Moffat Collection System Project: Corps Denver hearing recap

The Fraser River of the 21st century is much different from the river that former President Eisenhower used to fish back in the day. Low flows due to transmountain diversions have diminished the fishery there.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers held a hearing last night in Denver for Denver Water’s Moffat Collection System Project which would divert additional water from the Fraser watershed. Residents, planners and politicians (many from Grand County) showed up to be heard. A majority of the speakers asked for the comment period to be extended 45 days.

Speakers for the most part voiced opposition to the proposed Denver Water expansion of Gross Reservoir and the increased diversions to fill the new space. The hope is to raise the dam 125 feet or so to get another 18,000 acre-feet of firm yield on the north side of their service area. They also hope to build a new reservoir on Leyden Creek.

“It breaks my heart to see a natural environment disappear while the east slope creates an environment that belongs east of the Mississippi River,” said Grand County resident Kirk Klanke during the hearing.

He also voiced support for an extension of the comment period. The EIS is a couple of thousand pages and many of the speakers said that they’ve not had enough time to probe the proposed workings.

Canton O’Donnell wants the Corps to evaluate the Moffat project in conjunction with the proposed Windy Gap Firming Project. Windy Gap is the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District’s plan to increase municipal supply for the Front Range using the Colorado-Big Thompson project to transport water stored downstream of Granby Reservoir. One speaker asked the Corps to hold off on issuing permits for either the Windy Gap Firming Project or the Moffat Collection System Project until Denver Water and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District come up with their plan to coordinate the two projects to minimize impacts to the headwaters area.

“If your house is on fire and you have two bedrooms you’d want the fire department to take care of both,” said 4th generation Grand County rancher and county commissioner Gary Bumgarner in support of consolidating the environmental impact statements for both projects.

“This is a very bad project for many reasons,” said Grand Lake Mayor, Judy Burke, while reminding the Corps that pumping warmer water upstream to Grand Lake is causing algae blooms in the lake.

The Colorado-Big Thompson project moves water from Granby Reservoir, through Shadow Mountain Reservoir and into Grand Lake for transport under the Continental Divide through the Adams Tunnel. The Windy Gap Firming Project would increase the volume of water pumped up to the Adams tunnel so presumably the lake clarity problem will increase along with lowered water quality.

Whitewater enthusiasts oppose the drowning of the reach of South Boulder Creek just above Gross Reservoir. One commenter called it a, “Premier whitewater run.”

Interested parties have one more chance to speak publicly on the project next week in Keystone. Here’s the release from Denver Water with details about the hearings.

More Moffat Collection System Project coverage here.

Colorado River District grant program

From email from the Colorado River District (Martha Moore):

Beginning December 1, 2009, the Colorado River District will be accepting grant applications for projects that protect, enhance or develop water resources in their 15-county area within the Colorado River Basin; this includes all tributary watershed areas in Colorado, except the San Juan River basin.

Water resource projects eligible for grant funding should meet one or more of the following objectives:

Development of a new water supply;
Improvement of an existing system;
Improvement of instream water quality;
Increased water use efficiency;
Sediment reduction;
Implementation of watershed management actions; and/or
Tamarisk control

Past successful projects have included the construction of new storage, the enlargement of existing facilities, the rehabilitation of non-functioning or restricted structures, both small and large-scale water efficiency measures, tamarisk removal and other watershed actions. In addition, proposals that enable water to be supplied to areas previously short are eligible and encouraged. Projects that utilize pre-1922 water rights will be given ranking priority.

Eligible applicants can receive up to a maximum of $150,000 (or 25% of the total project cost whichever is less) for their water supply projects. The total grant pool for 2010 is $250,000. The application deadline is Jan. 29, 2010.

More Colorado River Basin coverage here.

Climate change and instream flows in Colorado

From KUNC (Kirk Siegler):

Researchers looked at average global climate models for the year 2070 and applied them to various rivers in western Colorado, where water levels are already stressed. “This is a unique study because we’ve taken these predictions that just focus on the reduction or the increase in temperature,” said Ray Alvarado, of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, “And superimposed those on the local level to see what is the impact on supplies. It hasn’t been done before.” And researchers found climate change would rear its ugly head differently across western Colorado. They found that more precipitation would fall in the winter by 2070, but far less in the summer. The rub is that precipitation may fall in the form of rain, not snow. Not good for storing water that cities, farmers and others depend on.

The study also shows that water levels on the Colorado River would drop by about 23 percent, 35 percent on the Gunnison, and 70 percent on the Dolores in southwest Colorado…

Some parts of the state could see more moisture in a warmer world. State officials say northwest Colorado’s Yampa River could drop by only 2 percent by 2070. That’s also the river that’s being most closely eyed by thirsty cities and the oil shale industry.

