Eagle: Conservation program successes

From the Eagle Valley Enterprise:

The town of Eagle reduced its annual potable water consumption by 10 percent in 2009. This equates to a savings of more than 40 million gallons of water, with the largest reductions noted in the residential sector. Government operations, including park maintenance, reduced its consumption by more than 14 percent.

More conservation coverage here.

Energy policy — nuclear: Conservation groups suing the U.S. Department of Energy for its decision to expand uranium mining on BLM parcels near the Dolores River Canyon

From The Telluride Watch (Karen James):

“I find that some limited discovery is appropriate but reject the full range of discovery sought by Plaintiffs,” wrote U.S. District Court Chief Judge Wiley Y. Daniel, who both affirmed and rejected parts of a previous finding issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael J. Watanabe that denied discovery.

While Daniel agreed that limited discovery was appropriate for the purpose of identifying site-specific actions taken by the DOE concerning leases, mining approvals or other activity to implement the program, he rejected a request for discovery concerning unspecified, non site-specific actions. “This discovery request is too broad and would essentially constitute a fishing expedition on the part of Plaintiffs,” he wrote.

More nuclear coverage here and here.

Vail: Next ‘Waterwise Wednesday’ meeting January 27

From the Vail Daily:

The impact of growth on Vail Valley water supplies will be discussed at the next Waterwise Wednesday session at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 27 in the Board of County Commissioner’s hearing room in the Eagle County Building. Clark Anderson, an Eagle County native and director of the Sonoran Institute’s Colorado Rockies program, will discuss ways water supplies can be protected when new development is approved. He will focus on design and planning strategies that minimize the impact on water supplies and how government agencies can developer more water-friendly policies.

More Eagle River watershed coverage here.

Flaming Gorge Pipeline: The view from Green River, Wyoming

Here’s a long article about Aaron Million’s pipeline dream to move water from the Green River (and Flaming Gorge Reservoir) to Colorado’s Front Range, from Brandon Loomis writing for The Salt Lake Tribune. From the article:

In an audacious test of the Western axiom that water flows toward money, Fort Collins, Colo., entrepreneur Aaron Million wants to tap this Colorado River tributary just downstream from here and send it to faucets in neighborhoods that don’t yet exist. “We certainly don’t want to impact the Green River,” says Million, who spent his youthful summers shoveling mud to open and close flood-irrigation canals to his grandfather’s melon farm in Green River, Utah.

His plan worries Utah and Wyoming officials, who don’t dispute that Colorado has a legal right to the water under the Colorado River Compact. They never expected their neighbor to take its share from a river that they consider money in their water banks, but rather thought the diversion would come from the Colorado River to the south…

“That river is so quickly impacted by [changing] water conditions,” says Mark Forslund, a Heber City fly-fishing guide who has floated the Green here for a dozen years. Unlike lower stretches, he says, the upper Green is shallow, with no holes to hide fish. When flows shrink in winter, fish die. In summer, the water gets hot. These are conditions that steel the monstrous brown trout and make valiant fighters of the rainbows and native cutthroats, he says. Tinkering with flows from the Fontenelle Dam, above the [Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge], could doom them. The Corps of Engineers is reviewing Million’s proposal to take water from just 200 yards downstream of the refuge boundary. Million now says he’ll consider a diversion downstream in siltier waters below the city of Green River, Wyo. Moving it lower is better, Seedskadee Refuge Manager Carl Millegan says, but won’t fully protect the refuge. Draining the river — perhaps taking as much as half of its lowest winter flows — will hinder fish migrations from Flaming Gorge. Kokanee salmon, a major source of nutrients for the refuge’s other fish and birds, might not swim up to Fontenelle to spawn and die as they do now, he says. “I can’t see how they’d make it,” he says while standing on a cutbank and watching one of the refuge’s seven eagle nests on a tree across the ice. Wherever the pipeline starts, Millegan fears, it could require adjusting Fontenelle Dam’s releases and stemming spring floods that scour the riverbanks and help new cottonwoods sprout.

