Arkansas Valley Conduit: Most communities have signed on the bottom line for the project environmental impact study
June 17, 2011
From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
Nearly all potential water users in the Arkansas Valley Conduit project have signed memorandums of understanding to participate in the Environmental Impact Study for the project…
Two of the communities, Valley Water and Lamar, have yet to sign agreements, but are expected to do so at future meetings, said Phil Reynolds, project manager. The agreements define how local matching costs of the EIS will be shared, based on projected use of the conduit…
The EIS also includes an excess-capacity master contract that would allow long-term temporary storage in Lake Pueblo for some of the conduit participants and 12 other water providers in the Arkansas River basin. All of the excess-capacity MOUs have been signed.
From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
John Stulp, Gov. John Hickenlooper’s water adviser, said a proposed trial lease by the Super Ditch to El Paso County water users next year is a better way to test the proposal than state legislation proposed this year. “HB1068 was shot down in short order, and for good reason because it wasn’t well vetted,” Stulp said. “The sponsors have thought of a way to do it without going to the Legislature.”
“The rest of the state is looking to this part of the state to see how the lease-fallowing program works,” Stulp said. Stulp, along with Colorado Water Conservation Board Executive Director Jennifer Gimbel, addressed the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District board at its monthly meeting Thursday…
He praised the Arkansas Basin Roundtable, one of nine set up in 2005 when the IBCC was formed, for showing leadership at the state level. Among its accomplishments was the formation of a Flaming Gorge pipeline task force in conjunction with the Metro Roundtable. The task force will meet June 29 to decide how the state should proceed on two proposals to build a Flaming Gorge pipeline. The pipeline is the brainchild of Fort Collins entrepreneur Aaron Million. A Colorado-Wyoming Coalition, led by Parker Water and the South Metro Water Supply Authority is doing its own study about whether to pursue a Flaming Gorge pipeline. “We’ll look at the pros and the cons, but it’s an appropriate time to get that started,” Stulp said.
More Arkansas Valley Super Ditch coverage here.
From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
“The report that was mailed to customers shows only the tests where we found something in the water,” said Don Colalancia, manager for water quality and treatment. “We do thousands of tests throughout the year.”[...]
Testing found traces of barium, fluoride, nitrates, nitrites and selenium in the water, at levels well below the federal standards. Turbidity, trihalomethanes, haloacetic acids, sodium and microscopic particles also were measured, and again to be well below acceptable levels…
The report also lists sources of water. Pueblo gets all of its water supply from Lake Pueblo, which is fed by the Arkansas River and its tributaries to the west.
More water treatment coverage here.
From the Vail Daily (Scott N. Miller):
A cool, wet May has turned into a sunny, but not hot, June. Even downvalley temperatures have gone into the 80s only a few times, and nights have been relatively cool. That’s kept the annual snowmelt running at a decent, but not destructive pace…
This spring has been a pleasant change from last year in Vail, when less snow melted faster, causing flooding in town. With last year in mind, combined with the knowlege that temperatures can, and do, climb into the 90s in Vail some summers, Miller said firefighters are doing daily checks of parts of Gore Creek…
Minor flooding is forecast for the Colorado River at Dotsero for Friday, due primarily to the fact that Granby Reservoir is going to release water so it can continue to accept melting snow.
From Steamboat Today (Jack Weinstein):
The Weather Service’s office predicts the Elk River near Milner will exceed the 7.5 foot flood stage and reach 7.9 feet by 6 a.m. Friday. It previously was forecast to reach the moderate flood stage of 8.5 feet. The Yampa River at the Fifth Street Bridge downtown is expected to reach 6.6 feet, down from the earlier prediction of 6.7 feet. Flood stage at that location also is 7.5 feet…
Aldis Strautins, a hydrologist with the Weather Service’s office in Grand Junction, said area rivers and streams could run high through the month because of snowpack in the surrounding mountains. The Tower measuring site at 10,500 feet on Buffalo Pass was reporting 138 inches of snow containing 67.5 inches of water Monday. Strautins said the day’s historical snow water equivalent average for that site is 29.2 inches.
