The Uncompahgre Watershed Planning Partnership to host workshop focusing on reclamation activities and abandoned mine lands issues in the upper Uncompahgre Watershed December 11

Here’s the release from the UWPP via the Delta County Independent:

The Uncompahgre Watershed Planning Partnership will be hosting a day long workshop focusing on reclamation activities and abandoned mine lands issues in the upper Uncompahgre Watershed. The program, titled: “Examining Abandoned Mine Lands in the Uncompahgre Watershed” will be held on Friday, Dec. 11, from 9:30-3:30 at the Ouray Community Center.

According to the workshop’s organizer, Andrew Madison, this event will bring together representatives from state, local and federal agencies, as well as local organizations and industry representatives to discuss how different agencies are handling AML issues as well as future strategies for remediating and safeguarding abandoned mine sites. The workshop will involve short presentations as well as a roundtable discussion focusing on data sharing and prioritizing abandoned mine sites for future reclamation. Participants will include the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Division of Reclamation and Mining Safety, Trust for Land Restoration, Trout Unlimited, the Red Mountain Project and many others.

Abandoned mines can pose many hazards both to people and environment through un-safe mine openings and structures as well as soils and surface water contamination from acid mine drainage and abandoned mine waste. However these sites are an important part of the culture and heritage of Ouray County and provide a unique glimpse into the past for tourists and younger generations. Through proper management, reclamation and safeguarding, the hazards of these sites can be remediated while preserving cultural aspects.

The Uncompahgre Watershed Planning Partnership is a volunteer group seeking to involve citizens and organizations in the Uncompahgre Watershed. Its mission is to protect and restore water quality in the Uncompahgre River through coordinated community and agency efforts.

For more information about “Examining Abandoned Mine Lands in the Uncompahgre Watershed” contact Andrew Madison at 413-297-7232 or Ridgway.vista@gmail.com

More Uncompahgre River watershed coverage here and here.

Aspinall Unit update

From email from Reclamation (Dan Crabtree):

Flows in the Black Canyon and Gunnison Gorge have stabilized at 500 cfs and will remain there until about the first week of December when releases will increase to around 900 – 1000 cfs for higher power demands and to achieve the December 31 Blue Mesa elevation target.

More Aspinall Unit coverage here.

Uncompahgre River: Montrose River Corridor Work Group reaches consensus on recommendations for the riparian environmnent

From the Montrose Daily Press (Katie O’Hare):

Thursday — after five, two-hour meetings spanning over the past few months – the work group presented their recommendations to Montrose City Council during its work session. “It was a balance between property rights and protecting the river,” said group member Shawn Lund, a local boater and teacher. The group was able to reach a major agreement, being that a river buffer was needed in Montrose to preserve the river and riparian environment, protect water quality and wildlife habitat, preserve the view shed and to provide clarity and guidance to future development, said group member Ben Tisdel, local developer and member of Friends of the River Uncompahgre (FORU)…

The group agreed that there should be an overall buffer of 100 feet from the average yearly high water mark (HWM), and within that 100-foot buffer, there’s to be two different zones, a “no-go zone” and “slow-go zone.” (Disagreements arose on the width of the no-go zone.) The no-go zone would be 40 feet from the HWM. Within this area, there would be no buildings, linear trials or disturbance of native riparian vegetation allowed. However, short-distance, soft surface trails and usual, customary uses, such as a boat ramp, would be allowed. The slow-go zone would be the area between 40 feet and 100 feet. To develop within this zone, a person would need to obtain city permission, such as a special use permit. The method would be decided by city staff, Tisdel said, and could be processed through the planning commission similar to other permits. Any development within the slow-go zone must enhance the river corridor, such as a business that faces the river with a patio. Those that to not enhance the river corridor, such as a warehouse, would need to be screened. The group recommended that there be stricter “performance standard” as one gets closer to the 40-foot zone and that city staff work out such details, like requiring a building to sit as far back on the lot as possible. Residential single-family homes are exempt from the screening requirement.

More Uncompahgre River watershed coverage here and here.

