#Drought news: One category improvement in parts of western Colorado and eastern Utah

US Drought Monitor April 28, 2015

West Drought Monitor April 28, 2015

Colorado Drought Monitor April 28, 2015

Click here to go the US Drought Monitor website. Here’s an excerpt:

Summary

During the past 7-days, heavy rain (2 inches or greater) fell across portions of the southern Plains, the lower Mississippi Valley, and the Southeast. The heavy rain was associated with the approach and passage of several upper-air troughs and frontal systems. Light precipitation (up to 0.5-inch) was reported across many areas west of the Continental Divide. Daytime high temperatures early in the week only reached the 30s and 40s in the eastern Dakotas/western Great Lakes region. By the weekend, high temperatures in the 40s were common across the Great Lakes region and Northeast, as winter-like conditions were slow to give way to lasting spring warmth…

The Plains

In North Dakota, rains this past week were very spotty. Conditions were variable, with some reports of wet soil and machinery stuck in the mud, and other reports of inadequate vegetation for livestock. For this week, the only modification made to the drought depiction was to slightly expand moderate drought (D1) westward in south-central North Dakota to include eastern Stutsman, eastern Logan, and eastern McIntosh Counties. One area that bears monitoring in the next few weeks for possible deterioration to severe drought (D2) is Cass and Richland Counties, in the extreme southeast part of the state.

In eastern and central South Dakota, field work and corn planting is ramping up quickly this week, especially in the eastern part of the state, and field reports indicate dry topsoil conditions. A fairly large area of severe drought (D2) was introduced in central and eastern South Dakota. One agricultural impact is winter wheat winterkill (due in part to dry overall conditions, lack of protective snow cover, and a lack of moisture so far this spring). Other small grains that were planted this spring have been slow to emerge, or uneven in emergence, due to dry conditions. Alfalfa fields also experienced winterkill and/or frost damage. Moderate drought (D1) was expanded across north-central and extreme southeastern portions of South Dakota, where recent rains missed. The National Agricultural Statistics Service (part of USDA) soil moisture reports indicate South Dakota is 69 percent Short or Very Short, which is the third worst in the Nation.

In northeastern Nebraska, longer-term precipitation deficits extend back to (at least) the start of the current Water Year (October 1, 2014). Recent rainfall has also missed this region. Therefore, a 1-category deterioration was made to the depiction, from abnormal dryness to moderate drought (D0 to D1), for the Counties of Antelope, Pierce, Knox, and Cedar. In southwestern Kansas, there were welcome rains and cooler conditions, but the only 1-category upgrade was made to the counties of Meade and Clark. Other areas received enough precipitation to at least offset further degradation.

In western and central Oklahoma, heavy rain (widespread 2-4 inches, locally in excess of 10 inches) fell during the past week prompting 1-category improvements in some areas. In Texas, rain fell mostly where it was needed this week, resulting in lots of 1-category improvements across the state. Improvements in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are based on reservoir recovery, while in the San Antonio area, they are based on aquifer recovery and various objective indicators. Reservoirs are lagging behind in central Texas. Short-term improvements were also rendered to the drought depiction in the Panhandle region…

The West

In eastern New Mexico during the past several days, widespread 1-2 inch rain amounts (locally greater) fell in the area from Clayton to Tucumcari, Santa Rosa, and Clovis. There were reports of excellent soaking rains, with little runoff into arroyos and small streams. A rancher from San Miguel County reported soil moisture down to 3 feet, with significant green-up compared to the past several years. Factors such as these prompted the removal of severe drought (D2) from Quay County, and moderate drought (D1) from southern Quay County and portions of adjacent counties. Following are USGS stream flow reports for New Mexico (expressed as percent of historical average for the current Water Year, October 1, 2014 to present). Stream flows in the Gila basin range between 98-104 percent; for the headwater tributaries of the Pecos River basin 106-138 percent, and for the lower Pecos River basin 84-166 percent. Stream flows in the Animas River of the San Juan River basin are about 123 percent of average; for the headwater tributaries of the Canadian River basin 78-126 percent, for the mid- to lower- part of the Canadian River basin 19-41 percent, and for the Canadian River mainstem near 21 percent. In the Rio Grande basin above Albuquerque, stream flows range between 88-129 percent of average; the Rio Grande below Taos Junction Bridge 116 percent, and the Jemez River near Jemez 92 percent of average.

Relatively small-scale revisions were made to the depiction in both Colorado and Utah. The largest change was a 1-category improvement (from D2 to D1) across eastern sections of Utah, and adjacent western sections of Colorado.

In southwestern Idaho over the past few weeks, there has been a robust green-up in the Owyhee River basin. However, it appears to be short-lived, as the snow-dominated streamflow peak has, or is now, passing through the region. In addition, prospects for ample precipitation within the next two weeks are low. As a result, widespread 1-category deterioration was rendered to the drought depiction across much of Idaho. In Washington, it’s been much drier than usual during the last month, especially in the lower Columbia Basin. As a result, the Yakima Bureau of Reclamation announced their mid-month forecast is expecting pro-ratable water users to receive only 54 percent of their water allocation. Reservoirs are being tapped earlier than normal (normal is late June), since snow melt is not adequate for regional needs, in addition to stretches of warm, dry weather. Accordingly, severe drought (D2) was expanded from north-central Oregon into south-central Washington, and moderate drought (D1) was expanded across the Blue Mountains (Garfield and Asotin Counties) in the extreme southeast part of the state, where the few Snotel stations that are there, are snow-free. In northeastern Oregon, severe drought (D2) was expanded across Umatilla and northern Baker Counties. Abnormal dryness (D0) was expanded to include the Oregon Coast, due to significant short-term precipitation deficits. Moderate drought (D1) was expanded westward across the western slopes of the Oregon Cascades, and much of the Willamette Valley. In south-central and southeastern Montana, abnormal dryness (D0) was modestly expanded to reflect the increasingly dry conditions.

Little if any precipitation fell across the state of California during the past 7-days, with the exception of moderate to locally heavy precipitation (0.5-3.0 inches) over north-central portions of the state, including the Sierras. The heavy precipitation will aid in green-up, but is expected to have very little impact on the long-term drought. No alterations were made this week to the California drought depiction…

Looking Ahead

For the upcoming 5-day period, April 30-May 4, much of the contiguous United States is expected to receive little if any precipitation. Fairly localized exceptions may include the Virginias and parts of the Corn Belt, where 0.5-2.0 inches is predicted.

For the 6-10 day period, May 5-9, there are elevated odds of above-median precipitation across most areas between the Rockies and Appalachians, as well as for southern Florida. There are elevated odds of below-median precipitation for much of the Pacific Northwest and part of the Southeast.

It all ends in a Nevada mud puddle: Lake Mead, the Colorado River and #drought — Colorado Independent #ColoradoRiver

Lake Meade, the Colorado River and drought. http://t.co/73BRVoKOH8 #drought #California #water pic.twitter.com/DpgvZTHOnG

— COindependent (@COindependent) April 30, 2015

From the Colorado Independent (John Tomasic):

In case you missed it: The terrifying evaporating mud puddle that was once Lake Mead outside of Las Vegas is a flashing warning sign – long coming and mostly ignored – that the human relationship to water in the American Southwest has got to change, pretty much immediately.

Lake Mead is fed by the Colorado River, a water source for 40 million people. And with shrinking snowpack in the Rockies, the water levels in the river are dropping. Same with Lake Mead, a major water source for California, Arizona and Nevada.

“The lake is ebbing as though a plug has been pulled from a bathtub drain; its shoreline forming a soap ring around its edges, a ring that will only grow in the dry summer months. The water is already so low that boat launch ramps need to be extended to reach the water. ‘It’s a surreal landscape out there,’” reports the LA Times.

Californians are panicked.

Some water watchdogs in Colorado are getting jittery, too. Colorado relies heavily on water from the river that shares its name. Colorado and other upper basin states are required to deliver a certain amount of water to the lower basin each year to keep reservoirs at levels required under federal compacts.

If supplies keep waning, water users (all of us) in states across the region will feel the pain.

From The Arizona Daily Star (Tony Davis):

The federal government ratcheted up its risk estimates for Central Arizona Project shortages on Wednesday.

The odds of a shortage in water deliveries to Arizona and other Lower Colorado River Basin states in 2016 are now 33 percent, up from 21 percent as predicted in January, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said.

By 2017, the odds rise to 75 percent, compared to a January prediction of 54 percent.

The bureau raised the odds of shortages three days after Lake Mead on the Colorado River hit another record low level — the third time that’s happened since 2010.

Snowpack levels in the Colorado River’s Upper Basin are significantly lower now than in January, which reduces runoff into the river and into Lake Powell, which releases water to Lake Mead at the Nevada border. Water for the CAP canal system is stored in Lake Mead…

“This isn’t a crisis for Arizona, but it’s really a signal that all users in the basin need to address the long-term imbalance between supply and demand,” said Chuck Cullom, CAP’s Colorado River program manager.

More Colorado River Basin coverage here.

Snowpack news

Westwide SNOTEL snow water equivalent as a percent of normal April 29, 2015

Arkansas River Basin High/Low graph April 29, 2015 via the NRCS

Upper Colorado River Basin High/Low graph April 29, 2015 via the NRCS

Gunnison River Basin High/Low graph April 29, 2015 via the NRCS

Laramie and North Platte Basin High/Low graph April 29, 2015 via the NRCS

Upper Rio Grande River Basin High/Low graph April 29, 2015 via the NRCS

San Miguel, Dolores, Animas, and San Juan Basin High/Low graph April 29, 2015 via the NRCS

South Platte River Basin High/Low graph April 29, 2015 via the NRCS

Yampa and White Basin High/Low graph April 29, 2015 via the NRCS

Click on a thumbnail graphic to view a gallery of snowpack data from the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

2015 Colorado legislation: Ranchers and farmers on the lower Ark oppose SB15-212

From The Colorado Springs Gazette (Megan Schrader):

Several farmers and ranchers along the Lower Arkansas River remain opposed to a bill they say will harm their water rights, but proponents say [Senate Bill 212 (Storm Water Facilities Not Injure Water Rights)] is essential to protect the public from floods and contaminated water.

“It does harm rights, or it has the potential to harm rights,” said Don McBee, who made the long trek from his farm 10 miles north of Lamar to advocate for a change to the bill Wednesday when it was considered in the House Local Government Committee.

“We lost,” he said after an amendment he supported failed 8-3 and left him still opposing the bill.

The bill would do two things.

It would ensure flood mitigation and filtration systems constructed in response to wildfire burn scars can hold water without having to pay for the water rights of those downstream.

No one takes issue with that portion.

The second half of the bill deals with other water quality detention ponds that hold water to filter out sediments and prevent flooding. The bill stipulates those ponds cannot hold water for more than 72 hours unless it’s more than a five-year flood and then the water must be released within not more than 120 hours. But it also says that those facilities do not hurt downstream water rights and puts the onus of proving harm on water rights holders. In water court, it’s usually the opposite.

McBee said holding water in that way reduces the amount of water that comes during a peak flow, which will reduce the water that is available for junior water rights holders who can only get water when the flow of the Arkansas reaches a certain level.