More climate change coverage here.

Gunnison River Basin: North Fork River Improvement Association watershed meeting December 9

From email from the Colorado Watershed Assembly:

The North Fork River Improvement Association (NFRIA) is continuing the process to update the original 2000 Watershed Action Plan for the North Fork of the Gunnison. This is a chance for you to take action in addressing the foremost issues concerning your river. A public meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, December 9, 2009, at the Paonia Public Library in Paonia, CO from 4:00 to 6:00pm.

NFRIA wants to assess how the public perception of the watershed has changed during the last nine years. Participation in this meeting will prove valuable for our organization in pursuing the goals of all stakeholders in the watershed. We hope to come away with an inclusive list of public concerns allowing us to optimize our efforts. NFRIA has completed many projects since the original Watershed Plan was released, including the Short and Sheppard-Wilmot Ditch diversions and the Chipeta Dam removal. In order to better serve all stakeholders, NFRIA welcomes critique of how well we have executed the initial action plan and suggested elements to focus on in the coming years.

This meeting is the second of two public meetings that constitute the first task in updating the watershed plan. The update process will review the science, the state of the watershed, sources of water quality impairment, and public concerns, and will set goals for the next 10 years. The Colorado Water Conservation Board is funding this project.

The original 2000 Watershed Action Plan can be found at www.nfria.org. Please feel free to contact the NFRIA office with any questions at 970.872.4614.

More Gunnison River Basin coverage here.

Denver Water: Moffat Collection System Project may benefit streamflows in South Boulder Creek

From The Denver Post (Charlie Meyers):

The South Boulder Creek situation involves a similar difficulty to maintain flows below the reservoir during those cold months when water generation is diminished and fish mortality occurs. Again, flow control by Denver Water is at the heart of the issue. The water provider currently agrees to maintain flows at seven cubic feet per second — provided this small watershed can produce even that minuscule amount. Help may be on the way in a Denver Water plan to boost West Slope diversion through the Moffat Tunnel, boosting storage in Gross Reservoir. A companion arrangement would allow the water suppliers for the cities of Boulder and Lafayette to utilize storage in the reservoir.

The potential to use this to enhance winter flows has caught the attention of Trout Unlimited, which long has sought a solution to the South Boulder Creek puzzle. “If we can use this increased storage to boost flows in the creek,” this would be something we could support,” said Drew Peternell, director of TU’s Western Water Project. But Peternell’s concern also extends to a larger matter, which is a Denver Water push to acquire more water from the upper Fraser River basin, then deliver it through the Continental Divide via its Moffat Tunnel complex.

More Moffat Collection System Project coverage here.

Southern Delivery System: Colorado Springs Utilities requests Reclamation move forward on contract talks

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

“To maintain our current schedule to begin construction on the Pueblo Dam connection in early 2010, we have requested that Reclamation move forward with the contracting process as soon as possible,” said John Fredell, project director…

The contract negotiations will provide an additional opportunity for public comment on SDS, a $1 billion-plus pipeline project on track to be completed by 2016…

Colorado Springs Utilities also is seeking permits in El Paso County, and expects to present its case to the El Paso County Planning Commission in February, Fredell said. The city also has scheduled meetings with the Fountain Creek Watershed Flood Control and Greenway District, its technical advisory committee and its citizens advisory group during December and January.

More Southern Delivery System coverage here and here.

Denver Water: Moffat Collection System Project public hearing tonight in Granby

Here’s an editorial call to arms from the Sky-Hi Daily News asking residents on the rainy side of Colorado to help stop the proposed project from Denver Water. From the piece:

So, we’d like to suggest a resounding “no” from this side of the Continental Divide, as in “no” to more transmountain diversions from the already-depleted Upper Colorado River. Surely that will elicit gasps from the other side of the hill in particular, as it would likely entail deviation from more than a century of Colorado water law. Then again, perhaps it’s high time for the sake of the greater state we did deviate from certain anachronistic practices, transbasin diversions being a prime example.

No one can honestly argue that in 1890, when the Grand Ditch first deprived the Colorado River of its very headwaters, that anyone was, in a legal sense, adequately representing the interests of the West Slope, much less interests that prevail today. Ditto when the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, which was supposed to help Front Range irrigators, not municipalities, began sending water to Northern Colorado. As for Denver Water’s catch-all canal in the Fraser River drainage and pipeline through the Moffat Tunnel, it is nothing short of an environmental tragedy on this side of the Divide.