Millegan’s view north across the sagebrush finds the ice-capped granite of the Wind River Range, source for both the river and uneasiness about its future. The glaciers there, including seven of the 10 largest in the American Rockies, are shrinking. It’s just one reason scientists throughout the Colorado River Basin worry that climate changes will drop water levels well below what the states divvied up on paper with the 1922 compact. “Whether you believe in climate change or not, every year around here is a struggle” for adequate flows, Millegan says. So far this winter’s snowpack in the Winds is about half the historic average.

The glaciers have shrunk by a third or more since 1970, according to Craig Thompson, an associate professor of earth sciences and engineering at Western Wyoming Community College. He and faculty colleague Charlie Love, a geologist, have studied the glaciers since 1985. The glaciers help maintain year-round flows, Thompson says, because they release meltwater late in the summer and fall, when winter snows are gone. When they disappear, he expects, the year-round supply for Denver or any other big pipe evaporates. Corralling the river also could degrade municipal supplies here, Thompson says, because lower flows mean higher salinity in this mineral-rich valley…

All this for private gain? At current Colorado water prices, Thompson figures the Million Conservation Resource group could make $250 million a year on the water.
“It looks like a project where Million gets to turn millions into billions,” he says, “and Wyoming gets to bear the impacts.”

Million views his plan more like his great-grandfather might have, back when he built one of the river’s earlier irrigation ditches. “Water in the Western United States was developed privately, initially, by the farm and ranch and mining communities,” he says. It wasn’t until later that the federal government stepped in, he says. His pipeline is a return to the principle of private capital serving public demand. “That’s how America was built,” Million says…

Million is unfazed. He can build the pipeline with up to $3 billion in private financing, he says, if he gets 140,000 acre-feet or more. Despite the loud and broad criticism — including condemnation by the Green River and Laramie city councils in Wyoming — Million believes the project is on course. After all, he notes, Colorado has an absolute right to the water…

Million must show who will buy his water before the environmental review continues. His deadline to produce a list of users to the Corps of Engineers is today. He says he has that list ready, but critics wonder why anyone would sign on without a firm supply and rates in place. To get a permit to alter wetlands, Million also will have to prove his plan jibes with the Clean Water Act. That means the corps must determine it’s the least damaging plan that can reasonably meet the need. The corps is investigating that question, project manager Rena Brand says, and whether in fact Front Range growth is likely to require so much water.

University of Arizona law professor Robert Glennon sees many obstacles in Million’s way, “not the least of which is the Rocky Mountains.” Farmers and small towns in western Colorado won’t want the Front Range to soak up all of Colorado’s rights. Further political complications come from Front Range citizens and water districts who “won’t want Aaron Million to hold all of the cards.”[...]

Glennon’s 2008 book, Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It , groups Million with a host of grand-scheming “water alchemists” who, he writes, “gaze at the Mississippi River, the Columbia River, icebergs in Alaska, and rivers in British Columbia and wistfully imagine the problem is solved.” Still, he says, if Million secures real municipal and agricultural customers, the interstate compact’s so-called “law of the river” is with him. “Sometimes,” Glennon says, “dreamers pull off their dreams.”

More Flaming Gorge Pipeline coverage here and here.

Rocky Ford: Sixth Annual Arkansas Valley Farm/Ranch/Water Symposium and Trade Show Feb. 4

From the Ag Journal:

The sixth annual Arkansas Valley Farm/Ranch/Water Symposium and Trade Show is scheduled Feb. 4 in Rocky Ford…

The water topics will include operation of the Pueblo Reservoir and an update on the irrigation efficiency rules…

The symposium will be conducted at the Gobin Community Building in Rocky Ford with registration beginning at 8 a.m. The program will begin at 8:30 a.m. Early registration is $20 per person or $30 per couple before Jan. 29 ($25 and $35, respectfully, after January 29). Student registration is $5. For information call Janet Golden or Natalie Edmundson, CSU Extension office in Rocky Ford at (719) 254-7608, or visit the Web site www.farmranchwater.org.

