The CWCB will take up the subject of funding the Flaming Gorge Task Force at their September meeting
August 31, 2011
From the Cortez Journal (Joe Hanel):
Although the pipeline would be far away from Southwest Colorado, it involves Colorado River water, so it could complicate interstate agreements that require Western Colorado to leave water in the rivers for use downstream.
The Colorado Water Conservation Board will consider funding the grant at its Sept. 13-14 meeting in Grand Junction.
Environmental groups are urging the board to deny the grant, citing the high cost of the proposed pipeline and the possibility for damage to trout and endangered fish below Flaming Gorge dam.
“The single most important element for those fish to continue is water,” Bart Miller, of Western Resource Advocates, said during a telephone town hall last month. “They’ve got to have water in the spring peak flow. They’ve got to have water in the base flow period when water is a little bit lower on the river. They’ve got to have it all the time.”[...]
The grant at issue before the Colorado Water Conservation Board would not favor either concept.
Instead, it is designed to find solid data to make decisions on the general concept of a Flaming Gorge pipeline, said Rod Kuharich, chairman of the Metro Basin Roundtable, one of the regional groups that submitted the grant request.
“It is not to move forward with the project. It is not to commit the state in any way,” Kuharich said.
More Flaming Gorge Task Force coverage here.