Orchard City: New raw water source running into regulatory snafus

From the Delta County Independent (Hank Lohmeyer):

With regulatory hang ups and delays frustrating the Ward Creek Diversion project at almost every turn, [Orchard City Town administrator David Varley] told the trustees at their October regular meeting, “I think it’s pretty much impossible that we’re going to get that project constructed this year.” The seemingly simple and relatively inexpensive idea was proposed last year. It was seen as a way to increase the efficiency of the town’s water system by diverting an existing raw water supply directly into a pipeline to the treatment plant. The project entailed about $38,000 in construction costs, and the town board had good hopes at the outset that the work could be completed in 2009. But contingency planning for the project failed to foresee the entangling involvement of the Army Corps of Engineers and the state Water Quality Control Commission. Varley gave those two agencies most of the responsibility for regulatory delays that will push the project’s completion date into next year.

More Surface Creek watershed coverage here.

Aspinall Unit: Invasive mussels inspections regime changed for winter operations

From the Montrose Daily Press:

Stevens Creek boat ramp will remain closed to vessel launching and retrieval. Elk Creek and Lake Fork boat ramp hours are 7 a.m. through 5 p.m. Inspections continue at the Elk Creek Marina, rather than at the campground entrance. Vessels that have been slipped or on the water for more than 24 hours must go through a high-risk inspection and possible decontamination, which will take longer than a standard inspection. No motorized or trailered vessel launching or retrieval is allowed outside of the Elk Creek and Lake Fork boat ramps. Only hand-launched water craft may launch outside of these locations and their trailers may not enter the water. Boat decontamination is no longer available at Lake Fork, due to nighttime temperatures that are below freezing, and the potential for water lines and portable decontamination units to freeze. Boats needing decontamination will be sent to Elk Creek. Boaters can prevent the need for decontamination by keeping craft clean, drained and dried of any standing water upon arrival at Blue Mesa Reservoir. Cooler temperatures and reduced staff means decontamination might not be immediately available to vessels with attached adult mussels. Such vessels may be denied access to the lake until they are decontaminated elsewhere. The reservoir and inspection stations remain open until the water at Elk Creek and Lake Fork boat ramps freezes. Hours will again be reduced in late November or early December.

More invasive species coverage here and here.

CWCB: Montrose County instream flow water rights public meeting

From email from the Colorado Water Conservation Board (Rob Viehl):

The Stream and Lake Protection Section of the Colorado Water Conservation Board is holding a public meeting to discuss the potential appropriation by the Board of new instream flow water rights in 2010 in Montrose County, and the current status of the Board’s acquisition of the UMETCO water rights.

The following stream segments in Montrose County are being considered for instream flow protection at this time: North Fork Tabeguache Creek, Red Canyon Creek, San Miguel River, and Tabeguache Creek.

Additional streams that are being considered for appropriation in 2010 in Water Division 4 include: Alpine Gulch, Big Dominguez Creek, Blue Creek (Increase), Cebolla Creek, Cochetopa Creek, East Beaver Creek, Little Dominguez Creek, Spring Creek, and Willow Creek.

Detailed information concerning these proposed instream flow water rights can be found at: http://cwcb.state.co.us/StreamAndLake/NewAppropriations/ISFAppropriationNotices/2010ProposedAppropriations/

The meeting will take place at 7:00 p.m. on November 5, 2009, and will be held in the Norwood Town Hall/Community Room, 1670 Naturita Street, Norwood, Colorado. Questions may be directed to Jeff Baessler at 303-866-3441.

More Uncompahgre River Watershed coverage here and here.

Aspinall Unit update

From email from Reclamation (Dan Crabtree):

The Uncompahgre Valley Water Users will be discontinuing their diversions through the Gunnison Tunnel within the next two weeks. Those of you who monitor the gage below the Tunnel via the Internet will be seeing some fluctuations as Reclamation reduces releases from Crystal in response. However flows in the Canyon and Gorge will generally remain in the 500 cfs range for the remainder of October and November. (Currently, the release from Crystal Reservoir is 1,300 cfs.) The latest model runs show that December flows are anticipated to be in the 1,400 cfs range in response to higher power demands and to meet the winter elevation target at Blue Mesa. As always, these flows are subject to change as a result of variable hydrologic conditions. Please contact Dan Crabtree at 970-248-0652.