More Arkansas Basin coverage here.

Snowpack news

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Matt Hildner):

Just under a foot of snow fell on the eastern San Juan Mountains Tuesday and more is expected in the region today. The snowstorm, which dropped 10 inches of snow on Wolf Creek Ski Area, made for treacherous driving in the high country…The snowstorm glanced off much of the San Luis Valley, leaving only a dusting in Alamosa and 2 inches in the foothills southeast of Crestone, according to a National Weather Service spotter.

More coverage from the Cortez Journal (Kimberly Benedict/Steve Grazier):

County officials placed the snow total at 7 inches at 6:45 a.m. [Tuesday], [Norv Larson, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction] said. Another 1 to 3 inches of accumulations are expected through the morning…

Snow falling from power lines has resulted in “blinks,” according to Jones. “Blinks” occur when accumulating snow falls off a power line, and the line moves, connecting with the neutral, or lowest line, Jones explained. When a phase touches the neutral it can trip a breaker or blow a fuse, which could affect an entire section of line…

Despite a lack of hard evidence, many in the weather community believe El Nino has impacted weather systems across the nation, according to Larson. “Although there isn’t a lot of climatological evidence, you could argue that El Nino is really impacting California and that seems to be where most of the precipitation is coming from,” Larson said.

Pueblo Board of Water Works ponies up $12,226 for the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Program

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

…the water board has contributed to the Colorado River endangered fish program for many years, joining other Front Range water users who import water across the Continental Divide through a program sponsored by the Colorado Water Congress. The program, started in 1988, assures compliance with the federal Endangered Species Act. Last year, it received authorization for $15 million in federal funding through 2023. This year, the Pueblo water board’s share of the budget was $12,226.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined in 1983 that Colorado River flows needed to be restored to 1960 levels in order to save four vanishing species: the humpback chub, bonytail, razorback sucker and Colorado pikeminnow (formerly Colorado squawfish). The fish were a substantial source of food for early Coloradans, as described in a Fish and Wildlife report of historical accounts, and once called “white salmon” by the locals, said Bud O’Hara, division manager of water resources for the water board. The fish were the catch of choice until the 1940s, when trout and catfish became preferable species, and people referred to the endangered species as “trash fish,” according to the report. Efforts to restore the fish are paying off, O’Hara told the board. One tagged fish swam more than 480 miles thanks to fish ladders that have been added at some points on the Colorado River…

The money supplied to the Colorado Water Congress efforts funds programs such as providing 10,825 acre-feet of water to a critical reach above Grand Junction and to pay for a technical coordinator to monitor compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act for water providers.

More Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program coverage here and here.

Confirmation hearing for DNR nominee today

From the Associated Press via CB4Denver.com:

The Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to question Jim Martin during a hearing Wednesday morning. Ritter appointed Martin to lead the department in October but the Senate must approve his appointments…Martin previously headed the state Department of Public Health and Environment. Before that, he was executive director of Colorado-based Western Resource Advocates, an environmental law and policy organization.

More about the Martin nomination here.

Will the landmark agreement to manage the Colorado River in times of drought survive?

Back in December 2007 federal officials, the seven Colorado River Compact states, several Indian Tribes and who knows who else were all smiles as then Secretary of Interior signed an agreement to manage the Colorado River in times of drought. Well a California judge has put a wrench in the works by overturning an in state agreement to share water between the northern and southern parts of California which has cast a cloud of doubt over the larger agreement. Here’s a report about Colorado State Engineer Dick Wolfe’s reaction to the ruling, from the Associated Press (Dan Elliot) via the Merced Sun-Star. From the article:

Dick Wolfe, director of the Colorado Division of Water Resources, said Tuesday that water officials have shown a new collective will to overcome obstacles to cooperation on the river.