From the Colorado Independent (Virginia Chamlee):
Rep. Jon Mica, R-FL, has introduced the “Clean Water for Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011″ (.pdf), a bill that aims to “amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to preserve the authority of each State to make determinations relating to the State’s water quality standards, and for other purposes.” In other words, Mica’s bill would rewrite the Clean Water Act — removing the EPA’s authority to object to state-approved permits and revise state water quality standards.
The bill would also limit the agency’s authority to veto dredge-and-fill permits, which some conservationists argue could be a threat to public health.
Among its provisions, the bill would remove the EPA’s authority to object to state-approved permits under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, which was put in place to manage discharges of pollutants into waterways. The EPA would also lose the ability to revise state water quality standards, an especially controversial measure considering the agency’s much-touted numeric nutrient criteria, a set of standards that aim to enhance pollution regulations in Florida waterways. The criteria are revered by environmentalists and abhorred by state lawmakers and industry heads who’d prefer not to increase costs simply for the sake of the environment.
More coverage from Stacy Detwiller writing for American Rivers. From the article:
Specifically, the bill attacks the shared responsibility between the states and the federal agencies for clean water. This careful balance allows states to take most of the responsibility for clean water programs, but ensures that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has sufficient oversight to make sure citizens in all states have similar access to clean and safe water. As an example, the bill removes the EPA’s authority to object to state-approved permits under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), which was put in place to manage discharges of pollutants into our water. The EPA would also lose its ability to revise state water quality standards when those standards fail to protect clean water without approval from the states.
The bill also takes away EPA’s authority to veto dredge and fill permits [PDF] issued by the Army Corps of Engineers when a proposed activity would discharge dredge or fill materials into our rivers, lakes, and streams. Activities like mountaintop removal mining, for instance, where the tops of mountains are blown off to expose coal seams and the surrounding valleys and streams are filled with discarded rubble, would no longer be subject to veto by the EPA. This veto authority is scarcely used – it has only been employed 13 times. But when EPA does use this authority, it’s to stop projects that harm people and clean water.
Here’s the GovTrack link.
More H.R. 2018: The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011 coverage here.
From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
The pilot project would sell 500 acre-feet of water through a lease agreement to the Pikes Peak Regional Water Authority. Under the agreement, water would be delivered to Lake Pueblo, where it could be used for exchanges or for direct use through the Fountain Valley Conduit. Fountain has made a firm commitment to take water, but other members of the El Paso County group including Donala and Security are interested in participating as well, said Curtis Mitchell, conservation and supply manager for Fountain. Water would sell at $500 per acre-foot, allowing the shareholders to retain ownership of the water right.
From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
“If you don’t know how to program your sprinkler system, one of the studies I’ve seen shows a net gain of water used,” Perry Cabot, an education outreach coordinator for CSU, told the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District board Wednesday.
Instead, water systems that can be programmed could be used to prevent applying more water than necessary to lawns, Cabot said. CSU has a kit available through Pueblo County Cooperative Extension (583-6566) that allows sprinkler system owners to measure how much water their sprinklers apply to the lawn in a cycle. The Lawn Irrigation System Analysis kits can be rented for $10 under the pilot program. Using the measurement information, consumers can go online and tap into a program that will provide an optimum watering schedule based on local weather patterns.
Cabot, along with Anne Casey of the state Extension program, obtained a $46,000 grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board to take the lawn watering analysis a step further.
More conservation coverage here.
From email from Reclamation (Dan Crabtree):
Blue Mesa Reservoir has filled to about elevation 7491 ft leaving 28 ft or 242,000 ac-ft to fill. At the current rate of inflow and outflow, it would take over a month to fill the reservoir. As a result, after assessing the latest April through July forecast and the current runoff rates into the Aspinall Unit, Reclamation has decided to further reduce releases from the Aspinall Unit in order to slightly accelerate the fill of Blue Mesa Reservoir. This release reduction will begin on Friday, June 17th, continue through the weekend, and result in a Gunnison River flow of about 2,100 cfs through the Black Canyon and Gunnison Gorge.