More Aspinall unit coverage here.

Estes Park: Alpine Anglers meeting October 15 to feature impacts of transmountain diversions

From the Estes Park Trail Gazette:

Ken Neubecker, president of Colorado Trout Unlimited, will speak Thursday on the impact of water diversions from the upper Colorado River. “More than half of the water of the upper Colorado is already diverted to the Front Range for agricultural and municipal use,” said Neubecker. “Now two new projects could take almost half of what remains.” But as conservation, government and business interests in Grand County geared up for a protracted fight, water developers Denver Water and Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District agreed to work with local agencies to find ways to meet the water needs of the Front Range while minimizing the impact on wildlife and recreation on the Colorado and Fraser Rivers. Neubecker will speak about the situation at the Alpine Anglers` monthly meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15 in the Hondius Room of the Estes Park Public Library. The public is invited.

More transmountain/transbasin diversions coverage here.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park turns ten

From the Montrose Daily Press (Kati O’Hare):

“The national park status is very special,” current park Superintendent Connie Rudd said. “What’s important is that the canyon is still the same and that means we’ve done our job.”[...]

Former legislators, along with Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service leaders, discussed their decades-long endeavor involving perseverance and public involvement that gave the canyon its new name.

More Gunnison River Basin coverage here.

Aspinall Unit update

From email from Reclamation (Dan Crabtree):

Crystal releases will be reduced another 150 cfs this afternoon, October 7th, resulting in Gunnison River flows below the Gunnison Tunnel of 500 – 550 cfs. Crystal releases will be further reduced in the coming weeks as the Gunnison Tunnel decreases diversions. However, these changes should not affect overall flows in the Black Canyon or Gunnison Gorge and, barring any unforeseen hydrologic events, we expect conditions to remain fairly constant over the next several weeks.

Hotchkiss: New treatment plant on schedule

From the Delta County Independent:

On the Hotchkiss Public Works Director’s wish list is that the new water treatment plant upgrade will be completed and operational by the end of January 2010. Right now, Mike Owens said the department is hard at work completing the exterior of the building while the weather holds. Members of the Hotchkiss Public Works Department stand next to a control skid with the membrane modules they will assemble for the water plant upgrade. From left to right are Chad Lloyd, Don White, Leonard McCulloch and Greg Allen. Lloyd, who is a deputy with the Hotchkiss Marshal’s Office, is working part-time on the installation. They have completed framing the building. The doors are in so the new Pall equipment is secure. Scott Electric is in the process of the electrical installation. Once the exterior is completed the crew will begin plumbing the new equipment, making all the connections to the Pall system.

More water treatment coverage here.

Delta-Montrose Electric Association hopes to provide 5% of maximum annual demand with small hydroelectric generation plants

From the Telluride Watch (Alan Best):

The co-operative announced [recently] that it will apply to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which administers the Gunnison Tunnel, to develop enough electricity to equal 5 percent of the co-op’s maximum annual demand. As the energy landscape changes, other jurisdictions across Colorado and the West have similarly been re-examining their assets. Small hydro-projects produce far less electricity than most coal-fired power plants, or the giant dams on the Colorado River. But they can do so without generating carbon dioxide emissions and often without increasing other environmental impacts…

The projects, says Joani Matranga, Western Slope representative for the Governor’s Energy Office, would use primarily existing infrastructure and diversions, resulting in minimal environmental impacts. “We’re not building any new dams,” she says. “We think there is still plenty of potential to go after.”[...]

The effort to harness the irrigation canal east of Montrose is part of a broad effort to reverse this decades-old trend toward centralized generation of electricity using fossil fuels. Delta-Montrose Electric Assn. officials say that local power generation produces local jobs, and will insulate electrical customers from rising costs for coal. Those costs will almost certainly rise even more if the federal government adopts a cap-and-trade regime on carbon dioxide emissions, as proposed in the Waxman-Markey bill.