A California state judge invalidated a conservation plan intended to curtail Southern California’s overuse of the river. Among other things, the plan called for an effort to restore California’s Salton Sea, an enormous desert lake. The judge said California lawmakers hadn’t approved the state’s share of the Salton Sea project cost. An appeal is planned, and the judge left the deal in place for now. The California conservation plan also called for transferring trillions of gallons of water from agricultural to municipal use. By expanding its municipal water supply through those transfers rather than taking more water from the Colorado River, California was set to become part of a landmark 2007 agreement on managing the Colorado River during droughts. Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming are also party to the deal…

…Wolfe believes water officials will find a fix because of a new willingness to cooperate after decades of legal disputes. “I think that somehow the parties that are involved will try to find a solution to address that part ruling,” he said. Wolfe said it’s too early to predict with any certainly how the California court ruling might affect Colorado and the other states…

The plan committed California state government and a collection of water suppliers to pay up to $133 million toward restoring the Salton Sea, which is fed by the Colorado River irrigation channels that were being diverted. The state’s share was estimated at about $60 million.

More Colorado River Basin coverage here.

Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District fills two board seats

From the Sterling Journal Advocate (Judy Debus):

Two new members joined the Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District Board last week, bringing a full board for the first time in several years. Filling the two empty positions are Pete Kohn and Bill Lauck, both of the Brush/Fort Morgan area.

Kohn farms near Brush on a third-generation farm and raises hay, corn and sugar beets. He is married and has two grown daughters and has served on a number of water related boards and committees. He has served on the Fort Morgan Ditch Board since 1997; the Jackson Lake Board since 2003/04; and has served on The Fort Morgan Water Company, which handles the purchase of water by the Pawnee Power Plant. Kohn also has a residential and commercial contracting business…

Bill Lauck also farms with his son in the Fort Morgan/Brush area. He is a member of the Fort Morgan Ditch Board; is president of the Fort Morgan Water Company and serves on the SS Lateral Ditch Board. Lauck has four children and eight grandchildren.

More Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District coverage here.

Conflict in the San Luis Valley over groundwater pumping

Here’s a recap of a recent meeting of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District board, from Ruth Heide writing for the Valley Courier. From the article:

In response to several letters to the editor from Perry Alspaugh, the water district board asked Alspaugh and other members of the senior surface water group Save Our Senior Water Rights (SOS) to meet with the board during its quarterly meeting in Alamosa.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.

Colorado Springs stormwater strategy update

Even with the demise of the Colorado Springs stormwater enterprise the city is still planning to implement promises they made regarding the Fountain Creek watershed. Here’s a report from Chris Woodka writing for The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:

A project started in 2009 is looking at revising policies for construction within the watershed to develop methods that will reduce erosion and sedimentation, the risk of flooding and improve water quality and aesthetics on Fountain Creek. It would build on previous efforts by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Vision Task Force, and the results could be applied to other communities throughout the watershed. “Other communities are looking at it, and we’ve invited them into the discussion,” said Dan Bare, a senior civil engineer assigned to the task. “The goal is to establish a standard we can all live with.”

Former Pueblo Stormwater Director Dennis Maroney, now a Pueblo consultant, called the development of the standards the most important step Colorado Springs could take toward improving Fountain Creek. The first phase of the effort, gathering information, has been completed. The political turmoil has stalled the next two phases, analyzing data and writing new policies, Bare said. “The plan has remained the same, but the schedule has been delayed due to the budget uncertainties the city has been experiencing,” Bare said…

Bare is in the process of setting up work groups that will begin looking at different sets of issues in order to determine the best policies or practices for minimizing damage to Fountain Creek. Writing and implementing the manual could take up to two years, Bare said. Documents posted on the Web site identify population growth, increased impervious surfaces, more water use, more runoff, floodplain encroachment and increased pollutant loading in Colorado Springs as the main contributors to problems on Fountain Creek. The effects include damage to property and infrastructure like highway bridges or pipelines. Public health, safety and welfare issues, loss of habitat and water quality issues also are listed as effects.

More stormwater coverage here.

CWCB: Agenda for the January 22 Water Availability Task Force meeting

Here’s the agenda for Friday’s shindig.

More CWCB coverage here.