More Aspinall Unit coverage here.
Colorado-Big Thompson update: Granby Reservoir is spilling, 920 cfs total into the Upper Colorado River
June 16, 2011
From email from Reclamation (Kara Lamb):
Just a quick note to say we’re up to about 950 cfs out of Granby Dam. We are releasing about 430 cfs through the dam. The remaining 520 cfs is coming over the spillway.
More Colorado-Big Thompson Project coverage here.
From The Durango Herald (Karen Frantz):
U.S. Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, both Democrats, want to ensure the rules protect so-called good Samaritan groups willing to participate in cleanup efforts. Specifically, the senators are asking the EPA for clarification about whether groups would need to get a Clean Water Act permit for cleanup projects to avoid liability, as well as other questions about the extent to which groups are protected…
Animas River Stakeholders Group member Peter Butler said the letter asks the right questions. “If EPA answers the questions thoroughly, it will hopefully end the debate as to whether or not an amendment to the Clean Water Act is necessary to limit liability enough for Good Samaritans to feel comfortable to clean up draining mines,” he said in an e-mail.
He also said it was significant that Boxer signed the letter because her staff had not been supportive of the need for good Samaritan legislation in the past and she chairs the committee such a bill would go through.
More water pollution coverage here.
More Good Samaritan exemption coverage here.
Here’s the link to the National Resource Conservation Service webpage where you can select a graph of the Basin Hi/Low Snowpack Summary for your basin of interest.
NIDIS Weekly Climate, Water and Drought Assessment Summary of the Upper Colorado River Basin
June 15, 2011
Here are this week’s notes from the Colorado Climate Center. Here’s an excerpt:
Since the beginning of June, much of the UCRB and surrounding areas have been fairly dry …A few localized regions received isolated storms last week, resulting in higher accumulations — parts of northern CO and southeast WY have received over half an inch of precipitation. Northeast UT and Southeast CO also saw around a quarter to half an inch of precipitation. Most of the UCRB and eastern plains of CO have only received around a tenth of an inch or less of moisture for the month.
More Colorado River basin coverage here.
Here’s the release from Denver Water (Stacy Chesney):
Denver Water placed second in a taste test among water utilities across the nation at the American Water Works Association’s annual Best of the Best Water Taste in Washington, D.C. The event, composed of regional winners from water-tasting competitions across North America, was part of AWWA’s Annual Conference and Exposition.
“We are proud Denver Water placed so highly in this national taste test,” said Ken Pollock, superintendent of water treatment for Denver Water. “Our mission is to provide our customers with high-quality water and excellent service. This honor reflects the dedication and commitment that Denver Water employees have to high-quality water.”
A panel of experts rated each water system on its flavor characteristics. Judges included Dr. Russell Ford, deputy director of drinking water infrastructure for CH2M Hill and vice chair of AWWA’s Taste and Odor Committee; Monique Durand, engineer at Hazen and Sawyer, P.C., and member of the Taste and Odor Committee; Dr. Andrea Dietrich, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech and past chair of the Taste and Odor Committee; and Neal Augenstein, reporter for Washington, D.C.’s WTOP Radio. Top honors went to the Greenville Water System, of the city of Greenville, South Carolina.
Denver Water moved on to the national competition after placing first in a taste test among water utilities in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico at the AWWA Rocky Mountain Section’s annual conference at Keystone Resort in Colorado last September.
More coverage from The Denver Post (Mitchell Byars). From the article:
“It’s pretty exciting to be able to represent Denver at a utility level,” said Melissa Elliott, the director of public affairs for Denver Water and a volunteer with AWWA who was at the competition in D.C.
Denver Water won a regional competition among Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico water utilities to get to the national competition, which featured 24 competitors from around the country.