Kevin Rein, deputy state engineer with the Division of Water Resources, said the farmers’ concerns are not unwarranted and water rights could be impacted by regional detention projects. But he said the bill is necessary.

“We definitely see the value in this bill giving us that codification in the statutes to say that yes, this detention is allowed,” Rein testified Wednesday. “It’s not the perfect bill, but what it does do is provide us that balance.”

McBee and others are particularly concerned about plans for flood restoration and mitigation projects along Fountain Creek, which flows from Colorado Springs to Pueblo where it joins the Arkansas.

Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, amended his bill in the Senate specifically to exempt Fountain Creek projects from protections under the bill.

McBee said that wasn’t enough.

Rep. Clarice Navarro-Ratzlaff, R-Pueblo, agreed the bill didn’t do enough to protect downstream water rights. She proposed an amendment that McBee said would have allowed him to support the bill about guaranteeing that peak flows were not injured by detention systems.

The amendment failed. The bill passed out of committee 10-1 with Navarro-Ratzlaff the only no vote. It now goes to the House floor for consideration. If it passes, it will have to go back to the Senate for consideration of a technical change made in the House.

Rep. Terri Carver, R-Colorado Springs, and Rep. Faith Winter, D-Westminster, sponsored the bill in the House.

Water districts seek study of Kendig Reservoir on West Divide Creek — Aspen Journalism #ColoradoRiver

From Aspen Journalism (Brent Gardner-Smith):

The Colorado River District and the West Divide Water Conservancy District are seeking $40,000 from the state to study the feasibility and cost of storing 5,000 to 15,000 acre-feet of water in a proposed Kendig Reservoir on West Divide Creek, 15 miles south of Silt.

The request was made Monday to the Colorado River Basin Roundtable, which reviews grants for the Colorado Water Conservation Board, a state water-supply planning agency.

“We think that now is really a good time to take a good, hard look at Kendig again,” John Currier, the chief engineer for the River District, told the roundtable Monday.

The Colorado River Basin roundtable recently identified Kendig Reservoir as one of its top-priority projects in the ongoing Colorado Water Plan process. (See project sheet).

A grant committee of roundtable members will now review the request, and the roundtable as a whole will vote it at its next meeting, scheduled for May 18.

If approved, the roundtable will send a letter in support of the funding request to the CWCB board.

“Basically dries up”

The dam and reservoir on West Divide Creek could bring late-season irrigation water to 14,000 acres of land on the mesa south of Silt, especially as it could feed an existing network of irrigation canals.

“The reservoir would store the early summer peak flows, which would allow late season irrigation demands to be met more frequently,” a feasibility evaluation from the Colorado and West Divide districts states.

“It would really be planned as a supplemental irrigation supply in West Divide, which is critically water short,” Currier said. “There are roughly 14,000 acres in West Divide that could use more water. The West Divide basically dries up by the end of the irrigation season.”

Other uses could include industrial, domestic, environmental, recreation and hydropower generation. Included among potential industrial uses is water for natural gas and oil operations.

Currier said that while the energy sector would not use nearly as much of the water in a new Kendig Reservoir as agriculture, energy producers would likely highly value the stored water and may contribute to the cost of the reservoir, which was estimated in 2011 to cost $40 million to $65 million.

West Divide Creek is a tributary of Divide Creek, which flows north into the Colorado River just upstream from Silt. The dam would be built in the channel of the stream.

Rights to water

The West Divide Water Conservancy District holds two conditional water rights from 1965 and 1979.

Together, the rights allow for storage of 18,060 acre-feet of water behind a 180-foot-tall dam on West Divide Creek. The dam, as envisioned at that time, would form a reservoir with a surface area of 257 acres.

By comparison, Ruedi Reservoir actively stores 101,280 acre-feet of water behind a dam on the Fryingpan River that is 285 feet tall, creating a reservoir with a surface area of 997 acres.

One goal of the feasibility study is determine the right size for a new reservoir, which would be built on private land that would have to be obtained by the water districts for the project to happen.

The application for money from the Colorado River and West Divide districts to study the feasibility of Kendig Reservoir states that “storable inflow” to the proposed dam site on the West Divide Creek site averages 12,000 acre-feet annually, but can drop to 2,000 acre-feet in dry years.

“This is in a location where you have limited supply in critically dry years,” Currier said. “So they are looking at how much carryover capacity is really required to create a firm yield. And what is that firm yield is a critical piece of this investigation.”

The rights for Kendig Reservoir are junior to the Cameo Call, a group of water districts that divert water under senior rights from the Colorado River, at the red-roofed roller dam east of Palisade. Earlier planning documents for the West Divide project also state that water from the Colorado River could be pumped uphill and stored in the reservoir.

The Divide in “Thompson Divide”?

The headwaters of West Divide Creek are near the western end of Four Mile Road, where Pitkin, Gunnison and Mesa counties come together.

The Garfield-Mesa county line, as it crosses West Divide Creek, would run through the proposed reservoir.

Some consider that Divide Creek is part of the namesake of the “Thompson Divide” area, which describes land on either side of a large ridge, with Divide Creek draining the west side and Thompson Creek the east.

Kendig Reservoir is part of the larger West Divide project that was studied by the Bureau of Reclamation as early as 1937.

The West Divide project was included in the 1956 federal Colorado River Storage Projects Act, which also authorized the dams that create Glen Canyon, Blue Mesa and Flaming Gorge reservoirs.

In 1966 Congress authorized construction of the West Divide project, but federal money was never appropriated for the project.

A fresh look

The original Kendig Reservoir was also intended to store water imported from the Crystal River basin, but the two districts abandoned that component of the project in 2014.

Currier said that was one reason it makes sense to take a fresh look at Kendig.

There is both a lower and an upper Kendig reservoir site. The lower site is the originally proposed location. The upper side is above a major water distribution canal. The two districts will now look at the general area covered by both sites for the optimum location.

“Additional study is required to identify optimal reservoir sizes, potential reservoir operation, the firm yield of the reservoir, geotechnical issues and project costs,” the engineering report states.

In addition to the current request for state money from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the two water districts are also each proposing to spend $10,000 of their own money on the feasibility study, which is expected to cost $60,000.

The study is to be prepared by Wilson Water Group and RJH Associates, an engineering design firm, according to the application. A summary of the feasibility study report is due Dec. 31.

Editor’s note: Aspen Journalism is collaborating with The Aspen Times and the Glenwood Springs Post Independent on coverage of rivers and water. The Post Independent published this story on Monday, April 27, 2015, as did The Times.

More Colorado River Basin coverage here.

The latest “Headwaters Pulse” newsletter is hot off the presses from the CFWE

Click here to read the newsletter. Here’s an excerpt:

Water scarcity and planning for Colorado’s future

Everyone is talking about water. California is in a drought crisis, Lake Powell is only 45 percent full, and in Colorado, though needed moisture has been falling over much of the state, anything could happen! Although it’s impossible to accurately predict the future, the immediate pressures of drought in the lower Colorado River Basin highlight the importance of preparedness. How can Colorado be ready for whatever the future brings?

Our winter issue of Headwaters takes a close look at the state water planning process’ inner workings, including why we need the plan now, what it took to complete a first draft as of December last year, and where we’ll likely need to go further to achieve success. Plus, we help you chart your water future—looking at elements like climate, population growth and social values that could change Colorado’s future (flip to page 16 of the magazine for this feature). Colorado’s Water Plan won’t be finalized until December 2015, so pick up, flip through or download your copy of Headwaters Winter 2015 issue today to see what we’re planning for.

More Colorado Foundation for Water Education coverage here.

Municipalites & water: A background on water in Colorado — Colorado Municipal League

“We spent the day at the Children’s Water Festival” — @greeleywater

We spent the day at the Children's Water Festival. Check out photos from this awesome event for 4th Grade students. https://t.co/UNzeAoagGV

— Greeley Water Dept. (@greeleywater) April 29, 2015

Lawyer, Scholar, River Master: Jim Lochhead

Aspinall Unit operations update

Gunnison Tunnel via the National Park Service

From email from Reclamation (Erik Knight):

Releases from Crystal Dam will be increased from 1150 cfs to 1250 cfs on Wednesday, April 29th at 9:00 AM. This release increase is in response to an increase in diversion to the Gunnison Tunnel. The current forecast for April-July unregulated inflow to Blue Mesa Reservoir is 450,000 acre-feet which is 67% of average.

Flows in the lower Gunnison River are currently above the baseflow target of 890 cfs. River flows are expected to stay above the baseflow target for the foreseeable future.

Pursuant to the Aspinall Unit Operations Record of Decision (ROD), the baseflow target in the lower Gunnison River, as measured at the Whitewater gage, is 890 cfs for April and May.

Currently, diversions into the Gunnison Tunnel are 800 cfs and flows in the Gunnison River through the Black Canyon are around 350 cfs. After this release change Gunnison Tunnel diversions will be around 900 cfs and flows in the Gunnison River through the Black Canyon should be around 350 cfs. Current flow information is obtained from provisional data that may undergo revision subsequent to review.

More Aspinall Unit coverage here.

The rivers that benefited from Clean Water Act is like a copy of America’s 100 Best Trout Streams — @EPAwater

The rivers that benefited from Clean Water Act is like a copy of America’s 100 Best Trout Streams #CleanWaterRules pic.twitter.com/yS6spMoArP

— U.S. EPA Water (@EPAwater) April 29, 2015

Weekly Climate, Water and Drought Assessment for Colorado and the Upper #ColoradoRiver Region

Upper Colorado River Basin month to date precipitation April 1 thru April 26, 2015 via the Colorado Climate Center

Click here to read the current assessment. Click here to go to the NIDIS website hosted by the Colorado Climate Center.

More Colorado River Basin coverage here.

5 summertime water misperceptions exposed

Snowpack news: South Platte Basin back up to 100% of normal (best in state), sorry Rio Grande = 35%

Statewide snowpack April 28, 2015 via the NRCS

Arkansas River Basin High/Low graph April 28, 2015 via the NRCS

Upper Colorado River Basin High/Low graph April 28, 2015 via the NRCS

Gunnison River Basin High/Low graph April 28, 2015 via the NRCS

Laramie and North Platte Basin High/Low graph April 28, 2015 via the NRCS

Upper Rio Grande River Basin High/Low graph April 28, 2015 via the NRCS

San Miguel, Dolores, Animas, and San Juan Basin High/Low graph April 28, 2015 via the NRCS

South Platte River Basin High/Low graph April 28, 2015 via the NRCS

Yampa and White Basin High/Low graph April 28, 2015 via the NRCS

From The Los Angeles Times (John M. Glionna):

Anemic Lake Mead has hit a historic low level.

The surface of the sprawling reservoir outside Las Vegas late Tuesday afternoon fell to 1,079.76 feet above sea level — nearly 140 feet below capacity — as the prolonged drought continues to evaporate the beleaguered Colorado River system.

Mead’s chalky white shoreline is advancing as the waters quickly recede.

For California, Arizona and Nevada, which draw water from Mead, a grim situation is about to get worse: Officials estimate that Mead will drop to the unprecedented low elevation of 1,073 feet as the hottest summer months bear down, with less snowpack in the Rocky Mountains to recharge the Colorado River.