Great Outdoors Colorado’s latest ‘GOCO Update’

Here’s the link to the January 2010 GOCO Update (pdf).

Emily Davies writes in an email, “GOCO played a critical role in helping the Colorado Division of Wildlife purchase the 710-acre Andrick Ponds State Wildlife Area in Morgan County.”

From the Colorado Division of Wildlife website:

[The Andrick Ponds State Wildlife Area]: 711 acre fee title; critical fall and spring migration stopover for waterfowl and other migratory birds; supports breeding and wintering mallards and geese; includes open water, wetland vegetation, grassland, sand sage and open woodland.

More conservation coverage here.

Water drops at 2000 frames per second

This YouTube video has been making the rounds on the Internet recently. It’s completely safe to view at work. The physical characteristics of water combined with gravity and a air make for a fascinating film clip. Be sure to click through.

Evans: ‘Water 101′ talk Thursday

From The Greeley Tribune:

Lori Ozzello, a staff member for Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Colo., will present “Water 101” at a Thursday meeting. Sponsored by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Ozzello will talk at noon, at the Palomino Restaurant, 3390 23rd Ave., in Evans. Reservations are required and may be made at (970) 352-7765 or by e-mail to elaine567@hotmail.com.

More education coverage here.

Snowpack news: Some water providers are getting nervous

From The Aspen Times (John Colson):

At a meeting of the Garfield County commissioners on Monday, [Dave Merritt, a board member of the Colorado River Water Conservation District] said that the snow depths in the Colorado River basin is “a little bit better than 2002 right now.” He later described 2002 as “essentially the worst year we’ve had on record” for snow depths, when the statewide snowpack was essentially gone by June…

Merritt told the commissioners that the state’s water officials, worried about the prospect of another record drought year, already are discussing whether there will be sufficient water to raise Lake Powell above its present level of 60 percent full…

Merritt said the current regulations call for an annual release of 8.23 million acre feet of water from Lake Powell to satisfy the compact’s allotments, and 1.5 million acre feet for Mexico. Another large reservoir on the Colorado River, Lake Mead (Hoover Dam), “has been dropping pretty precipitously,” Merritt continued, and is counting on an “equalization” release from Lake Powell to boost the water level. But, if the spring runoff is insufficient to bring Lake Powell’s levels up by much, Merritt said, “there’s less than a 50 percent chance of equalization” in 2010. The “equalization” is determined by a complex series of calculations related to how the Colorado’s waters are managed, Merritt explained…

The CRWCD board will hold its first regular quarterly meeting of the year on Jan. 19-20 at the Hotel Colorado. For information about the meeting’s agenda and other Colorado River issues, go to the district’s website at www.crwcd.org.

Grand Junction: Colorado Environmental Coalition open house January 20

From the Grand Junction Free Press (Sharon Sullivan):

The Colorado Environmental Coalition is holding an open house at its downtown Grand Junction office Wednesday, Jan. 20, from 6-7 p.m. to kick off its second season of CapWatch — a program for people to learn about western Colorado conservation issues. At the CEC open house staff will talk about its goals for a number of bills regarding issues such as conservation tax credits, renewable energy, and water conservation. CapWatch meetings are held monthly…

The group’s legislative agenda for 2010 includes increasing Colorado’s renewable energy standard from 20 to 30 percent by 2020. Environmental groups say the renewable energy standard has helped drive investment in renewable energy in the state. More than $150 million was invested in 2008, said Pam Kiely of Environment Colorado…

Other issues on the 2010 legislative agenda include water efficiency, and cleaning up toxic uranium processing sites. Colorado taxpayers are stuck with $1 billion in clean-up costs from past uranium activity. Environmental groups want to see uranium operators responsible for their own remediation…

The CEC Grand Junction office is located upstairs at 546 Main St., unit 404. Refreshments will be provided at the open house Wednesday. RSVP is requested at 243-0002 or jason@cecenviro.org.

More 2010 Colorado legislation coverage here.