More Denver Water coverage here.
Runoff news: Cache la Poudre flows are dropping, snowmelt flooding risk is dropping as well
June 15, 2011
From The Greeley Tribune (Sharon Dunn):
Officials on Tuesday decided the Poudre River reached its peak last week and should ease off from here on — a stark contrast to earlier concerns that the high mountain snowpack would send a torrent of water down the mountain, flooding city streets and riverside trails.
“Unless there’s a rain event up there, it sure looks to me like we’ve peaked and we’re on our way down,” said George Varra, the Poudre River water commissioner. “But there’s still a lot of snow up there. What I’m hearing was that the snow was so hard it’s just taking a lot of warm days to start bringing it down. It was really packed, almost like an ice cube. That’s the main reason why we haven’t had this big river.”
The National Weather Service on Tuesday pulled a flood advisory for the Greeley area that it had previously issued through this afternoon. Water levels in Greeley, which peaked above 8 feet last week, were slowly going back down and expected to reach 7.5 feet by Sunday; 9 feet is considered a flood by National Weather Service standards…
Treste Huse, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder, said though there is still about 60 percent of the snowpack left in the Cache La Poudre Basin, the early melt-off was much easier than officials expected. The snowpack is still 109 percent of the seasonal normal, which usually occurs in the latter part of April, Huse said. “It is generally, a lot (left) is above 10,000 feet. Snowpack at lower elevations is gone.”
A second wave, though it could be big, will likely not be as much of a threat, Varra said. Varra said next week, four major irrigation ditches should be running full speed, taking as much as 1,800 cubic feet per second off the Poudre. As of Tuesday morning, the Poudre registered a daily high of 2,670 cfs at the mouth of the Poudre Canyon, down from highs above 3,300 cfs last week.
From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
U.S. Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, along with chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, sent a letter to the EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson asking her to clarify the EPA’s ability to facilitate “Good Samaritan” cleanups of abandoned hard-rock mines. Good Samaritans are third-party groups that have no connection to or responsibility for the mining activities or resulting pollution but, nevertheless, they want to clean up these sites to mitigate damage to crucial watersheds and public health. The Government Accountability Office estimates that there are roughly 160,000 abandoned hard-rock mines in the twelve Western states and South Dakota, with 7,300 in Colorado…
The senators request that the agency update its administrative tools to clarify existing liability protections and improve outreach to Good Samaritan groups to promote more cleanups. The letter also lists specific questions, based on concerns the senators have heard from Good Samaritans, about the extent to which EPA believes existing administrative tools provide liability protection.
More water pollution coverage here.
More Good Samaritan exemption coverage here.
From email from Reclamation (Kara Lamb):
You’ve probably noticed that throughout the weekend and for the last several days, we’ve been decreasing releases from Olympus Dam to the Big Thompson River. This is because we have been receiving a little more “priority water” into the Colorado-Big Thompson system.
When our junior east slope water rights, priority water, come into play for the C-BT, we decrease, or even turn off, imports from the west slope and collect the east slope run-off at Olympus Dam. So, instead of sending it all over the dam, we run it through our power generation system and deposit it into Horsetooth Reservoir. As a result, the release from Olympus to the Big Thompson has dropped to about 400 cfs…
Tonight [June 14], we’ll drop it again to about 375 cfs.
From email from Reclamation (Kara Lamb):
Just a quick update on what we are releasing from the collection system of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project.
We are up to about 773 cfs from Granby Dam. About 343 cfs is coming over the spillway; the 430 cfs is still being released through the dam.
But we have seen inflows to both Willow Creek and Shadow Mountain drop off in the last 24 hours. Willow Creek has dropped to about 954 cfs. Shadow Mountain is now releasing 2150 cfs.
Click on the thumbnail graphics above for screen shots of Ms. Lamb’s photos of the Olympus and Granby releases from this week.
More Colorado-Big Thompson Project coverage here.