“We’re only at 38% full. Lake Mead hasn’t been this low since we were filling it in the 1930s,” said Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Las Vegas. “All the way around, this is bad news. There’s not much good to say about 15 years of drought, no matter how you look at it.”

Lake Mead, which meanders miles into the parched Nevada desert, held back by the Hoover Dam, is drawing closer to the 1,075-foot level, below which officials would declare a water emergency and begin rationing water allotments to Nevada and Arizona…

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials say there is a 21% chance of Lake Mead plunging below 1,075 feet next January. The odds increase to 54% for 2017.

From the Sante Fe Reporter (Laura Paskus):

It’s safe to say that the mood among many Western water managers is grim. When talking about drought or climate change, many still give that obligatory nod toward faith or hope—saying things like “Maybe the rains will come” or “Let’s hope next year’s better”—but the days of blind optimism are long past.

That was the case in early April, when the US Bureau of Reclamation’s Albuquerque Area Office hosted a meeting on the bureau’s plans for the Middle Rio Grande .

With few exceptions, the news across most of the Western United States has been bad, bureau hydrologist Ed Kandl said at the meeting. “If there’s one bright spot—you can cross your fingers—it’s the probability for a good monsoon,” Kandl said. “Of course, they’ve been saying that for a few years now. But this is what we have to hang our hat on.”

Along with the US Army Corps of Engineers, the bureau—which supplies water to cities, farmers and endangered species in the Rio Grande—looks to an array of data to plan out its water operations, which involve moving water between reservoirs, complying with state and federal laws, and trying to make sure no one goes without water.

People like Kandl look at things like snowpack in the watershed’s mountain ranges, streamflow forecasts, reservoir levels and temperatures. Then, they compare current conditions with similar years in the past to predict what might happen in the spring and summer. That’s the time when demands for water—from farmers, city dwellers and even plants in the bosque—are the greatest.

At the bureau’s meeting in Albuquerque, Kandl pointed out that the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, near Santa Fe, received about an average amount of snow this season. The bad news, he said, was that by early April, it was already melting.

As the climate warms, scientists have shown that snowpack moves higher in elevation and farther north. And that snow also melts earlier in the season.

This year, measurements at the Otowi Gage on the Rio Grande, north of Santa Fe, show that the river reached its peak spring flows on April 2.

That’s more than a month early.

The endangered silvery minnow will have a rough summer: This year, water supplies are so tight that the bureau does not expect to be able to release water from upstream reservoirs to create the spike in flows that help the minnows spawn. And the river will likely dry again south of Albuquerque from mid-June until the conclusion of irrigation season at the end of October. For the second year in a row, users with rights to water that comes from the San Juan River in Colorado and into the Rio Grande via the Chama may not get their full allotments of water.

The business case for investments in water efficiency — Will Sarni

The business case for investments in water efficiency http://t.co/lDJgAgmUzo

— WillSarni (@will_sarni) April 29, 2015

Gallon for gallon, vegetables create the most jobs. Alfalfa and corn, not so much — John Fleck

Gallon for gallon, vegetables create the most jobs. Alfalfa and corn, not so much. Great @UCDavisWater data: http://t.co/C4nurViQ5G

— John Fleck (@jfleck) April 29, 2015

Bushwhacked: Tamarisk, a water-guzzling alien, is wreaking havoc in the West — Colorado Springs Independent

Tamarisk

Tamarisk leaf beetles at work

Tamarisk leaf beetle

Goat munching tamarisk via The Pueblo Chieftain

From the Colorado Springs Post Independent (Pam Zubeck):

Because of the plant’s resistance to heat and drought, the Army Corps of Engineers used it in the mid-19th century to stabilize riverbanks against erosion. Then, during the severe drought of the 1930s on the Great Plains, farmers deployed it and its companion, invasive Russian olive, to provide windbreaks.

In the decades since, the story has shifted. Tamarisk, which can grow to 20 feet tall, has proliferated with a vengeance, colonizing thousands of miles of riparian corridors in the West, including those along the Front Range. It guzzles water, squeezes out any competitors, and sterilizes wetlands by leaving soils parched with salinity — hence its other name, saltcedar.

Besides being hard to destroy, a single plant’s blossoms produce thousands of seeds, which easily take root. Tamarisk, by one account, has multiplied 150-fold in just 100 years and now occupies up to 1.5 million acres in the western United States.

Even as water resources are taxed amid drought conditions, this ever-spreading exotic drinks freely via taproots that can reach 50 feet into the ground. One analysis put its consumption of water along the Arkansas River between Pueblo and the Kansas state line as enough to serve 376,000 people annually.

The body of research on the plant is massive and growing. Many have taken up the cause of eradication: government agencies, nonprofits and thousands of volunteers, as well as scientists and researchers, including a Colorado College botany professor and his students. Congress even adopted a law in 2006 ordering the Interior and Agriculture departments to get involved, though significant funding was never allocated.

Some new strategies for controlling tamarisk — including deployment of an insect, which has grown controversial due to its destruction of habitat for an endangered species — show promise. But the war on tamarisk is far from over, and warming temperatures due to climate change could help it spread farther by creating hospitable conditions in new areas.

Its role as villain may be relatively new, but tamarisk has fully embraced the part by being very hard to vanquish.

According to the Global Invasive Species Database, there are three varieties of tamarisk on Earth: tamarix aphylla (shrub), tamarix parviflora (tree) and tamarix ramosissima (tree, shrub). The last type prevails in the American West, in a spread the database refers to as “a massive invasion.”[…]

Eradication efforts began on the local level sporadically in the 1940s, but didn’t get traction on a wider scale until the 1990s, when a project on the Rio Grande River south of Albuquerque was undertaken.

About 15 years ago, the Tamarisk Coalition was formed. Today it works with more than 100 partners to restore riparian lands overrun with tamarisk through education and removal projects.

Some of those were undertaken along the Dolores and Colorado rivers with the help of Troy Schnurr, a ranger with the Bureau of Land Management in Grand Junction. The stretch Schnurr and others worked on isn’t accessible by heavy equipment, so crews had to raft down the river, work by hand with chainsaws and apply herbicides to stumps.

The project covered 25 miles and took 15 years.

“It can be overwhelming when you start,” Schnurr says. “There’s a lot of repair work, reseeding, replacement because the tamarisk has been there so long. That plant’s gonna be around for quite a while.”

Shelly Simmons, assistant district forester with the Colorado State Forest Service, explains it like this.

“What happens is resprouting,” she says. “Tamarisk has an aggressive root system. Once it does get established, you’re going to have to watch it for five years and treat it for regrowth. It’s rare if you get 100 percent control the first time you try to control it.”

Simmons works with volunteers, land owners and various agencies, including conservation districts, attacking tamarisk in the Purgatoire basin, Chico Creek, Fountain Creek, Huerfano Creek and the main stem of the Arkansas River.

“There’s been a lot of workshops in the Lower Arkansas Valley over the years,” she says. “We focus on riparian restoration, so we’ve had a lot of land managers and land owners attend those workshops. If a landowner feels they have the equipment and the means, they can undertake projects on their own land.” That was the case in an area along the Arkansas east of Pueblo and south of Highway 50, where tamarisk was cut and piled into heaps several years ago…

The act did result in a peer-reviewed assessment of tamarisk, though, completed in 2010 by the U.S. Geological Survey. That assessment puts a lot of stock in saltcedar leaf beetles (Diorhabda elongata), citing a study area in Nevada that showed a 65 percent mortality rate in saltcedar five years after the beetle was unleashed there. The beetles “consume saltcedar leaves, depleting root energy reserves until they are exhausted and the plant dies,” the assessment says.

These beetles came to Colorado about a decade ago, Beaugh says. Initially imported from Asia where the plant originated, the beetles are collected from areas on the Western Slope, where they’re well-established, and housed at the Palisade Insectary, run by the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Biological Pest Control Program. From there, they’re shipped around the state, including to the Arkansas River corridor and Fountain Creek.

They arrive in cardboard jugs that resemble ice cream containers. Simmons says workers perch the cartons amid tamarisk bushes, and simply open the lids. The beetles, 1,500 per jug, crawl out and go to work. About 10,000 beetles are released per site, Simmons says, ideally “where tamarisk trees are younger and more succulent.”

A Colorado Agriculture Department newsletter says the beetle had settled into the Arkansas Basin by 2012, where some sites have been defoliated multiple times and up to 60 percent of the target tamarisk trees have been killed. The state has taken to calling the beetle “a valuable management tool.”

It also lies at the heart of the CC professor’s latest research. Heschel wants to know how the beetle affects tamarisk’s consumption of water; data to date suggest that in some cases, a tamarisk plant under siege only gets more aggressive.

“When the beetle attacks tamarisk,” Heschel says, “tamarisk tends to increase its water use to compensate for getting attacked.”

The study, which includes one site just south of the Fountain Creek Regional Park Nature Center, also looks at whether tamarisk that survive the beetle attack somehow become even heartier and more thirsty. “Is that what we’re accidentally doing?” Heschel says. “I don’t know the answer to that.”[…]

Southwestern Willow flycatcher

Use of the beetle, however, is being curtailed in some other states due to its potential to destroy habitat for the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher. In September 2013, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Maricopa Audubon Society, in Arizona, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, alleging the beetles were destroying the songbird’s nesting areas. The lawsuit, according to the Los Angeles Times, accused the department’s Animal and Plant Inspection Service of failing to protect the flycatcher, which nests in tamarisk thickets. The case is pending before a federal judge.

Robin Silver with the Center for Biological Diversity says while the lawsuit points to problems in Utah, Arizona and Nevada, the beetles also have invaded nesting areas in southwest and south central Colorado. “[Federal agriculture officials] said, ‘Don’t worry, because the native plants will come back,'” Silver says. But he argues that “unless you change the hydrology, you’ll end up with nothing” in the way of vegetation after tamarisk has been removed. “The only chance you have,” he says, “is to get out ahead of the beetles and change some of the hydrology for plant recovery. [Officials] don’t want to do that because it costs money.”

Patrick Shafroth, a research ecologist with the USGS at the Fort Collins Science Center, agrees that restoration is crucial in determining what vegetation comes next in the context of tamarisk control. As stated in a 2011 paper by USGS and other researchers about consequences of using the beetle, “Conditions in many areas now occupied by tamarisk have been so altered anthropogenically that recolonization by native willows and cottonwoods is unlikely without intensive restoration efforts.”

Considering the sky-high cost and massive efforts to restore large areas affected by the beetle, the paper says, “widespread tamarisk mortality will likely result in a net loss in riparian habitat for at least a decade or more.”[…]

And then there’s the wild card of climate change. Despite all attempts to rid rivers and streams of tamarisk, the hearty plant could get a leg up from rising temperatures. While Shafroth considers the question of climate change’s influence “uncertain,” the 2010 USGS assessment and other scholarly works say it could foster tamarisk’s proliferation, given that it thrives in hot, dry weather, and parts of Colorado remain in moderate to severe drought conditions.

From the assessment: “Further expansion of saltcedar northward (and to higher elevations) is likely to occur due to climate warming.”

All of which makes Shafroth wonder if this scoundrel of the West is a cause, or merely a symptom, of the real problem.

More tamarisk control coverage here and here.