Manassa plans to add chlorine dosing to municipal supply

From the Conejos County Citizen (Stan Moyer):

It hasn’t been established how much this solution will cost the community, varying from very little to as much as $250,000. Manassa has lost a waiver from a legal requirement for a sanitation method for water drawn from two deep wells supplying the town. Test samples drawn in the past three years had revealed bacteria in four instances, and e-coli, or fecal matter in two samples taken in 2008. Summarizing the Department of Public Health position, Safe Drinking Water Program Unit Manager Rick Koplitz declared, “We feel the present situation of no disinfectant system is too risky.”

More water treatment coverage here.

Buena Vista hopes to piggyback onto Nestlé pipeline easement

From The Mountain Mail (Sue Price):

Chaffee County commissioners learned during their meeting Tuesday that Buena Vista wants to share the Nestlé water line easement across the Arkansas River near Johnson Village. Sue Boyd, representing the town, attended the meeting to answer questions regarding the official letter sent to Nestlé Waters Jan. 11 by mayor Cara Russell. The letter states in part, “the Town of Buena Vista operates a municipal water system that would be able to utilize the easement at some time in the future to provide water to and/or receive water from the east side of the Arkansas River.” Before Nestlé begins construction, Buena Vista trustees requested one or two conduit lines be laid in and under the river to accommodate a water line enabling the town to supply water, depending upon future needs.

More coverage from Kathy Davis writing for The Chaffee County Times. From the article:

The sharing of the Nestlé water-line easement is a pro-active measure in case the town would someday need to have a water line on the Arkansas River. The river would not have to be disturbed two times, once for Nestlé and then another time for the town, she said.

Buena Vista trustee Brett Mitchell said the town wanted to share the easement and to share the conduit at no cost to the town. “The letter to Nestlé says we have this interest and asks if the town could piggyback with Nestlé on the easement,” he said. According to the agenda for the executive session, the special meeting followed a request from Paul Moltz. Mitchell said Moltz, who owns ACA Products, is working on a bid to build the water line for Nestlé.

More Arkansas Basin coverage here.

Arkansas Basin: Where is the economic tipping point for regional economies and ag dry-ups?

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

A study by Paul Flack, former water resources manager for Colorado State Parks, will look at how water used in flow management programs from Lake County to John Martin Reservoir could be more effectively managed. A second study by anthropologist Ken Weber will look at the “tipping point” of regional economies from dry-ups associated with water transfers…

Under the proposal, Flack would look at how the Upper Ark flow management program, started in 1990 to provide year-round flows for fish and seasonal flows for rafters, has worked. He would study how releases and exchanges for consumptive purposes – municipal or agricultural – fit in with nonconsumptive needs – environment and recreation. Representatives from Colorado Springs and Aurora, which move much of the water along the river, pledged cooperation with the study at Wednesday’s roundtable meeting. Flack’s study would also look at flow management on the river below Pueblo Dam and the reach from Pueblo to John Martin Reservoir under the study’s concept, according to Tom Simpson, Aurora’s water resource manager.

Weber’s study will build on work he has already done in Crowley County to look at the historic impacts of water transfers between Boone and La Junta. Colorado Springs, Aurora, Pueblo and Pueblo West now control water rights that once benefitted farmers on the Colorado Canal, including Twin Lakes purchases in the 1970s. Aurora owns the vast majority of shares in the Rocky Ford Ditch.

More Arkansas Basin coverage here.

Pueblo West is ponying up $205,000 for geological assessment at the proposed Red Creek Reservoir site

From The Pueblo Chieftain (James Amos):

The site of the proposed Red Creek Reservoir is a mile from the Arkansas River near the borderline of Pueblo and Fremont counties. District Manager Larry Howe-Kerr said this part of the reservoir study will include drilling to study the rock under the reservoir site. That and other studies will determine if the reservoir could hold water and if it would be strong enough. The drilling could begin as soon as next week.

More Pueblo West coverage here.