Fryingpan-Arkansas Project update: 750 cfs in the Fryingpan River below Ruedi Reservoir
June 15, 2011
From email from Reclamation (Kara Lamb):
As you all have likely heard, snow pack continues to hang on, yet inflows to Ruedi remain consistent with little change–around 1300 cfs for the last two weeks.
The reservoir is filling quickly. It is currently at an elevation of 7745 feet. As a result, we’re increasing releases again today, June 14, and tomorrow, June 15. Changes will be in 50 cfs increments at noon and again each day at 6 p.m.
With flows from the Rocky Fork running around 75 cfs, the gage below Ruedi Dam will read 650 cfs by this evening. Tomorrow, by evening, the gage will read 750 cfs.
More Fryingpan-Arkansas Project coverage here.
From The Aspen Times (John Stroud):
The one factor that could push river levels even higher is if temperatures get hot enough this week to significantly increase the pace of the remaining high country snowmelt, according to Aldis Strautins, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.
“We have seen the rivers come back down a little bit, and things seem to have stabilized as far as the flood threat,” Strautins said Monday.
“We are looking at the snowpack levels, and we’re still indicating that we have some up there yet,” he said. “A warming trend toward the middle of this week may bring river levels back up, but we’re not expecting to see a crest quite as high as what we saw last week.”
On Tuesday, June 7, the Colorado River at Glenwood Springs rose to 25,640 cubic feet per second (cfs) and a depth of 10.8 feet…
The Roaring Fork River at Glenwood Springs, just above the confluence with the Colorado, crested at a little more than 8,100 cfs and 6.8 feet on June 7. The Roaring Fork on Monday was running at 5,880 cfs and just shy of 6 feet…
With about 27 percent of the snowpack in the Colorado River Basin yet to come down, it’s not out of the question that there could be a new peak. “We’re about three-quarters melted out at the sites we’re monitoring,” said Mike Gillespie, snow survey supervisor for the National Resources Conservation Service. “So, we are past the majority of the snowmelt, but we’ve still got some snow up there. By next week, we should be pretty much melted out at those sites.”
Officials are expecting Colorado River levels to remain above normal for the next few weeks, with some fluctuation depending on temperatures and weather patterns.
Meanwhile, here’s the runoff event of the week, Geese surf the Glenwood Wave.
Colorado River basin: Can the Colorado River Compact survive the predicted water short future?
June 14, 2011
From the Colorado Independent (Alan Best):
[Douglas Kenney], director of the law school’s Western Water Policy Program, last winter released the first part of a several-tiered study of challenges to administration of the river. Obscured by drought that had left Lake Mead, near Las Vegas, reduced to its lowest level since 1938, demand had quietly crept up and overtaken supply during the last decade, he said. Despite occasional wet years such as the current one, climate-change projections foresee significantly hotter temperatures and perhaps a 9 percent decline in water volume during coming decades, according to the newest study issued this spring by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation…
Some people believe earlier spring, warmer temperatures, and the extended drought of the last decade are harbingers of what lies ahead. “For those of us on the ground, trying to manage supplies, the reality is that things are changing,” said Jim Lochhead, chief executive of Denver Water. “We need to deal with them, because that’s the reality.” Denver, he added, already has a climate scientist on its staff, to help identify its supply-side options…
Summing up the conference, Don Ostler, of the Salt Lake City-based Upper Colorado River Commission, again stressed the perception that the 1922 compact has been proven to be flexible. But, he added, it will needed to be even more flexible because, “you haven’t seen nothing yet.”
More Colorado River basin coverage here.