Sun-powered desalination for villages in India — MIT News

Here’s the release from MIT (David L. Chandler):

Around the world, there is more salty groundwater than fresh, drinkable groundwater. For example, 60 percent of India is underlain by salty water — and much of that area is not served by an electric grid that could run conventional reverse-osmosis desalination plants.

Now an analysis by MIT researchers shows that a different desalination technology called electrodialysis, powered by solar panels, could provide enough clean, palatable drinking water to supply the needs of a typical village. The study, by MIT graduate student Natasha Wright and Amos Winter, the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, appears in the journal Desalination.

Winter explains that finding optimal solutions to problems such as saline groundwater involves “detective work to understand the full set of constraints imposed by the market.” After weeks of field research in India, and reviews of various established technologies, he says, “when we put all these pieces of the puzzle together, it pointed very strongly to electrodialysis” — which is not what is commonly used in developing nations.

The factors that point to the choice of electrodialysis in India include both relatively low levels of salinity — ranging from 500 to 3,000 milligrams per liter, compared with seawater at about 35,000 mg/L — as well as the region’s lack of electrical power. (For on-grid locations, the team found, reverse-osmosis plants can be economically viable.)

Such moderately salty water is not directly toxic, but it can have long-term effects on health, and its unpleasant taste can cause people to turn to other, dirtier water sources. “It’s a big issue in the water-supply community,” Winter says.

Expanding access to safe water

By pairing village-scale electrodialysis systems — a bit smaller than the industrial-scale units typically produced today — with a simple set of solar panels and a battery system to store the produced energy, Wright and Winter concluded, an economically viable and culturally acceptable system could supply enough water to meet the needs of a village of 2,000 to 5,000 people.

They estimate that deployment of such systems would double the area of India in which groundwater — which is inherently safer, in terms of pathogen loads, than surface water — could provide acceptable drinking water.

While many homes in India currently use individual, home-based filtration systems to treat their water, Wright says after consulting with nongovernmental organizations that work in the area, she and Winter concluded that village-scale systems would be more effective — both because fewer people would be left out of access to clean water, and because home-based systems are much harder to monitor to ensure effective water treatment.

Most organizations working to improve clean-water access focus their attention on controlling known pathogens and toxins such as arsenic, Wright says. But her analysis showed the importance of “what the water tastes like, smells like, and looks like.” Even if the water is technically safe to drink, that doesn’t solve the problem if people refuse to drink it because of the unpleasant salty taste, she says.

At the salinity levels seen in India’s groundwater, the researchers found, an electrodialysis system can provide fresh water for about half the energy required by a reverse-osmosis system. That means the solar panels and battery storage system can be half as big, more than offsetting the higher initial cost of the electrodialysis system itself.

How it works

Electrodialysis works by passing a stream of water between two electrodes with opposite charges. Because the salt dissolved in water consists of positive and negative ions, the electrodes pull the ions out of the water, Winter says, leaving fresher water at the center of the flow. A series of membranes separate the freshwater stream from increasingly salty ones.
Both electrodialysis and reverse osmosis require the use of membranes, but those in an electrodialysis system are exposed to lower pressures and can be cleared of salt buildup simply by reversing the electrical polarity. That means the expensive membranes should last much longer and require less maintenance, Winter says. In addition, electrodialysis systems recover a much higher percentage of the water — more than 90 percent, compared with about 40 to 60 percent from reverse-osmosis systems, a big advantage in areas where water is scarce.

Having carried out this analysis, Wright and Winter plan to put together a working prototype for field evaluations in India in January. While this approach was initially conceived for village-scale, self-contained systems, Winter says the same technology could also be useful for applications such as disaster relief, and for military use in remote locations.

Susan Amrose, a lecturer in civil and environmental engineering at the University of California at Berkeley who was not involved in this work, says, “This paper raises the bar for the level and type of scientific rigor applied to the complex, nuanced, and extremely important problems of development engineering. … Solar-ED isn’t a new technology, but it is novel to suggest developing it for systems in rural India, and even more novel to provide this level of detailed engineering and economic analysis to back up the suggestion.”

Amrose adds, “The water scarcity challenges facing India in the near future cannot be overstated. India has a huge population living on top of brackish water sources in regions that are water-scarce or about to become water-scarce. A solution with the potential to double recoverable water in an environment where water is becoming more precious by the day could have a huge impact.”

The research was funded by Jain Irrigation Systems, an Indian company that builds and installs solar-power systems, and sponsored by the Tata Center for Technology and Design at MIT.

More water treatment coverage here.

Southern Delivery System: Jury awards rancher $4.6M — The Pueblo Chieftain

Southern Delivery System route map -- Graphic / Reclamation — Southern Delivery System route map — Graphic / Reclamation

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

A Pueblo jury late Thursday awarded rancher Gary Walker a $4.6 million judgment against Colorado Springs Utilities for the Southern Delivery System pipeline crossing Walker Ranches in Northern Pueblo County.

Walker contends the amount is far short of what the pipeline has cost him. During the trial, he contended that the conditions of the SDS easement have jeopardized a $25 million conservation easement he was negotiating with the Nature Conservation for $1,680 an acre on 15,000 acres.

Walker said the conditions of the utility easement through his property allow for access that negates the value of the conservation easement, and that soils from offsite that were used as fill are contaminated with seeds from invasive species. Rain storms already have caused erosion on the pipeline scar and the damage could be greater in the future.

He also said he is fearful that Colorado Springs will take action against him if normal ranch activities interfere with the SDS permanent easement that is 100 feet wide across 5.5 miles of Walker Ranches.

The jury awarded Walker $4.665 million in damages in addition to the $82,900 actual value of the easement. The actual value was part of Judge Jill Mattoon’s instructions to the jury.

“We stung Colorado Springs, but it will do little to protect the next little guy or rare environmental landscape that gets in their way,” Walker said in a written statement provided to The Pueblo Chieftain. “My attorneys were amazed at CSU’s response against one rancher. It was like using a tank to kill a fly.”

The rancher charged that Colorado Springs drove up litigation costs intentionally. In December, Walker won a Pueblo District Court decision on costs of about $500,000 to that point, but the state Supreme Court pushed the decision back until the trial concluded. In that case, Walker said Colorado Springs had needlessly delayed trial.

“Colorado Springs punished us a great deal both financially and emotionally but I am glad we did it and I would do it again even though we lost a lot more than we gained,” Walker said. “Our financial loss is minor when compared to the loss of another open space and protected wildlife habitat area.”

Walker plans to raise the issue of how he was treated by Colorado Springs to Pueblo County commissioners, who issued a 1041 permit for SDS in 2009.

“My hope is that Pueblo County stands their ground and protects everyone by holding the city of Colorado Springs and their utility company to the terms of the 1041 contract they signed in 2009,” Walker said.

Walker also indicated that he is nervous about whether he will actually be able to collect the $4.6 million, since he expects Colorado Springs to appeal.

Colorado Springs has not indicated if it will ap- peal the judgment.

“We are disappointed in the outcome and will be exploring our options to protect the interests of those residents who are helping to fund the SDS project and will be impacted by this outcome,” said Janet Rummel, SDS spokeswoman for Colorado Springs Utilities. “We do not believe the result was supported by the evidence presented.”

She contended that Colorado Springs has worked to address Walker’s concerns and to offer fair compensation for the easements, along with paying $720,000 to relocate cattle during construction.

“We will continue to work with Mr. Walker and all easement holders on the SDS alignment to complete successful restoration and revegetation, as well as to responsibly maintain the condition of our easements,” Rummel said.

More Southern Delivery System coverage here.

Fountain Creek District meeting recap

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

A debate over water quality on Fountain Creek in Pueblo County bubbled over into last week’s meeting of a district formed to improve Fountain Creek.

Pueblo Wastewater Director Gene Michael told the Fountain Creek Watershed Flood Control and Greenway District that studies by the city show no clear link between increased development and increased amounts of selenium in the water supply.

He said information from some city studies was misinterpreted at a recent function of the Arkansas River Basin Water Forum and he wanted to clear the air for the Fountain Creek district.

“There’s no way to measure what the selenium was 100 years ago,” Michael said. He explained there simply was no technology to measure parts per billion at the time. “The levels in 1981, when it was first measured, were higher than today.”

Selenium is known to accumulate in the Pueblo area because of water flowing over the Pierre shale formations.

The arguments are crucial to a case Pueblo is trying to make with the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission that it should have a specific discharge variance. An April hearing on the issue was postponed.

Pueblo maintains that it removes some selenium from groundwater intercepted in its treatment plant under a temporary modification. The ambient concentration of selenium in Fountain Creek and the Arkansas River near Pueblo is more than three times the EPA’s numeric standard, 4.6 parts per billion, he said.

The discussion touched a political nerve with the Pueblo city and county representatives on the Fountain Creek board.

“This is an interesting discussion to have with the Water Quality Commission,” said County Commissioner Terry Hart. The commissioners have supported a numeric standard on Fountain Creek, largely because of dealings with Colorado Springs Utilities for increased releases related to the Southern Delivery System. “My feeling is that we study it, find out where it is coming from and take it out.”

“It’s important to discuss it,” said City Councilman Dennis Flores, who invited Michael to speak at Friday’s meeting. He noted that the Pueblo Area Council of Governments supported the city of Pueblo 9-2, with two county commissioners in opposition. “I feel strongly about this and think it’s important.”

More Fountain Creek watershed coverage here.

New Study Links Weather Extremes to Global Warming — @WillSarni

New Study Links Weather Extremes to Global Warming http://t.co/sO5SGNlyUz

— WillSarni (@will_sarni) April 27, 2015

“Whitewater park features are not suitable fish habitat” — Jim White

From The Durango Herald (Mary Shinn):

Whitewater advocates have anecdotally noticed more fishermen near whitewater rapids, and they are working on gathering data to show how the parks can benefit fish.

But Colorado Parks and Wildlife data show the parks degrade fish habitat and their ability to migrate upstream, said Jim White, a biologist with the department.

“Whitewater park features are not suitable fish habitat,” he said.

Human-made parks create fierce velocities that make it hard for fish to migrate over them. Fish must also battle a washing-machine effect in the human-made pools, he said.

The parks are also being built in or near towns, where whitewater rapids would be less likely to occur.

“By the time you get down to broader valleys … they are not typically natural features,” he said.

However, engineers and advocates – including Scott Shipley who designed the improvements to Smelter Rapid – argue whitewater parks can be built to improve fish habitat, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife is basing its conclusion on limited studies.

“As far as hard science goes, there is very little hard science on the issue,” said Shane Sigle, with Riverwise Engineering.

Despite the disagreement, proponents on both sides are interested in compromises that help protect fish. Some 30 whitewater parks are operating across the state, and they are boosting tourism and driving local economies, according to professionals in the field.

Smelter Rapid in Durango is an example of such a compromise. It was not quality-fish habitat to begin with, so it made sense to build permanent structures in that section, White said.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife also supported the Whitewater Park, saying construction of the permanent features secured a recreational-water right that helps protect fish from low flows, he said.

The city already was maintaining Smelter Rapid for whitewater features prior to construction of the park. The Army Corps of Engineers anticipates the grouted structures will limit the disturbance from continued maintenance, said Kara Hellige, senior project manager for the corps.