“If this project moves forward through the federal permitting process – and I am confident it will – DMEA’s membership will benefit in many ways, “ said DMEA General Manager Dan McClendon. “Money we would have otherwise exported out of our community for wholesale electricity will be retained in our own community,” he said. He went on to explain that even without grants or other financial assistance, the cost – about $25 million to $30 million – will deliver electricity comparable to the existing wholesale rate…

Unlike some proposals of the past, DMEA has no plans to harness the full power of the falling water. Water from the Gunnison drops 372 feet in as series of churning, roiling steps as the irrigation ditch, called the South Canal, winds around the dun-colored adobe hills east of Montrose. DMEA plans to yoke power from just 120 feet in that fall…

Some small towns – including Hotchkiss and Cortez – have installed small hydro components into their existing water delivery systems, to harness the power of falling water. Aspen does the same, and Hines, that city’s utility engineer, points out that even towns in the Midwest with water towers could tap the power of falling water. Elsewhere in southwestern Colorado, Eric Jacobson has refurbished several small hydro-power plants, such as a 500-kilowatt plant at Bridal Veil Falls in Telluride and a 150-kilowatt plant in Ouray. A variety of other small hydro projects are also scattered across mountainous areas of Colorado.

More coverage from The Telluride Watch (Beverly Corbell):

Both President Teddy Roosevelt and President Howard Taft spoke at Saturday’s 100th anniversary celebration of the opening of the Gunnison Tunnel, but the biggest news of the day came from President Dan McClendon. McClendon, president of the board of directors of the Delta-Montrose Electric Association, announced that his cooperative and the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association, sponsors of the event, would collaborate to build a hydroelectric plant on South Canal as it leaves the Gunnison Tunnel. “This will bring clean, renewable energy into DMEA’s system and will be one of the largest renewable electric facilities in western Colorado,” McClendon said. “It will keep money in our community and keep millions of dollars here in our area.”

More hydroelectric coverage here and here.

Aspinall Unit update

From email from Reclamation (Dan Crabtree):

It’s now time to start adjusting releases from the Aspinall Unit for the fall season. Flows from Crystal Reservoir will be reduced by 150 cfs starting at 8:00 a.m. on Friday October 2nd. Flows in the Black Canyon and Gunnison Gorge should then be approximately 680 cfs. Further reductions may be forthcoming in the following weeks. We are anticipating low flows in the Black Canyon and Gunnison Gorge in the 500 cfs range during October and November.

More Aspinall Unit coverage here and here.

Montrose County League of Women Voters: Water a Vital Resource October 1

From email from the Colorado Watershed Assembly:

The first in a series of meetings hosted by the Montrose County League of Women Voters about regional programs working toward sustainability.

Join us and guest speakers from the Uncompaghre Watershed Planning Partnership and the City of Montrose Public Works Department for a forum on how to sustain water quality for businesses, citizens and wildlife for the next 100 years. Sarah Sauter of the UWPP will speak on its goal of improving water qualtiy and riparian habitat within the Uncompaghre River Basin by developing a collaborative watershed plan that would address heavy metals, selenium, wise land use planning, storm water, protection of drinking water supplies, flood hazard mitigation, river access, healthy fisheries, wildlife, public education and recreation. The City of Montrose Storm Water Management Program is dedicated to protecting the quality of surface waters, ponds, creeks and rivers.

Thursday, October 1,7: 00 p.m., Montrose Library Community Room Call Barb Krebs at 249-3989 for more information.

North Fork River Improvement Association watershed action plan meeting October 14

From the Delta County Independent:

NFRIA is beginning its update to the original 2000 Watershed Action Plan for the North Fork of the Gunnison. This is a chance for citizens to take action in addressing the foremost issues concerning the river. A public meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 14, at Memorial Hall in Hotchkiss from 4-6 p.m.

NFRIA would like to assess how the public perception of the watershed has changed during the last nine years. Participation in this meeting will prove valuable for NFRIA in pursuing the goals of all stakeholders in the watershed. They hope to come away with an inclusive list of public concerns allowing them to optimize their efforts. In order to better serve all stakeholders, NFRIA welcomes critique of previous projects and how well they have addressed the initial action plan.

This meeting is the first of two public meetings as 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, public concerns, and will set the goals for the next 10 years.

Colorado Water Conservation Board is funding this project. The original 2000 Watershed Action Plan can be found at www.nfria.org. Contact the NFRIA office with any questions at 872-4614.