USGS Study Finds Recent Snowpack Declines in the Rocky Mountains Unusual Compared to Past Few Centuries
June 14, 2011
From the Colorado Independent (David O. Williams):
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a former Colorado senator, issued this statement on the USGS report:
“This scientific work is critical to understanding how climate change is affecting western water supplies,” Salazar said. “It helps land managers adapt to changing conditions on the ground, assists water managers with planning for the future, and gives all of us a better understanding of the real impacts that carbon pollution is having on our resources and our way of life.”The news is apparently nearly as bad in the southern Rockies. A separate report recently produced by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in conjunction with seven states that rely on the Colorado River Basin (including Colorado), found water supplies in the basin may decline by up to 20 percent by the middle of this century. That’s produced a lot of hand wringing by water policymakers over the future of the 1922 Colorado River Compact, as chronicled today by veteran water reporter Allen Best of Mountain Town News.
More Colorado River basin coverage here.
From the Associated Press via The Denver Post:
U.S. Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet are asking the Environmental Protection Agency to clarify the EPA’s ability to help unaffiliated groups that want to clean up abandoned hardrock mines. The third-party groups have no connection to or responsibility for the mining activities or resulting pollution but want to clean up these sites to mitigate damage to watersheds and public health, but they’re worried about legal liability.
More water pollution coverage here.
More Good Samaritan exemption coverage here.
Fryingpan-Arkansas Project update: 475 cfs in the Fryingpan River below Ruedi Reservoir
June 14, 2011
From email from Reclamation (Kara Lamb):
Run-off into Ruedi Reservoir has really started to come up the last few days. As a result, we are increasing the release from the dam by 100 cfs [June 13]. It will be done in two 50 cfs increments.
The first change was about an hour ago, raising the release from Ruedi to the lower Fryingpan from around 375 to 425. With the Rocky Fork’s current contribution of around 75 cfs, there is about 500 now flowing down the ‘Pan past the Ruedi gage.
Our second change will be around 6 p.m. tonight. That will bump the release from the dam from 425 to 475 cfs. With the Rocky Fork continuing to run at this current level, the Ruedi gage below the dam should wind up reading close to 550 cfs by this evening.
More Fryingpan-Arkansas Project coverage here.
Runoff/snowpack news: Water providers in the lower basin states are all smiles for a change
June 14, 2011
From the Albuquerque Journal (John Fleck):
Parched New Mexico won’t see much of that water [ed. northern Rocky Mountain snowpack] directly. Most of it fell to the north of the watersheds that feed the San Juan and Rio Grande, New Mexico’s two largest rivers. But we will nevertheless benefit in important ways, [Estevan López, head of the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission] said, as the extra water from this year’s snowpack buys time to work on long-term problems in the Colorado Basin.
The problem for the past decade has been drought on the river system that supplies a significant amount of the water supplies used by seven Western states, including New Mexico. For us, the San Juan River, a tributary, supplies drinking water to Albuquerque and Santa Fe via the San Juan-Chama project. The San Juan also supplies water to meet the Navajo Nation’s water rights, as well as irrigating farms in the state’s northeastern corner.
The question lingering throughout the conference is how reliable that supply might be in the long run, for us as well as the six other U.S. states and Mexico that also rely on the Southwest’s largest river system. And if the Colorado gets less reliable – if, in the long run, it has less water to offer even as we keep growing and trying to use more of it – who will take the hit? Whose share of the limited resource will be reduced? A new federal study released in conjunction with the conference forecast that the Colorado could have 9 percent less water on average by 2050 as a result of climate change, with persistent drought growing more common…
And that is where the real benefit to New Mexico in the giant snowpack lies, López said. “This big snowpack in the basin has bought us some time to work on those issues.”
From The Denver Post (Analisa Romano):
Michael Lewis, who manages water data at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Water Science Center in Lakewood, said cooler temperatures over the weekend have resulted in a steadily melting snowpack instead of a dramatic peak, as was expected last week. Snowpack is still about 239 percent of the average for this time of year, which means rivers could flow at higher levels into the first week of July or longer in some areas, Lewis said…
Meanwhile, restrictions on inner tubes and air mattresses will remain in place for the Colorado River until June 24, and the Yampa and Poudre rivers until early July, officials said. Because of less dramatic water flow this week, Clear Creek and Boulder Creek do not have any restrictions in place.