In addition, the corps requires the city to monitor the stability of the structures and banks, water quality and the movement of sediment after construction.

The monitoring required at Smelter Rapid and other parks should help engineers better understand how human-made rapids impact rivers.

More whitewater coverage here.

‘Split season’ approach to water use could benefit state’s rivers, including the Crystal River — Aspen Journalism

From Aspen Journalism (Brent Gardner-Smith):

An innovative deal put together by the Colorado Water Trust to leave more water in the Little Cimarron River, a heavily-diverted tributary of the Cimarron and Gunnison rivers east of Montrose, could serve as model solution to the low flows that often plague the Crystal River in late summer.

“Any new tool coming online that can help agriculture and the environment share water could be useful in the ongoing conversation about the Crystal River,” said Amy Beatie, the executive director of the Colorado Water Trust, a nonprofit dedicated to restoring streamflows in Colorado.

The “new tool” is a recognition that under current state law an irrigation water right can be changed to also include a late-season instream flow right, at least if the Colorado Water Conservation Board has an interest in the water right.

Under such a “split season” approach, water can be diverted as normal to, say, grow hay in June and July. But in August and September, when river levels typically drop, water normally diverted for irrigation can be left in the river.

In the case of the Little Cimarron River, it will allow 5.8 cubic feet per second of water to flow past a diversion headgate in late summer down nine miles of river, including 3.3 miles of the Little Cimarron normally left nearly dry.

Rick Lafaro, the executive director of the Roaring Fork Conservancy, which is working to find solutions to low flows on the Crystal River, said he thought the Little Cimarron deal was “pretty exciting.”

And Beatie of the Water Trust said the concept has statewide application.

“If there is anybody who would be willing to forgo irrigation later in the irrigation season, and would be interested in a payment from us to do that, and then would allow us to take a water right through the water court process in order to protect it for instream flow, then it works anywhere in Colorado,” Beatie said.

But such arrangements can be complex.

“These water acquisitions all require a confluence of a lot of variables,” said Linda Bassi, the head of the CWCB’s instream flow program. “You have to find a water right that is available, and it has to be in a place where it will benefit a reach that needs water.”

Streams dry from diversions

Sections of the lower Crystal River often run dry, or nearly so, in the late summer months, due in large part to a number of irrigation diversions on the river.

A similar situation has existed for years on the Little Cimarron River. It flows pristinely out of the Uncompahgre Wilderness but is often left nearly dry below the McKinley irrigation ditch.

In an effort to leave more water in the Little Cimarron below the McKinley Ditch, the Water Trust signed a contract on April 23 with the CWCB that allows for 5.8 cfs of water to be left in the stream in late summer.

“As a result, the Little Cimarron River is expected to remain a live stream during the irrigation season, and no longer experience dry-up conditions below headgates,” a memo prepared for the CWCB’s September 2014 board meeting states.

The memo also notes that the “split season use of the water is distinctive because it acknowledges and preserves the value of irrigated agriculture as well as the value of restoring flow to a local river.”

The water left in the Little Cimarron will also benefit a reach of the main Cimarron River, which runs into the Gunnison River below Morrow Point Reservoir.

Deal took years

The Colorado Water Trust has been working on the deal since 2008, when John Shephardson contacted the Trust about buying his water rights.

Shephardson had subdivided his scenic 214-acre ranch along the Little Cimarron into 35-acre parcels and wanted sell the land and the associated water rights.

Shephardson owned 1.5 shares, or 18.75 percent, of the shares in the McKinley Ditch. His shares gave him the right to use 5.8 cfs of water to irrigate 194.5 acres of land, where he grew hay and raised cattle.

The McKinley Ditch as a whole has rights, with appropriation dates ranging from 1886 to 1912, to divert up to 31 cfs of water from the Little Cimarron to irrigate 947 acres of land.

Shephardson was ultimately not successful in developing his property and Montrose Bank foreclosed on it.

In 2012 Western Rivers Conservancy, which buys land to help preserve rivers, purchased both the property and the water rights from Montrose Bank.

In January 2014 the Water Trust bought the 5.8 cfs of water rights from the Conservancy for $500,000.

In September 2014 the CWCB board agreed to purchase a permanent “grant of flow restoration use” from the Water Trust for $145,640. The CWCB is the only entity under state law that can hold an instream flow right.

The state’s purchase price was based on an estimate of the loss of agricultural revenues that would come by leaving the water in the river in late summer.

“We’re purchasing a right to use the water that would have been used to produce a second cutting of hay,” said the CWCB’s Bassi.

The water court process

On Dec. 31, 2014 the CWCB and the Water Trust filed an application in Div. 4 Water Court in Montrose to change their water rights on the McKinley Ditch to add an instream flow right.

To date, only two statements of opposition have been filed in the water court case, and both are from neighboring landowners (David Taylor, Wayne Mauer) making sure their water rights are not injured by the change of use, said Beatie of the Water Trust, who believes the water court process will go smoothly.

Beatie said no part of Colorado water law needs to be changed to make the deal happen.

“All we’re doing is transferring a water right to instream flow purposes and making sure in our application that there isn’t injury to other water users,” Beatie said. “We took a customary transfer process and applied it to the outcome that we wanted, which was partial irrigation and partial flow restoration.”

Bassi, of the CWCB, said that creating a “split-season” use of water for both irrigation and instream flow has long been possible under Colorado water law, but such a use just hasn’t been applied for until now.

“This is the first time we’ve done it and we’re hoping it will create a template for more partnerships with agriculture and environmental interests,” Bassi said.

James Eklund, director of the CWCB, says the effort on the Little Cimarron is evidence of a “mindset shift” he’s seeing among irrigators, environmentalists and water regulators in the state.

“The idea that you can use a split-season concept exemplifies the potential for people to get over the perception that a water right can only be used for one thing,” Eklund said. “It is representative of a very big change that I think we’re going to need to see more and more of going forward.”

Editor’s note: Aspen Journalism is collaborating with The Aspen Times and the Glenwood Springs Post Independent on coverage of water and rivers. The Times published this story on Monday, April 27, 2014.

More instream flow coverage here.

The latest newsletter from the Water Center at CMU is hot off the presses #ColoradoRiver

Click here to read the newsletter. Here’s an excerpt:

POWELL INFLOWS LOW, RELEASES UP
A low snowpack across the Upper Colorado River Basin has led to projections of below-average inflows into Lake Powell, but management guidelines indicate releases from Powell of at least 8.23 million acre feet, back up from last year’s historically low 7.48 million acre foot release. The most recent Bureau of Reclamation discussion of current data, projections & operations can be found here.

Other river basins face same challenges as the Arkansas — The Pueblo Chieftain #COWaterPlan

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

Around the state, water planners are trying to save agriculture and the environment while accommodating existing urban growth rates.

At the same time, there is no new water and there may be less to work with in the future.

It’s a puzzle that the Arkansas Basin Roundtable has struggled with for 10 years, since its formation in 2005 with the charge to work out water problems within the basin and with other basins.

This week, the Arkansas River Basin Water Forum heard from four other roundtables and learned their conundrums sound a lot like ours.

Without some sort of alternative plan, the South Platte River basin could dry up half of its irrigated acres in agriculture as the population increases to 6 million from 3.5 million by 2050, said Joe Frank, chairman of the South Platte Basin Roundtable.

“We definitely have a target on our back, just as you have for several years in the Arkansas basin,” Frank said. “We have existing ag shortages, and most of what we’ve done is to try to find a way so upstream projects don’t affect downstream users.”

John McClow, who represents the Gunnison River basin on the Colorado Water Conservation Board, said the basin wants to protect its current water uses — both from changes in weather that could lead to a declining supply and from export to other basins.

The water is the basis for both agriculture and recreation, the main industries of the basin.

“We don’t say ‘not one more drop’ anymore. Well, some still do. But we’ve come a long way. We urge responsible development,” McClow said.

While the Rio Grande basin no longer is a target for water export, it is struggling to deal with declining groundwater levels and predictions that its surface water supply will decrease by 30 percent in the future, said Mike Gibson, chairman of the Rio Grande Basin Roundtable.

“We need to live within our means and recognize that agriculture is critical to our economy,” Gibson said.

The Colorado River basin also is concerned about climate change, and for years has tried to draw a line against more exports.

Transmountain diversions total 450,000-600,000 acre-feet (146-195 billion gallons) of water every year — decreasing both the initial supply and return flows for Western Slope rivers, said Jim Pokrandt, chairman of the Colorado River Basin Roundtable.

“We think conservation should be a high priority,” Pokrandt said, adding that Western Slope municipal users need to cut back, too. “We want to create solutions in-basin to achieve the maximum degree possible.”

More IBCC — basin roundtables coverage here.

Westminster’s Answer to a Catch-22 of Water Conservation — National Geographic

From the National Geographic (Sandra Postel):

A few years ago, the town of Westminster, Colorado, just north of Denver, came eye-to-eye with an issue many water-conserving cities face when a resident posed this question at a public meeting, “Why do you ask me to conserve, and then raise my rates?”

With droughts dotting the country and a growing number of areas facing water shortages in the years ahead, conservation is a core strategy for meeting present and future water demands.

Yet water utilities often find themselves in a conundrum: how to encourage households to reduce their water use without (1) losing vital revenue to maintain their water systems or (2) facing a public outcry over the raising of water rates.

Much of the money needed to expand and upgrade water infrastructure – from pipes and pumps to treatment plants – comes from selling water. By some estimates, fixing and expanding the nation’s water infrastructure will require at least $1 trillion over the next 25 years.

It seems like a catch-22. Rivers are running dry and groundwater is being depleted, so conservation is an imperative. But conservation means a drop in the volume of water sold, which can cause a utility’s revenue to drop.

The obvious answer is to lift water rates, the price charged per gallon used. But that’s not always easy. Even though U.S. residents typically pay a lot less for water than they do for their cell phones or cable television, raising water rates by even a small amount can risk a public backlash…

So, to provide a satisfactory answer to the customer’s question at the public meeting, two of Westminster’s analysts, Stuart Feinglas and Christine Gray, along with water conservation consultant Peter Mayer, dug in and undertook some research. They presented their results last fall at the WaterSmart Innovations conference in Las Vegas, as well as in a report published by the Chicago-based Alliance for Water Efficiency.

The results were illuminating — and a resounding endorsement of the economic benefits of water conservation.

Between 1980 and 2010, water use person in Westminster had dropped from 180 gallons per person per day to 149 gallons, a decline of 21 percent.

The staff attribute the drop in part to the national plumbing codes passed in 1992, which reduced the water used by new toilets, faucets and showerheads, and effectively built conservation into new homes and offices. The utility’s own conservation efforts also played an important role. Inclining block and seasonal water rate structures, for example, motivated conservation and discouraged high water use at peak times, such as hot summer days.

The research team then asked, what would water rates be today if that 21 percent reduction in per capita water use hadn’t occurred?

The answer: without conservation, water rates would have nearly doubled.

That’s because the city would have had to find and deliver an additional 7,295 acre-feet (2.38 million gallons) of water a day, necessitating a capital investment of nearly $219 million.

It would also have had to satisfy a much higher peak demand. Back in 1980, before the conservation efforts began, peak water use was 3 times higher than average use. Conservation measures, including effective pricing, brought that ratio down to 2 to 1.

