceeded 400 cfs on 21 days and topped 500 cfs on eight days. Anglers prefer flows below 250 cfs. Wading into the river is nearly impossible at higher flows and fishing the gold-medal trout stream is difficult when it exceeds that level…

[The Ruedi Water and Power Authority] , along with Basalt town government, invited the reclamation bureau to a meeting to discuss the operations. Lamb said the bureau accepted the invitation and is waiting for the local governments to set a time and place. “These are important concerns and we know that,” Lamb said. But she also stressed that the reclamation bureau doesn’t have a lot of control over the issues that upset anglers, fly shops and the local governments. The Fish and Wildlife Service has contracts for Ruedi Reservoir water. It can use 5,000 acre feet annually, and an additional 5,000 acre feet four out of any five years. There is also a special agreement that allows the federal agency to use an additional 10,825 acre feet for the endangered fish recovery program. All told, the Fish and Wildlife Service can call up to 28,825 acre feet of Ruedi water per year for the recovery effort. It’s not unusual for that entire amount to be demanded, but the timing varies. The tendency is for the water to be called in late summer and early fall, Lamb said. This year was different because the water was demanded earlier.

Work at the Shoshone Power Plant created lower flows on the Colorado River at the endangered fish habitat at the same time that hot, dry weather was reducing flows, Lamb said. As a result, the Ruedi Reservoir water was required earlier.

More endangered species coverage here and here.

New watershed group for the Colorado River in Garfield County?

From the Glenwood Springs Post Independent (John Colson):

Chris Treese, external affairs manager for the Colorado River District office in Glenwood Springs, told the Garfield County Commissioners on Nov. 9 that he and others are hoping to create a watershed working group that will focus on this particular part of the Colorado River Basin. A group of 26 participants started meeting on Sept. 18, according to the group’s four-page draft mission statement. “The fact is, we have groups throughout the state covering every watershed,” Treese said in a telephone interview on Nov. 23. He pointed to the Roaring Fork Conservancy, which keeps an eye on that watershed, and other, existing watershed organizations that already cover much of the Colorado River basin, and on whose turf the new group does not plan to tread…

…he added that “We recognize that water is a scarce and valuable resource in the West, and it takes stewardship to manage that resource effectively.” From the potentially massive water needs of the still-embryonic oil shale industry, to water-quality concerns linked to current gas drilling in Garfield County, to basic population growth impacts, to the invasively flourishing Tamarisk plant that is choking out native plant life along the edges of rivers, the group is looking at a variety of issues, Treese said. “We don’t even have a name for ourselves yet,” he joked, although the draft mission statement refers to the “Middle Colorado River Watershed Partnership Exploratory Purpose and Scope.”

Although he is working with a number of area groups and individuals, Treese said his primary partner in the effort is Clark Anderson of the Sonoran Institute, a western lands and conservation group with offices in the U.S. and Mexico, including one in Glenwood Springs. Anderson said the group, which currently is made up by representatives of government, energy industry, nonprofits, environmentalists, ranchers and other facets of the local political landscape, is still “figuring itself out.”[...]

On Oct. 29, the group issued a “stakeholder information letter” inviting any interested individuals or organizations to contact Treese (ctreese@crwcd.org or 945-8522), Anderson (canderson@sonoraninstitute.org or 384-4364) or any of a half-dozen of the group’s organizers. Both Treese and Anderson predicted that it will not be long before the group concludes either that there is no need for its efforts and disbands, or that it is time to come up with a name and a mission statement and declare itself. Treese said the next meeting of the group is not scheduled until after New Year’s Day.

More Colorado River Basin coverage here.