More Gunnison Basin coverage here.

Surface Creek Valley: Orchard City scores 5 shares of Leon Lake water

From the Delta County Indpendent (Hank Lohmeyer):

Town Trustee Jimmie Boyd presented the board with the offer he had received for the Leon Lake shares. Boyd explained, “This last week I had a lady approach me with five shares of Leon Lake water for sale. She is asking $5,000 for the five shares, which figures out to a little bit less than $2,500 per acre-foot. That’s about the going rate. “This water,” Boyd continued, “has already been converted to domestic use or as augmentation water, as well as irrigation. The town has 85 shares of Leon Lake at this point, so this purchase would bring us up to 90 shares.” Boyd went on to explain that there are about 3,600 shares total in the Leon Lake water company. “The largest owner has about 225 shares,” Boyd said. “There about 160 owners in the company, so no one individual or owner interest would be hit real hard if some kind of work had to be done on the reservoir.” Leon Lake is located on the north side of Grand Mesa in the Plateau Creek drainage. Water is transported to Surface Creek Valley by a tunnel that was constructed decades ago.

More Surface Creek coverage here.

Surface Creek Watershed: Source water protection plan

From the Delta County Independent (Hank Lohmeyer):

The Orchard City Town Board gave the go-ahead for its administration to apply for up to $5,000 in grant money to cover the costs of its participation in developing a “source water protection plan” for the town’s drinking water supplies. The town will be cooperating with other drinking water suppliers and interested groups in the Surface Creek Valley on the area-wide plan…

Trustee Jimmie Boyd who attended the first organization meeting of the group earlier this month explained that Forest Service facilities like gravel pits and septic systems pose the biggest concern as point source contaminants of drinking water supplies on the Grand Mesa. “This is essentially going to be a plan, or an inventory resource of what is up on the side of Grand Mesa that could involve our water sources,” Boyd explained. “There are no teeth in it that force us to do anything, but it could provide some possible advantages for grants or loans for the town.”[...]

The second planning meeting of the entities participating in the project is scheduled to take place in Cedaredge on Monday, Sept. 21, at 6 p.m. at the Community Center.

More Surface Creek watershed coverage here.

Ridgway council okays water and sewer rate hike (first reading)

From The Telluride Watch (Gus Jarvis):

The Ridgway Town Council on Wednesday, Sept. 9 passed the first reading of an ordinance that raises both water and sewer rates over a three-year period in order to get the two operations financially sustainable. Sewer rates for users within town are currently $18 per month. That amount will increase to $25 on Jan. 1, 2010, and then increase by $5 for the next two years, making the monthly rate $35 by 2012.

For single-family homes, the ordinance will raise the current water rate of $22 a month to $27 in January. It will then increase in $5 increments, making the rate $32 in 2011 and $37 by 2012…

While the town needs to bring the two utility enterprises into the black, making them sustainable will also allow the town to pursue funding for its failing waterline infrastructure. Currently, town staff is pursuing outside funding from the Department of Local Affairs and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the town-wide replacement of the polybutylene water lines. The submittal requirements for the ARRA funding include proof by the town that the utility enterprise is sustaining itself from a revenue standpoint and will continue to do so to adequately absorb the debt service (0 percent) financing. The approved first reading of the ordinance, is, according to Clifton, “hopeful proof that the town’s utility will have sufficient revenues through time to cover these [financial] costs” in order to get the ARRA loans.

The rate-raising ordinance could go before council for final approval at its Oct. 14 meeting.

More infrastructure coverage here.

Aspinall unit update

From email from Reclamation (Dan Crabtree):

The Uncompahgre Valley Water Users will be making a 100 cfs cut in their tunnel diversions today which will effectively increase the flows in the Gunnison River through the Black Canyon and Gunnison Gorge to just over 800 cfs. The Colorado Division of Wildlife will be on the river next week for their annual fish sampling/inventory so we’ll try to maintain stable flows during that time period. Following next week’s inventory, Crystal releases will be reduced as tunnel demands gradually subside.

More Aspinall Unit coverage here and here.