From the Associated Press (Cristina Silva):
The [Lower Basin states] can thank the heavy and, in some cases, unprecedented snowpack in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. The ripe June sun is sending snowmelt into the Colorado River, its tributaries and Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir located outside Las Vegas. “This is obviously really welcome, great news,” said Jeffrey Kightlinger, CEO of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 19 million people. “It’s been a godsend.”
The water comes at a crucial time for the Southwest. After 10 years of receding water levels that threatened a regional water shortage, this year’s melting snows are expected to grow Lake Mead, the chief source of water for the three states and Mexico, by 40 feet or more. The jubilation in California, Arizona and Nevada is not a case of wishing neighbors ill, only the reality of nature’s polarizing impact in the water-poor West. Brutal, prolonged winters in the north produce robust, life-giving water flows in the south…
Roughly 96 percent of Mead’s water comes from melted snow in the upper Colorado River basin states: Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming. By November 2010, the water in the reservoir had fallen to 1,081 elevation feet, a historic low and a mere six feet above the point that would trigger a large reduction of Arizona and Nevada’s share of the Colorado River. If that trend had continued, Arizona and Nevada could have had to begin water rationing this year. That outlook changed during late winter as snowstorms blanketed Western mountains from the Rockies to the Sierra Nevada. By June, there was more cumulative snow than ever in the upper basin states that feed into the Colorado River, said Kevin Werner, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service’s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center. As a result, Lake Mead is expected to grow to up to 1,126 feet by December. At full stage, the lake registers at more than 1,200 elevation feet. For public water utilities, the engorged river will buy officials more time to plan for the possibility of a future without Lake Mead, a nightmarish prospect across the Southwest. Some researchers believe long-term drought, climate change and an ever increasing demand for water could leave the lake dry by 2021.
From the Valley Courier (Julia Wilson):
Kuenhold first appeared in the Valley in 1969 as a Vista volunteer. “I had hair then; I wore it in a ponytail,” he said. “I was sent here for training. Then, with other volunteers, we opened the Colorado Rural Legal Services office.”[...]
Kuenhold saw law as a way to right the wrongs in society. “I thought if I went into law I could help people,” Kuenhold said. “It was the time of [Martin Luther King, Jr.] and (President John) Kennedy. I wanted to do good for my country. Law seemed to be the best way to use the skills and gifts I’d been given.”[...]
Two of his cases had unexpected bonuses. A water case led not only to his interest in the Valley water interests, but also to his status as the premiere water judge in Colorado. The second case led to a hobby: flying.
Here’s a short bio from the Colorado Judicial Performance website. Good luck Judge Kuenhold.
More water law coverage here.
From the Colorado Independent (David O. Williams):
Colorado Citizens Against ToxicWaste (CCAT) filed a lawsuit last year trying to get the state to compel Cotter Corp. to establish an aggressive cleanup plan at the EPA Superfund site and provide twice as much in financial assurance to back the project.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and Cotter both asked the court to dismiss the case, questioning CCAT’s legal standing. On Friday, District Court Judge Robert Hyatt rejected that motion.
“After considering all of Plaintiffs allegations in the complaint to be true this Court finds a sufficient showing that the Plaintiff is entitled to relief and the Motion to Dismiss under Rule 12(b)(5) is DENIED,” District Court Judge Robert Hyatt wrote.
“Instead of telling us that we don’t have an interest in the radioactive contamination of our water and air, the department ought to be working with the public to protect our environment and health. It is regrettable that CDPHE has taken Cotter’s side to keep Colorado citizens out of the decision process,” said Sharyn Cunningham, a CCAT co-chair whose own well water was contaminated by the Cotter Mill.
More coverage from Tracy Harmon writing for The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
Cotter Corp. has agreed to increase the cleanup bond to $20.8 million from $14.7 million this month to cover the cost of decommissioning the entire mill when it closes. The state estimates the cleanup will cost about $43.7 million, while Cotter estimates it would be $23.2 million.