Building the additional water treatment and other infrastructure to meet that higher peak demand would have required an additional capital investment of $130 million.

Since water used indoors for showering, flushing toilets, other uses then goes to a wastewater treatment plant, using less indoors means less water to treat. Conservation saved the city an additional $20 million in avoided capital costs for wastewater treatment.

Adding in avoided debt financing expenses, the conservation program saved Westminster a total of $591,850,000 in new infrastructure costs. It also reduced water and wastewater operating costs by more than $1.2 million per year.

Bottom line: single family rates and fees in 2012 would have been 91 percent higher without conservation than they were after all the conservation efforts– $1,251 per household versus $655.

More conservation coverage here.

Troubling Interdependency of Water and Power — The New York Times

From The New York Times (Felicity Barringer):

In Modesto, Calif., utility records chart an 18 percent rise in farmers’ energy use in 2014 compared with 2013. No evidence shows exactly why this happened, but California’s drought, now in its fourth year, sent many farmers to their wells to pump from hidden aquifers water that normally would be found at ground level.

Such measures are a timely illustration of the way water needs power — not just to move it, but to clean it and even, with desalination, to create it from brine. A large desalination plant being built to provide 7 percent of San Diego’s water will require about 38 megawatts of power, enough for more than 28,000 homes. And it is no coincidence that primary owners of the 2,250-megawatt, coal-fired Navajo generating station near Page, Ariz., are water managers; they need the power to move water.

The converse is also true: Water is required for power — for hydropower; for extracting oil, natural gas and coal; and, most of all, for cooling power plants. A report from the Congressional Research Service projects that 85 percent of the growth in domestic water consumption from 2005 to 2030 will come from the power sector.

More energy policy coverage here.

Water may reach San Luis Lake this year — the Valley Courier

San Luis Lake via the National Park Service

From the Valley Courier (Ruth Heide):

San Luis Lake may see some changes in the future and hopefully some water.

The lake, located west of the Great Sand Dunes National Park, has been dry in recent years with not enough snowmelt to float a boat.

Rio Grande Water Conservation District General Manager Steve Vandiver, who served as division engineer in the Valley for many years, said the lake was dry when he came to the Valley 40 years ago, and since that time it has filled and gone dry more than once. He said it’s been dry now for a number of years “primarily because there hasn’t been any natural inflow into the lake.”

He added that San Luis Lake is a terminus lake, and if there isn’t inflow from a natural source, there’s no way to fill it up otherwise. The lake relies on inflow from sources such as Sand Creek to fill up the reservoir. Vandiver added that losses from evaporation are also significant.

He said generally the water from Sand Creek hits the wetlands area first , then Head Lake and then the excess goes into San Luis Lake. He said this year Colorado Parks and Wildlife plans to allow more of the water from the creek to get to San Luis Lake.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife Area Wildlife Manager Rick Basagoitia explained that part of the lake is a state park and another portion is a state wildlife area, with each managed by different entities. There’s a move, he said, to make the entire lake part of the state wildlife area. He said boating, fishing and camping would still be allowed, although that is not the primary focus of a wildlife area, because the San Luis Lake campground is an overflow camping area for the dunes.

“We would probably still accommodate some of that but not to the extent Parks did,” he said.

He said the biggest attraction for recreation is the lake, but in recent years there has not been enough water to get to the lake.

With more water diverted to the lake, and water already running at the dunes, folks are hopeful the lake might start to recover.

Sand Dunes Superintendent Lisa Carrico said with the additional snow on the Sangre de Cristo Mountains recently, park staff are hopeful Medano Creek will provide a good flow through the dunes.

More Rio Grande River Basin coverage here.

Rio Grande Water Conservation District board meeting recap

From the Valley Courier (Ruth Heide):

One of the major efforts to stop the San Luis Valley’s aquifer depletions drew both questions and support on Tuesday during the Rio Grande Water Conservation District’s quarterly meeting in Alamosa.

Some questioned whether the district’s first water management sub-district was working and recommended ways it might work better.

Others defended Sub-District #1 and commended the owners of the hundreds of wells in the portion of the Valley encompassing the sub-district for their volunteer efforts to replenish the aquifer and make up for the injuries they are causing surface water users. Background

Sub-District #1 is the first of as many as six sub-districts to be formed under the direction of the sponsoring district, Rio Grande Water Conservation District (RGWCD.)

The sub-district has used various means to accomplish its goals including: paying irrigators to fallow farmland, first directly through the sub-district and now as supplementary compensation to CREP (Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program); purchasing water/land that could be retired from irrigation ; and paying ditches and canals through forbearance agreements to allow some of the water rightfully owed them to replace depletions the sub-district owes.

RGWCD has hired two full-time staff Rob Phillips and Cleave Simpson whose sole duties are sub-district administration.

Sub-District #1 submitted its annual report on March 1 and its annual replacement plan, detailing how it intends to replace injurious depletions this year, on April 15.

Phillips said much of the variable fees paid by subdistrict participants in the last couple of years have gone to forbearance agreements, “acquiring wet water.” He said in 2014 70 percent of the sub-district’s injurious depletions to the Rio Grande were remedied through forbearance agreements with six of the area’s major canals between Del Norte and Alamosa . This year, the district has agreements with nine canal/ditch companies.

Phillips added that more than 3,900 acres of crop land are being taken out of production through CREP, 40 percent of that permanently and the remainder through 15-year contracts. Sub-district #1 has committed about $1 million for additional CREP incentives.

In addition, the sub-district is holding $3.8 million in escrow for replacement water to cover lag depletions, the depletions that have accrued over time. The water court is requiring the sub-district not only to replace current injurious depletions to surface water rights but also past “lag” depletions, and there must be a way to guarantee those will be replaced in the future even if the sub-district ceases to exist.

Concerns, support

“It’s not working,” William Hoffner said during Tuesday’s public comment portion of the meeting. Hoffner said he appreciated what Sub-District #1 was trying to do but something needed to change to make it work.

“Do we really care about the underground aquifer and do we really care about the Valley as a whole?” he asked.

Phillips told Hoffner he totally disagreed with him. From 2010-2013 , irrigators in Sub-district #1 reduced pumping by 100,000 acre feet, Phillips said.

“We have not seen any reduction of pumping like that anywhere else in the San Luis Valley,” he said. “This is purely volunteer based. The state does not have groundwater rules going right now. Those people came together as a community to try to make things better, and they are doing that.”

He said the sub-district has helped replenish the unconfined (shallow) aquifer. A portion of that aquifer lying in the closed basin area of the Valley, approximately the area where the first subdistrict sits, has been monitored through a series of wells for more than 30 years. That study has reflected a total decrease in the underground aquifer of about one million acre feet from the 1970’s to the present.

Phillips said that between September of 2013 and September 2014 the aquifer came back up about 71,000 acre feet, in his opinion due to the efforts of sub-district participants , “all through one of the worst droughts in the history of the Rio Grande Basin and keeping the agricultural economy sustainable.”

The group discussed the need to increase the subdistrict’s variable fee, which has been $75.

RGWCD Board Member Cory Off commended the sub-district for its accomplishments but said, “there are other problems out there.”

He said between 2011 and 2014 the number of irrigated acres actually increased, and although total pumping between 2011-14 decreased 90,00 acres, pumping actually increased 8,000 acre feet between 2013 and 2014.

He added that even though the aquifer storage in the study area rose 70,000 acre feet last year, between 2011 and 2014 the aquifer in that area declined 423,000 acre feet.

Off said the goal of the subdistrict from the beginning was to make sure the Valley did not experience the catastrophe of the state stepping in and making everyone develop augmentation plans, but another catastrophe would be the aquifer going dry.

Off said if the sub-district is 50 percent successful, that is only 50 percent successful, “and if we go dry because we are not willing to take the next step, that’s illogical.”

RGWCD Board Member Peggy Godfrey added, “if your rent is $600 and you pay $300 on a regular basis, you are going to get evicted.”

The next step is raising the sub-district variable fee enough to get people to stop pumping as much water, Off said.

Godfrey also suggested raising the CREP fee charged Sub-district #1 participants.

Other RGWCD board members and RGWCD Board President Greg Higel defended the sub-district .

“I commend these guys for trying,” Higel said.

He said the sub-district board of managers has put in a tremendous effort to try to make this work. Sub-district #1 Board President Brian Brownell said, “We are just the first [subdistrict ] and we are the only one providing water to the river. I think we are closer than we ever have been to figuring a way that gets us where we need to be.”

Sub-district #1 Board Member Lynn McCullough said the sub-district board has had 36 meetings in 2 1/2 years and has constantly talked about sustainability, so it is not like the board has not been trying to get the job done.

Higel suggested maybe the sub-district board and RGWCD board should meet more often together.

At the conclusion of the water district’s meeting, Great Sand Dunes Superintendent Lisa Carrico told the board it was people like them who made this Valley such a great place. She had lived here as a child and was fortunate to come back after 40 years of seeing a lot of the world, she said.

“This remains for me one of my very favorite places in the world. Part of it has to do with the people that are here. You guys are doing an incredibly hard work ” The complexity of the issues you deal with here and the way you deal with each other is commendable. I believe you are creating a better place for all of us.”

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here.

YouTube video of avalanche hitting Everest base camp — @davewiner

YouTube video of avalanche hitting Everest basecamp. https://t.co/Ter7VyejbL

— Dave is back in the USSR (@davewiner) April 26, 2015

Circle of Blue: Ogallala Aquifer water level dropped again in 2015 in the Texas Panhandle

Ogallala Aquifer water level dropped again in 2015 in @HPUWCD of Texas Panhandle, but less than in 2014: @kyfo http://t.co/5EbDNB8MC8

— Circle of Blue (@circleofblue) April 24, 2015

Climate: World’s highest mountain areas warming swiftly

Greeley pursues $8 million bond project for sewer system improvements — The Greeley Tribune

From The Greeley Tribune (Trenton Sperry):

At its regular meeting this week, the council introduced an ordinance allowing the city to sell $7.5 million in bonds in May. The bond revenues would be used to fund improvements to the city’s sewer system, marking Greeley’s first issuance of sewer debt since 1994.

Greeley’s annual debt payments — estimated at $550,000 for the next 20 years — would be funded by current sewer user fees, according to the ordinance.

Victoria Runkle, Greeley’s finance director and assistant city manager, said rate increases for Greeley’s sewer customers may be on the horizon, but they would adhere to the city’s current rate schedule, which raises rates by about 2 percent to 3 percent each year.

“We assume we will have to raise rates over time,” Runkle said. “Will that actually come to pass? That will depend on if revenues continue as they are. There have been years when we didn’t raise rates.”

In a draft of the bond project’s official statement, the city claims Greeley’s single-family residential customers paid less for sewer services than 17 of 24 Front Range municipalities surveyed in fall 2014. However, the city will be required to raise rates, fees or charges to balance debt payments as needed.

The bonds are being considered to help Greeley make needed upgrades to the sewer system more quickly, Runkle said.

“We’re not earning enough interest on the money we have in cash funds,” she said. “Interest rates are very low. We’re only able to make about 2 percent on cash reserves, but construction costs are up to 4 or 5 percent.”