Gunnison Tunnel 100th year celebration

Morph your Aspen viewing this weekend into a trip over to Montrose for the shindig. Here’s a report from Nancy Lofholm writing for The Denver Post. From the article:

The 6-mile-long Gunnison Tunnel — invisible and sometimes forgotten by today’s residents — was built to bring water from the Gunnison River to the fertile but mostly arid Uncompahgre Valley. It turned farmland that had inadequate water into one of the state’s prime agriculture areas…

The tunnel will get its due during a monumental birthday bash. Saturday, bells will clang from Montrose to Delta in an echo of the bells that pealed across the valley when the first water came rushing through the tunnel and filling a canal system on Sep. 23, 1909. There will be a parade, fireworks, games, picnics and a re-enactment of President William Howard Taft “speechifying” and pressing the golden button that opened the tunnel. “It’s a tremendously impressive project,” said Western State College history professor Duane Vandenbusche, who has included two chapters about the tunnel in a newly published book about the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

Gunnison Tunned 100th year celebration

Here’s a look at the Gunnison Tunnel and the water it provides for the Uncompahgre Valley, from Peter Shelton writing for The Telluride Watch. From the article:

We live on Gunnison River water from out of the Black Canyon by way of the Gunnison Tunnel, which celebrates its 100th anniversary September 26. Turns out just about everyone in the Uncompahgre Valley, from Colona to Pea Green, shares the same fortune. Without the pioneering engineering feat of the tunnel and the concurrent development of canals and laterals by the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association, we wouldn’t be here. Or, at the very least, this part of the Western Slope would look different. It wouldn’t be nearly as green, or as prosperous, as it is today…

The tunnel presented myriad practical and engineering challenges. Digging from both ends simultaneously, shifts of 30 men each working 24/7 took four years to dig the six-mile long hole. And when they finally met in the middle, [Water Users’ Manager Marc Catlin] told us, “They were 18 inches off! Dug by hand! A hundred years ago! You go to Denver, you go in the Eisenhower Tunnel, which was built in the 1970s, you make that turn in the middle? … They were off by 40 feet!”

While the tunnel was being dug, other crews were gouging canals into the west-side landscape, including the main artery, the 11-mile long South Canal. “Go out and look at the canals in winter,” Catlin said. “Imagine mules and Fresno scrapers – no bulldozers! They fed sheep in the canals in winter – all those little tiny feet packing that ‘dobe clay so that the canals wouldn’t leak!” Today the Water Users take care of 575 miles of canals and lateral ditches supplying three communities, two counties, and irrigating 80,000 acres of cropland. Not to mention municipal water (by Tri County and other water districts in Project 7) delivered as far as the outskirts of Ouray.

More Uncompahre Valley coverage here and here.

Blue Mesa Reservoir: Fall schedule for invasive mussel inspections

From the Delta County Independent:

Elk Creek and Lake Fork boat ramp hours will be 7 a.m. through 7 p.m. beginning Sept. 8. Both entrance and exit inspections at Elk Creek will be done at the Elk Creek Marina, rather than the campground entrance. Vessels that have been slipped or on the water for more than 24 hours must go through a high risk inspection and possibly decontamination. No motorized or trailered vessel launching or retrieval is allowed outside of Elk Creek and Lake Fork boat ramps, only hand launched watercraft may launch outside of these locations and their trailers may not enter the water…

Due to nighttime temperatures below freezing and the potential for water lines and portable decontamination units to freeze, boat decontamination may not be available at Lake Fork. Boats requiring decontamination will be sent to Elk Creek. The best way to assure that your boat does not require decontamination is for it to be clean, drained and dried of any standing water upon arrival at Blue Mesa Reservoir. Due to freezing fall temperatures and the likelihood that our large decontamination unit will have to close, the proper decontamination may not be available to vessels coming in with attached adult mussels. Those vessels may be denied access to the lake until they obtain decontamination at another facility.

More invasive species coverage here and here.

Coal Creek Watershed coalition awarded two grants

From The Crested Butte News:

he Coal Creek Watershed Coalition (CCWC) recently received $33,006 from two sources to further their work within the Coal Creek Watershed. The Colorado Healthy Rivers Fund awarded $10,756 to the CCWC to fund four programs. A portion of the funding will be used to complete the data analysis and interpretation of a tracer study. The study will characterize groundwater interactions with surface water during spring conditions. The funds will also be used to help provide support for a storm water study being conducted in 2009. The remaining funds will be used to attend conferences and workshops and will also provide funding for a third year of VISTA member support for the organization.