There’s a bad moon rising for some small well owners

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

From the state’s point of view, if wells are out of compliance, they are subject to being shut down. It’s a serious matter determined after 24 years of litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court against Kansas over the issue of violation of the Arkansas River Compact. The Supreme Court found a proliferation of well-pumping in Colorado had diminished the supply to Kansas under terms of the compact negotiated in 1948. Colorado did not begin to connect groundwater and surface water until 1969. That led to Arkansas River well rules in 1996 that required replacement of well water to the river and measurement of depletions.

“The existence of wells in these subdivisions depend on augmentation plans,” Witte said. “If those plans are not complied with, we have no recourse but to order the wells shut down.” The problem is not isolated, nor ignored by the state, Witte said.

There are 445 augmentation plans covering 9,195 small wells – typically 15 gallons per minute or so – in the Arkansas River Basin. Most of those are in areas where mountain lots have been carved out in subdivisions. “Everyone thinks they’re the first and are being picked on,” Witte said. “A lot of folks are completely unaware of the legal foundation that justifies the existence of the subdivision.” In fact, the state began looking at compliance with the court decrees that created the augmentation plans about five years ago, dedicating a full-time staffer to the task in the Arkansas Valley. Witte said at least five more years of work lie ahead…

So what should anyone buying mountain property do? “They should ask for the basis of the water right, and then check with the Division of Water Resources to see if the plan is in compliance,” Witte said.

More Arkansas Basin coverage here.

University of Colorado law school: Searching for a sustainable Colorado River management plan

From the Boulder Daily Camera (Laura Snider):

A complex web of treaties, compacts, laws and court decisions govern who can use the once-mighty river’s water and when. But over the last several decades, those rules have not kept the yearly demand for water from exceeding the average flow. “People have known since the 1940s, if not earlier, that this river was over-allocated and that, at some point, it’s going to be a major problem,” said Douglas Kenney, senior research associate at the University of Colorado’s Natural Resources Law Center…

Kenney and two of his colleagues have now begun an ambitious, yearlong project called the Colorado River Governance Initiative to evaluate options for reforming the laws of the river. “The initiative is designed to develop a blueprint for future management that will allow for managing the river basin’s resources more holistically and in a manner that preserves wildlife resources and habitats while ensuring the availability of water supplies for humans,” said Mark Squillace, director of the Natural Resources Law Center…

So part of the project’s goal is to do the background policy work, and ask the questions, that public officials are often afraid to, eventually creating a ready-made list of possible changes that may be easier for government leaders to handle. “If you’re an elected official and you talk about changing the management of the Colorado River, you have to tread very carefully,” Kenney said. “We’re going to study the options that they cannot safely talk about publicly. If we come up with some really good solutions, then they can think about supporting them.”

More Colorado River Basin coverage here.

Gunnison Basin Roundtable responds critically to letter from the Arkansas Basin Roundtable and Front Range Water Council

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

The Front Range Water Providers group – which includes the state’s major importers of water – suggested that urban water conservation is not a practical way to deal with water shortages. The Front Range letter says, in part: “20 to 40 percent demand reductions may necessitate major changes in land use, or significant alteration of most of the urban landscape.”

“We submit that it may be time for Colorado to balance the search for new urban water supply with serious research on such ‘major changes,’” [Roundtable Chairwoman Michelle Pierce] argued. “We recognize that such strategies are complicated, may be intrusive upon property rights and will involve the effective collaboration among many governments and water providers throughout the state. “The significance of such changes, however, may be no less than that of continued dry-up of our agricultural lands or additional transmountain diversions.”

The Gunnison roundtable also took umbrage with the idea that its agricultural lands are not threatened, as the Arkansas roundtable’s resolution implied. “Many agricultural landowners within basins on both sides of the (Continental) Divide have opted to engage in profitable transactions that are not tied to water supply strategies. The loss of agricultural land is not unique to the Arkansas Basin,” Pierce wrote…

According to the Statewide Water Supply Initiative by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, 2,500-10,000 acres of farmland in the Gunnison River Basin could be dried up to meet future needs by 2030. In the Arkansas River Basin, 23,000-72,000 acres could be dried up.

More IBCC — basin roundtables coverage here.