Portions of Greeley’s sewer system date to 1889, according to the ordinance, and about 4 percent of the current system is more than 100 years old.

More infrastructure coverage here.

What would a water market for western Colorado and California look like? #ColoradoRiver

From The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Gary Harmon):

Even before California declared mandatory water restrictions last week, water purveyors in the Golden State were paying top dollar for water already in the state. That suggests the price of water from upstream might fetch even more money — something that hasn’t gone without notice in the water-wealthy (relatively) and cash-poor (absolutely) places like the Western Slope of Colorado.

There is no way now to sell or lease water outside Colorado’s borders, but that so far hasn’t impeded people giving it some thought. [ed. emphasis mine]

“Are there feelers out there about creating a water market, quote unquote?” said Mark Harris, general manager of the Grand Valley Water Users’ Association. “Obviously yes, and people are interested, on both sides of the table.”

Colorado is involved in talks aimed at circumventing a call on the Colorado River by downstream states, especially California, the nation’s most-populous state that is now in its driest condition ever.

“We’re certainly sympathetic with California’s condition,” said James Eklund, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, in an email. “As the headwaters of a major system they depend on (the Colorado River), we know how devastating 6 percent snowpack would be. This makes the contingency planning talks we’re in the middle of all the more important and urgent.”

California’s woes could very well become Colorado’s, so the Colorado River Water Conservation District is looking well ahead to find ways to make water peace before water wars break out.

“We’re trying to avoid the worst-case scenario,” River District spokesman Chris Treese said. “We know we have to answer (how to manage the river in extreme drought) even though it is too early.”

The effort to avoid that worst-case scenario includes the discussions among the basin states, an emphasis on conservation and the possibility that agreements could be arranged among water-rights holders and willing buyers.

The River District last month organized a trip to Southern California, where Western Slope residents and others saw some of the efforts that are well underway in the Palo Verde and Imperial valleys, both irrigated by Colorado River Water.

In the Palo Verde Valley, farmers have agreed to fallow portions of their lands. Los Angeles gets the water that would otherwise irrigate those fields.

The farmers whose fields lie fallow “are getting paid handsomely,” said Steve Acquafresca, the former Mesa County commissioner and Grand Junction peach grower who has “stayed immersed, pun not intended, in water.”

Those farmers seem more pleased than those in the Imperial Valley, who have a similar arrangement with San Diego, Acquafresca said.

Both cases, though, are temporary, highly managed buy-and-dry schemes.

They’re not the only ones.

The Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles is offering rice farmers in the Sacramento Valley $700 per acre foot of water, the most it has ever offered.

Given Southern California’s drier straits, “I don’t think it’s unrealistic” to think that a water-rights holder in Colorado could demand and get $1,000 an acre foot, said Larry Clever, general manager of the Ute Water Conservancy District.

No arrangements between Western Slope sellers and Southern California buyers are in the offing, though, because there is no way to assure delivery as the water passes through Utah, Arizona and Nevada before reaching California, Clever noted.

The River District is considering ways that it might be able to broker deals between willing buyers and sellers, Treese said.

“We hope not to do it on an individual farmer-by-farmer basis,” Treese said.

Sellers might get a signing bonus, possibly an annual payment and downstream buyers would have to plan ahead.

“This is an insurance policy,” Treese said. “You’re not going to be able to take one out once the fire starts.”

Participants in the California trip will meet on Tuesday to consider what they heard and what to do next.

For Acquafresca, the two key elements of any program are that participation is voluntary and temporary.

“This is not going to be new supply for growing metropolitan areas,” Acquafresca said.

More Colorado River Basin coverage here.

City releases stormwater expenditure report — Colorado Springs Business Journal

Channel erosion Colorado Springs July 2012 via The Pueblo Chieftain

From the Colorado Springs Business Journal (Bryan Grossman):

According to a news release issued by the city, the stormwater program for the city of Colorado Springs has included substantial spending over the past 15 years on “new flood control and conveyance infrastructure, maintenance and repair of existing infrastructure, and water quality protection and compliance.” Expenditures for the city’s stormwater program, the release states, have come from the city’s general fund, bonds (Springs Community Improvement Program, or SCIP), grants (FEMA and others), and, for a period of time in the mid-2000s, stormwater program fees collected by the city’s stormwater enterprise, also called the “SWENT.”

“Substantial portions of the city’s stormwater infrastructure have also been constructed by the development community and as part of large transportation projects that have stormwater components,” the release states. “However, stormwater program expenditures historically did not appear in a single comprehensive financial report until now.”

This report highlights more than $240 million spent on stormwater program management and projects in Colorado Springs from 2004 through 2014.

— Colorado Springs General Fund; $40 million

— Stormwater Enterprise (SWENT); $53 million

— Federal/private grants; $13 million

— Colorado Springs Utilities; $36 million

— Private development/PPRTA; $88 million

— COS Airport; $13 million

TOTAL-$243 million

More stormwater coverage here.

Is Silverton ready for a cleanup? — The Durango Herald

From The Durango Herald (Chase Olivarius-Mcallister):

The stream of heavy-metal pollutants gushing out of Silverton’s mines and into its waterways has grown so toxic that between 2005 and 2010, three out of the four trout species living in the Upper Animas River south of Silverton have disappeared.

Yet for two decades, vocal Silverton residents have torpedoed the Environmental Protection Agency’s many attempts to designate Silverton’s worst mines as Superfund sites, which would allow the agency to clean up the pollution and make any parties it deems responsible pay for it.

Though the environmental catastrophe has, if anything, worsened, Silverton residents long have argued against Superfund, saying federal intervention would sully the town’s reputation, deter mining companies and appall tourists.

Until now, that is.

Even three years ago, it was impossible to imagine, let alone hear, a Silverton resident publicly clamoring for federal intervention in Cement Creek, said Mark Esper, editor of The Silverton Standard. Yet in the last year, he said, there have been signs that locals’ hostility to Superfund is softening.

[Last February], Skinner said a Superfund listing would “raise property values here, provide great jobs that people here can do, bring new people in and get more kids in the school.”

Silverton resident John Poole said, “Many people, including myself, think Superfund, frankly, is the best thing that could happen to Silverton. It’s certain to open up jobs. In Leadville, Superfund certainly didn’t hurt tourism.”

There’s still local animosity toward Superfund. In 2014, at meetings of the Animas River Stakeholders Group (ARSG) and the San Juan County Commission, residents such as Steve Fearn, co-coordinator of the ARSG, warned a Superfund designation would hamper, if not ruin, Silverton’s economy.

Poole said he thought the notion of Silverton’s overwhelming opposition to Superfund was “grossly overblown.”

“As far as I’m concerned, all the opposition is coming from a few people with conflicts of interest, who oppose the EPA because they profit financially from keeping the myth of mining – the idea that mining will come back to Silverton – alive,” Poole said.

More water pollution coverage here.

Lake Mead dropped to lowest level in history early this am tying a record set, umm, yesterday — John Fleck #ColoradoRiver

Lake Mead dropped to lowest level in history early this am http://t.co/Ls3lp91RtP tying a record set, umm, yesterday http://t.co/6Jw53UwYQg

— John Fleck (@jfleck) April 26, 2015

@EPAwater: Check out this report on the importance of clean water and headwater streams to fishing in the U.S.

Check out this report on the importance of clean water and headwater streams to fishing in the U.S. #CleanWaterRules http://t.co/FKM95WQNrM

— U.S. EPA Water (@EPAwater) April 26, 2015

“This project is a great new example of how water sharing can work” — Amy Beatie

Little Cimarron River via the Western Rivers Conservancy

From Steamboat Today (Tom Ross):

[The Colorado Water Trust] has collaborated with the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) to restore late summer flows to a 5-mile stretch of the Little Cimarron River in the Gunnison River Basin by sharing an agricultural water right.

Water Trust Executive Director Amy Beatie told Steamboat Today this week the agreement is the first of its kind, allowing agricultural water rights holders to use their water to raise a crop in early summer and then choose to be compensated for leaving it in the river in late summer and early fall. Compensation can be in the form of a lease or sale. It’s a model they hope to see replicated around the state.

“How to meet the ecological needs of streams while keeping water in agriculture is a discussion happening at every level of water policy in the state,” Beatie said Thursday in a prepared statement. “Agriculture is an essential part of Colorado’s economy. So are recreation and the environment. This project is a great new example of how water sharing can work on the ground within the state’s existing laws to bring together what are usually seen as incompatible uses.”

Here’s the release from the Colorado Water Conservation Board (Linda Bassi/Amy Beatie):

The Colorado Water Conservation Board (“CWCB”) and the Colorado Water Trust (“CWT”) today finalized an innovative agreement under which the same water rights will be used to both restore stream flows and preserve agriculture in the Gunnison Basin.

The CWCB is the only entity in the state that can hold instream flow water rights to preserve and improve the natural environment to a reasonable degree. Under its Water Acquisition Program, the CWCB can acquire water from willing water rights owners by donation, purchase, lease or other arrangement to include in Colorado’s Instream Flow Program. The CWCB and CWT partnership has resulted in many significant water acquisitions for instream flow use.

Under the agreement, up to 5 cubic feet per second of water that was historically diverted by the McKinley Ditch out of the Little Cimarron River (a tributary to the Cimarron River and Gunnison River in Gunnison and Montrose counties) will continue to be diverted and applied to the historically irrigated ranch until mid-summer. At that time, the water will be left in the river for instream flow use by the CWCB on a reach of the Little Cimarron River that historically saw low to no flows due to water rights diversions, as well as on the Cimarron River.

“Our rivers and our farms are at the heart of what makes Colorado so special,” said CWCB director James Eklund. “This agreement is a model for future agriculture and conservation partnerships.”

The Little Cimarron River originates in the Uncompahgre Wilderness Area and is managed as a wild trout stream by Colorado Parks and Wildlife for several miles above the area where agricultural uses have occurred for more than 100 years. Restoring flows in the Little Cimarron will re-establish habitat connectivity, an important component of a healthy river.

“This permanent, split use of an instream flow is distinctive because it acknowledges and preserves the value of irrigated agriculture as well as the value of restoring flow to a local river,” said Linda Bassi, chief of the stream and lake protection section at CWCB.

Additional information on the CWCB’s Water Acquisition Program is available on the CWCB web site: http://cwcb.state.co.us/StreamAndLake/WaterAcquisitions/

More instream flow coverage here.

Arkansas Basin Water Forum Bob Appel Friend of the Arkansas Award winner, Lorenz Sutherland

Arkansas River Basin -- Graphic via the Colorado Geological Survey — Arkansas River Basin — Graphic via the Colorado Geological Survey

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

A retired federal researcher whose expertise in agriculture, natural resources and water management has helped landowners up and down the Arkansas River was honored Wednesday.

The Arkansas River Basin Water Forum presented the Bob Appel Friend of the Arkansas Award to Lorenz Sutherland, who spent 30 years with the Colorado State University Research and Extension, U.S. Department of Agriculture Research Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. He retired in 2013.

“This is a humbling experience,” Sutherland said.

He talked about working with the late Bob Appel, who worked for the Southeast Colorado Resource Conservation and Development Council. Appel, along with Sutherland and others, set up the annual Arkansas River basin forums 21 years ago.