The CCWC was also awarded $22,250 by the Colorado Water Conservation Board to complete a riparian assessment in the watershed. The goal of the assessment is to assess the health of riparian (river) corridors within the watershed to develop prioritized list of areas most suitable for future restoration efforts. Ultimately healthy riparian areas contribute to the overall health of stream systems, provide habitat for a variety of organisms, function in the maintenance of a normal hydrologic regime and are aesthetically pleasing; among other values.

More Gunnison Basin coverage here.

Aspinall Unit operations meeting summary

From email from Reclamation (Dan Crabtree):

The August 27, 2009 meeting to coordinate Reclamation’s operation of the Aspinall Unit was held at the Blue Mesa Elk Creek Visitor Center. The meeting summary and associated handouts can be found at: http://www.usbr.gov/uc/wcao/water/rsvrs/mtgs/amcurrnt.html

Highlights of the operation meeting include:

April through July inflow to Blue Mesa was 772,000 af which is considered an average wet year. (The May 1 April – July forecasted inflow was 690,000 af.) The 31-year average is 720,000 af. 2008 inflow was 1,006,000 af.

Runoff was early and forecasted inflow increased significantly after May 15.

The Black Canyon water right has been quantified and this year’s average daily spring peak of 6,730 cfs in the Black Canyon exceeded the water right, which varies based on Blue Mesa Reservoir May 1 forecasted inflow. At Delta, flows peaked at 12,500 cfs with no significant problems reported. Flows in critical habitat peaked at 12,900 cfs as measured at Whitewater and there were 13 days above 8,070 cfs (half-bankfull). Endangered fish flow recommendations, based on May 1 forecast, would call for 10 days above 8,070 cfs and a peak of 8,070 cfs.

Ramping rates steeper than planned occurred as flows reached their peak causing safety and fishery concerns.

Blue Mesa filled and summer flows through the Black Canyon finally settled at around 1,000 cfs. Flows will decrease gradually in September to the 600-700 cfs range and then increase in late November and December to around 2,000 cfs for hydropower production.

If you have any suggestions on improving the operation meetings or summaries, please let us know. The next operation meeting will be on Thursday, January 21, 2010 in Montrose; location to be announced later.

More Aspinall Unit coverage here.

Surface Creek Watershed: Source Water Protection Plan

Folks are organizing to protect the Surface Creek Watershed. Here’s a report from the Delta County Independent (Hank Lohmeyer):

The Colorado Rural Water Association (CRWA), a non-profit group located in Pueblo West, has signed on with drinking water interests in the Surface Creek Valley area to advance the government-funded Source Water Protection Plan (SWPP) project.
Thirty people responded to 60 written invitations that went out for the meeting held at the Cedaredge Community Center. Colleen Williams, a facilitator with the non-profit group, said $5,000 grants are available to groups participating in the program. “We might be able to get $10,000 easy with this (size) group,” she told those at the meeting.

The SWPP project is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, by the Environmental Protection Agency, and by the Colorado Health Department, Williams said. The grants require a 50 percent local match which can be provided by local attendance at meetings credited toward the match at the rate of $30 per hour. “Specialists” who attend meetings qualify for a $100-per-hour grant match credit…

The Source Water Protection Plan is aimed at “keeping contaminants off the land and out of water treatment plants,” Williams said. Williams said that other communities, including the Plateau Valley area and Rangely, are participating in the SWPP project. Groundwork for the SWPP effort was laid in 1996 with passage of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The initiative was advanced in 2004 with the compiling of local “Source Water Assessments” (SWA)…

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment website explains the statewide Source Water program as follows: Colorado Source Water Assessment and Protection (SWAP) is a program designed to provide information about your drinking water, as well as provide you and your community a way to get involved in protecting the quality of your drinking water. The program encourages community-based protection and preventive management strategies to ensure that all public drinking water resources are kept safe from future contamination.”

More Surface Creek watershed coverage here.