Conditional water rights, such as those proposed for “firming” in Denver Water’s Moffat Project and Northern’s Windy Gap Firming Project, are particularly suspect in light of current realities in the Colorado River drainage. More than 60 percent of the native flows in this region already have been sent packing to the other side of the Continental Divide. As if that weren’t sufficiently disturbing, projects on the board would raise that ante to 72 percent of the Fraser River. Moreover, both these projects anticipate diverting water to the Front Range for storage in reservoirs there, thus depriving the West Slope not only of its natural heritage, but also of any chance to benefit from flat-water recreation that could be developed…

At the very least, Denver Water should be forced to mitigate the impacts of any further diversions from the Fraser Valley, where a seriously depleted river already represents the ultimate limit to development, and a once-world class fishery teeters on the brink. In addition, Denver’s project and the Windy Gap Project are being considered as though they are in a vacuum, which of course they are not. If the interests of this region are to be represented once and for all, these projects must be considered in concert, just as their impacts will be felt in concert from Lake Granby to the Utah border.

More Moffat Collection System Project coverage here.

2009 Ag Water Summit recap

From The Greeley Tribune (Bill Jackson):

“How are we going to do that [produce 70% more food] without water?” Pat O’Toole asked a crowd of more than 100 Tuesday at the 2009 Ag Water Summit conducted at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. O’Toole, a southwest Wyoming rancher and farmer, is president of the Family Farm Alliance, an organization that represents farmers and ranchers in 17 western states. He set the tone for this year’s summit which also covered legislative and budgetary issues, optimizing irrigation water, updates on new water projects being planned and discussions on other ag and water issues. The annual event is presented by the Colorado Ag Water Alliance and the Colorado Ag Council.

O’Toole and his family have a cattle, sheep and hay operation along the Little Snake River north of Steamboat Springs and has served in the Wyoming House of Representatives. He is the fourth generation on the ranch where the family has had a long association with Colorado State University.

The Family Farm Alliance, he said, presents issues, many of them involving water, from the grassroots level all the way to Congress. Every state in the alliance, he said, has water issues and a major problem facing all those states is not just a population explosion in the future, but more of how much population growth can be absorbed.

More Colorado water coverage here.

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

From the Courthouse News Service (Sonya Angelica Diehn):

The Center for Biological Diversity challenges a Bush-era policy under which the government considers only the current range in consideration of endangered status, which the Center calls “effectively chopping protection off at the knees.” It claims the Interior Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also dismissed the threats of non-native trout; persistence of only small, isolated cutthroat populations; and the cutthroat’s particular susceptibility to a parasitic disease, to deny it protection.

The Colorado cutthroat trout needs clean, cool mountain streams to survive. But 87 percent of this habitat has been lost to livestock grazing, logging, water diversion and dams, among other factors, the Center says. Steady introduction of non-native trout allows the sport fish to compete with local species for resources, eats the native young and threatens local trout by interbreeding, weakening the native population’s highly adapted ability to survive, the plaintiffs say. The species used to flourish in parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and extreme northern New Mexico and Arizona. With 58 percent of the remaining range degraded, the cutthroat now survives only in small, fragmented populations. The species is particular susceptible to whirling disease, a transmittable parasite that causes nerve and bone damage and deformation, making infected fish swim in an erratic, corkscrew-like pattern…

[Plaintiff Noah Greenwald], who has a master’s degree in riparian ecology and submitted the petition to the Fish and Wildlife Service after studying the Colorado cutthroat trout for a year, added, “We hope the Obama administration will revoke the damaging Bush policy on ’significant portion of range’ language, which misinterpreted the law in order to hobble protection, and reconsider listing the trout.” Lead counsel for the Center is James Dougherty of Washington, D.C.

More endangered species coverage here.

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

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.

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.

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.”

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.

Routt County: Study into possible effects of coalbed methane exploration and production on groundwater and surface water underway

From the Craig Daily Press (Collin Smith):

An ongoing study into the possible effects of coalbed methane production in the Sand Wash Basin now shows the area has deep faults potentially connecting coal seams and near-surface water reservoirs. This would mean activity in those coal seams could affect water resources used by local residents…

Officials from the Colorado Geological Survey are completing the study, which is slated to cost about $121,000. Moffat County contributed $1,500, Routt County $500 and state water groups funded the rest. Researchers said they are done mapping the methane and water resources of the basin, and next plan to build an analytical model that will help evaluate what impacts may arise in the future from coalbed methane production…

Peter Barkmann, managing hydrogeologist for the Geological Survey, said companies may have to do additional research before starting coalbed methane production in the Sand Wash Basin. “I think, if anything, the complexity of the basin tells me there’s going to have to be a pretty careful examination done before a company attempts to produce coalbed methane,” Barkmann said.

More coalbed methane coverage here and here.