Sutherland is still on the board of directors for the forum and still active in research. Last week, he presented a report on salinity studies in the Lower Arkansas River basin to the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservation District board.

His earlier work included irrigated crop research, focusing on conservation in the Ogallala Aquifer; wind erosion prediction models; field drainage mapping; and soil management techniques related to crops. He helped establish and maintain the Colorado Agricultural Meteorological Network, which links weather stations in the Lower and Upper Arkansas Valley.

Besides his work along the Arkansas River, Sutherland also contributed to projects involving mountain meadow rehabilitation in Custer County and coal bed methane water quality in Huerfano County. He provided technical assistance to the Arkansas River Watershed Plan, State Engineer’s office and to Farm Bill Programs.

Colorado sues feds over new fracking rules

Snowpack news

Statewide snowpack map April 24, 2015 via the NRCS

Arkansas River Basin High/Low graph April 24, 2015 via the NRCS

Upper Colorado River Basin High/Low graph April 24, 2015 via the NRCS

Gunnison River Basin High/Low graph April 24, 2015 via the NRCS

Laramie and North Platte Basin High/Low graph April 24, 2015 via the NRCS

Upper Rio Grande River Basin High/Low graph April 24, 2015 via the NRCS

San Miguel, Dolores, Animas, and San Juan Basin High/Low graph April 24, 2015 via the NRCS

South Platte River Basin High/Low graph April 24, 2015 via the NRCS

Yampa and White Basin High/Low graph April 24, 2015 via the NRCS

Click on a thumbnail graphic to view a gallery of snowpack data from the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

From The Mountain Mail (Maisie Ramsay):

Snowpack in the Upper Arkansas River Basin is holding strong even as much of Colorado remains gripped by drought. Upstream snowpack is carefully watched by the rafting industry, as it has the most direct impact on summer flows. After last week’s storm, upstream SNOTEL sites at Brumley and Fremont Pass registered at 96 percent and 110 percent of average, respectively. The blizzard offset some, but not all, moisture lost during a mid-April warm spell.

Statewide snowpack was at 65 percent of average on April 8. After the recent storm, that number was at 61 percent of average, according to April 21 SNOTEL data. The Arkansas River, North Platte and South Platte basins look strong compared to other areas of the state, particularly basins in the southwest. SNOTEL indicates the Dolores and Rio Grande River Basin snowpack is at about 40 percent of average, while the Gunnison River Basin is at 52 percent. The northwest corner of the state is faring only slightly better, with the Colorado River Basin snowpack at 67 percent and the Yampa River basin snowpack at 63 percent. The Arkansas River Basin has the second-highest snowpack in the state at 78 percent of average, behind the South Platte’s 94 percent of average.

From the Valley Courier (Ruth Heide):

Although future months may bring above-average precipitation for the San Luis Valley, the current snowpack does not look promising. Colorado Division of Water Resources Division 3 Engineer Craig Cotten reported to water leaders attending the Rio Grande Water Conservation District board meeting yesterday that the current basin snowpack sits at 38 percent of normal.

“It’s not looking real good,” he said.

He added the basin reached a high of about 70 percent of average at the beginning of March but has declined since then, reviving just a bit during the storm last week.

Irrigators are already being curtailed on the Rio Grande and Conejos River systems to make sure the basin meets its Rio Grande Compact deliveries to downstream states. Curtailments on the Conejos system are currently 15 percent and on the Rio Grande, 6 percent.

Cotten said one of the challenges for his office is preparing a good forecast, and he and staff are relying on more than one source to estimate how much water the Valley will actually see this year. They are using information from both the Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) and the National Weather Service , with their own analyses thrown in.

For example, the NRCS is predicting 150,000 acre feet of stream flow in the Conejos River system, while the National Weather Service is predicting 250,000 acre feet for the April-September period. One of the main differences between the two, Cotten explained, is the NRCS focuses on snowpack while the Weather Service also looks at weather predictions .

Cotten’s office is currently predicting 203,800 acre feet stream flow on the Conejos system for April-September and 235,000 acre feet for the annual index, or about 70 percent of normal.

On the Rio Grande, NRCS is predicting about 300,000 acre feet stream flow for the April-September period while the National Weather Service is anticipating almost 500,000 acre feet.

“That’s just a really big range there,” Cotten said, “and it’s really difficult to get a handle how much we are supposed to send down to downstream states.”

Performing their own analyses , while taking the other predictions into account, Cotten’s office is estimating 390,000 acre feet on the Rio Grande during the April-September period with the annual projected index at 500,000 acre feet. Average is about 650,000 acre feet.

Cotten said the National Weather Service places the Valley in an area of above-average precipitation through November.

“They say we are going to be above average. We will see.”

From The Greeley Tribune (Kayla Young):

On the close of a dry winter, mid-April showers have provided needed moisture for northern Colorado farmers and the hope of late-season improvements to the state’s low snowpack.

While peak snowpack dates have already passed, conditions had improved notably for the South Platte Basin in the last 24 hours, said Colorado snow survey program manager Brian Domonkos of the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

As of Thursday morning, the South Platte Basin snowpack was reported at 79 percent of average. By Friday morning, the basin had increased to 85 percent of average…

As of April 1, Colorado SNOTEL indicated 88 percent snowpack for the South Platte Basin.

The Upper Rio Grande Basin dropped from to 36 percent 61 percent snowpack in the same time frame. Likewise, the San Miguel, Dolores, Animas and San Juan River Basins dropped to 37 percent from 53 percent.

These particularly dry basins will likely remain dry at this point, Domonkos said…

Brian Werner, communications director of Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, however, said northern Colorado’s water community is celebrating the spring rain and snowfall.

“It’s the wet stuff we love this time of year,” he said, adding that the 10-day forecast as of Friday indicated much more rainfall to come for northern Colorado…

If the last two weeks of April continue to bring rainfall, as they typically do, the season could see a turnaround in terms of soil moisture profiles and supplies made available for irrigation, Werner said.

“That’s why we say these storms are so much more important than those in November, December,” Werner said.

Provided warm weather does not rapidly melt off mountain snowfall, water users along the South Platte should remain satisfied until the first of June, said Randy Ray, executive director of Central Colorado Water Conservancy District…

He recalled the insight of Jim Hall, former division engineer in Greeley, that the South Platte lives and dies by spring moisture.

Lake Mead expected to drop to a new low tomorrow — Circle of Blue #ColoradoRiver

Lake Mead expected to drop to a new low tomorrow: @reviewjournal http://t.co/XdpjGMC94k #COriver

— Circle of Blue (@circleofblue) April 25, 2015

Poem: Tent Like Openings — Greg Hobbs

Tent Like Openings

Let the music in your judgments sing!

The rule of law is nothing but the song of human beings
raised in hopeful expectation of yearning for a place to

Nourish, grow, and cultivate each and every living thing.

A cup of water from the widow’s well, a burning bush,
a father’s knife, spared to save a darling son

His future husbandry.

When so much is given, holding to the world’s rim
intonations of a cherished sister’s richer resonance,

If not to ask, “Why does each and every day re-circulate?”
as if, the day before, we’d missed the cairn the breaking light

Sets upon the ripples of a lake.

Greg Hobbs 4/19/2015

Morning photo: Springtime in the Rockies

Snowpack news: Not much dust on snow this season in Colorado will help slow melt-out

Westwide SNOTEL snow water equivalent as a percent of normal April 23, 2015

From The Denver Post (Jason Blevins):

The absence of the melt-spurring layers of ruddy southwestern dust bodes well for Colorado water watchers eager for a slow thaw.

“When you don’t have dust on snow as an accelerant to already not-great conditions, that’s a good thing,” said Jim Pokrandt, spokesman for the Colorado River District, which spans 15 counties on the Western Slope, accounting for about 28 percent Colorado’s landmass…

There have been three relatively weak dust events in Colorado so far this season, most of them impacting the southern portion of the state. This time last year, there had been seven events, with a couple in March depositing thick layers on the snowpack. In late April 2013, Silverton-based researchers chronicling the impact of dust on snow tallied nine events including a major March windstorm that accounted for 90 percent of the total dust they measured for the season. Through March this year, there were no measurable dust events. Three so far in April have coated the snow with small layers of dust.

“This year is proving to be comparatively light,” said Chris Landry, the director of the Center for Snow & Avalanche Studies in Silverton who has been charting dust-on-snow since 2003.

The recent snow storms in the last two weeks have helped to bury the dust layers and thwart an early melt-off after an unseasonably warm and dry March. Snowpack levels across the state are below median levels, with the southern river basins around 30 percent of median while the basins in the northern and central portion of the state are between 60 percent to 88 percent of median.

North America: 'Less water availability & increased drought' #ClimateChange @IPCC_CH: http://t.co/edrUuBDEv3 #COP21 pic.twitter.com/mVa3Cwsh4Y

— Ed Joyce (@EdJoyce) April 23, 2015

Lake Mead 2015: Photos Show Water Level Nearing Record Low — International Business Times #ColoradoRiver #drought

Click through for the photo essay and article from the International Business Times (Phillip Ross). Here’s an excerpt:

A white band hems the shoreline of Lake Mead like a bathtub ring, a stark reminder that the nation’s largest reservoir is steadily losing water at a time when the precious commodity is needed the most. The latest measurements released Wednesday show the lake is nearing its lowest height in its 80-year existence. At nearly 1,081 feet, Lake Mead’s water level is 148 feet below capacity and dropping — an elevation not seen since 1937, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation.

Lake Mead’s plight is a symbol of the crippling “mega drought” that has gripped California and other Southwest states for the past four years, with no sign of letting up. Scientists are calling the water shortage the worst in centuries. “Even at the middle-of-the-road scenario, we see enough warming and drying to push us past the worst droughts experienced in the region since the medieval era,” Benjamin Cook, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, told National Geographic in February.

Water restrictions in California could impact Denver Water customers, too

Explosión volcán calducho — Rodrigo Barrera

From KOAA.com:

Twin blasts from the Calbuco volcano in southern Chile have sent vast clouds of ash into the sky, increasing concerns that it could contaminate water, cause respiratory illnesses and ground flights.

The volcano erupted Wednesday afternoon for the first time in more than four decades, then had another outburst early Thursday.

The Plastic Age: A Documentary feat. Pharrell Williams (Full Film) — “The ocean connects us all”

“Life in the ocean has been evolving to hundreds of millions of years and then along came petroleum.”

“Every four years we make a billion tons of plastic.”

“In a span of 50 years of plastic we have plasticized our planet.”

From Wallace J. Nichols’ website:

We all talk about the Stone Age, the Iron Age and the Bronze Age, but what era are we living in right now? People are starting to refer to us as the – far less romantic – Plastic Age. We make 288 million tonnes of plastic a year, and unlike paper, metal, glass or wood, it does not oxidise or biodegrade, instead it ends up in our oceans, making the ratio of plastic to plankton 100:1. The way to make use of The Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Bionic yarn. Co-designed by Pharrell, G-Star’s RAW for the Oceans collection is the world’s first denim line created from plastic that has been fished out of the big blue and recycled. Find out how we can pick 700,000 tonnes of plastic up off the sea floor in our documentary, made possible by G-Star, The Plastic Age.

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