Day: November 25, 2016

#COWaterPlan: Coalition embarks on Blue River efficiency project — Sky-Hi Daily News #ColoradoRiver #COriver

Blue River
Blue River

From The Sky-Hi Daily News (Kevin Fixler):

Efforts continue throughout Colorado with implementation of the one-year-old state water plan, and Summit County is trying to do its part.

A countywide push led by the town of Frisco and the High County Conservation Center (HC3) recently garnered a $94,000 grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) to move forward with a comprehensive Blue River watershed efficiency-planning project. The regional venture, scheduled to start in January 2017, has a total budget of $162,500, and matching cash and in-kind labor contributions from each of the county’s major municipal water providers make up the difference…

The Blue River itself acts as a source for drinking water and agricultural irrigation to Summit’s 29,000 year-round population, not to mention the countless visitors who spend time on the water body each year for recreation. Projections suggest the local population will increase by at least 5 percent over the next decade, meaning the need to conserve and discover additional efficiencies is one of the more painless ways to get ready for the additional ask.

“Water doesn’t recognize geopolitical boundaries, so it’s important we work as a watershed to accomplish some really good water conservation goals,” said Frisco Councilwoman Jessica Burley, who is also HC3’s community programs manager. “The state has set some interesting water goals, and it’s our job to go forth and conquer from a regional perspective. With these initiatives and this plan, hopefully we will make an impact on the Colorado River basin.”

[…]

The statewide plan calls for 400,000 acre-feet of new storage and that same total in conservation from urban areas. An acre-foot is the U.S. standard measurement for water bodies and equates to about 326,000 gallons. Sharing 50,000 acre-feet of water possessed by agriculture based on senior rights through alternative methods is another facet of the state plan.

Thus far, the execution of much of the lofty benchmarks has been sluggish, in part due to a lack of funding. It’s why obtaining dollars from the state for such municipal projects is so important. Not only does it provide capital at present while the research is done, but the initial approval also offers eligibility for future grants and loans. Without an CWCB-endorsed efficiency plan in place, funds are otherwise not available.

Mimicking a model previously created by the Roaring Fork Valley, Summit’s Blue River planning enterprise is backed by Breckenridge, Frisco, Copper Mountain Metro, Dillon, Silverthorne, as well as Summit County government — “So we all have a little skin in the game, so to speak,” said Burley — with the primary objective of reducing water consumption by a measurable amount in the next few years. The consortium anticipates a 14-month investigation and review process, followed by some potential actionable items, such as leak detection and repairs, education and outdoor watering mandates, as soon as a year after that.

“This is the first step into bringing the Colorado Water Plan to fruition,” explained Jim Pokrandt of the Colorado River District, a public policy agency in charge of protecting the named basin. “Part of being more water efficient is finding those leaks and stopping them. That’s efficiency at a systematic level, then it drills down to the retail level with things like lawn irrigation, efficient appliances and efficient spigots and showerheads.”

If it’s to be successful, putting the ambitious state plan into practice will ultimately fall more on the shoulders of each local community and watershed, he added, rather than through commands dictated at the state level. And that’s a summons Summit County leadership recognizes and is attempting to embrace one year later.

Lawsuit over [Platte to Park Hill stormwater] project moves forward — @dnvrite

Photo credit The Cultural Landscape Foundation.
Photo credit The Cultural Landscape Foundation.

From DenverRite.com (Erica Meltzer):

Earlier this year, a longtime northeast Denver resident and former state attorney general, John D. MacFarlane, sued the city of Denver over its plans to use City Park Golf Course as part of the Platte to Park Hill flood control project.

On Wednesday, that lawsuit survived its first hurdle — a request from the city that it be summarily dismissed. Denver District Court Judge Michael Vallejos ruled that the court had jurisdiction and the plaintiff had standing. The lawsuit will proceed.

In his lawsuit, MacFarlane makes a number of claims: that the flood control project violates the city charter by using park land for something other than a park purpose, that the city has “obfuscated” the true purpose of the project and that it is primarily to benefit the proposed I-70 expansion and the redevelopment of the National Western Center rather than the residents of northeast Denver.

The city argued that the court didn’t have subject matter jurisdiction because the claims were not “ripe.” The city said MacFarlane had not suffered any specific injury, and the city’s plans are too tentative for the court to determine the impact of the project on the golf course and its users.

Vallejos didn’t buy that.

“A site selection has been made for the Project and Defendants’ own materials include a tentative redesign timeline indicating closure from late 2018 into 2019,” he wrote in a ruling issued Monday. “Here, it does not appear to the Court that this is a mere possibility of a future controversy, but rather Defendants have selected (City Park Golf Course) for the site location, developed and distributed fact sheets concerning the Project, and advanced several plans for the Project which allegedly all require closure of the (golf course).”

The city also argued that there was no basis for MacFarlane to claim that the city was “disposing” of park property for non-park purposes, as the city isn’t leasing or selling the golf course. The golf course will remain in city hands and reopen as a golf course when the project is done.

However, Vallejos found that the links between the flood control project and I-70 might be relevant.

“Plaintiff alleges that the Colorado Department of Transportation (“CDOT”) needs a location to put storm water in order to protect its I-70 project,” the ruling says. “Plaintiff asserts that I-70 is in need of a drainage system to accommodate the 100 year flood protection plan. Plaintiff in turn argues that “[r]ather than CDOT constructing its own drainage system . . . CDOT proposes to construction [sic] through impoverished north Denver neighborhoods,” in violation of the Denver Charter because such actions are akin to a sale or lease of a portion of CPGC.

Storm drain and open channel improvements between the East Rail Line (38th & Blake Station) and the South Platte River (Globeville Landing Outfall), Stormwater detention/conveyance between the East Rail Line (38th & Blake Station) and Colorado Blvd, (Montclair Basin) Stormwater detention/ conveyance immediately east of Colorado Blvd. (Park Hill Basin).
Storm drain and open channel improvements between the East Rail Line (38th & Blake Station) and the South Platte River (Globeville Landing Outfall), Stormwater detention/conveyance between the East Rail Line (38th & Blake Station) and Colorado Blvd, (Montclair Basin)
Stormwater detention/ conveyance immediately east of Colorado Blvd. (Park Hill Basin).

Movement seeks to bring back flood irrigation in some areas — Capital Press

Flood irrigation in the Arkansas Valley via Greg Hobbs
Flood irrigation in the Arkansas Valley via Greg Hobbs

From Capital Press (John O’Connell):

Chris Colson champions an admittedly antiquated and inefficient method of watering crops — flood irrigation.

The Boise-based regional biologist for Ducks Unlimited is part of a movement that recognizes the wildlife and water-supply benefits of flood irrigation, and the need to make certain it continues to be used in floodplains and other strategic locations across the West.

Ironically, his efforts to preserve flood irrigation often tap the same federal dollars that help farmers install high-efficiency pivots, which threaten to render flood irrigation obsolete.

The attraction for Colson and others is that flood irrigation, with its leaky canals and standing water, helps recharge shrinking aquifers and provides migratory birds with a stopover on their annual pilgrimages between the Arctic and points south.

Unlikely partnerships of agricultural landowners, conservationists, government officials and water managers are behind efforts to keep farmers flooding fields in Idaho, Oregon, Washington and California. During the past year, Colson estimates the movement has maintained flood irrigation on roughly 4,000 acres across the West.

“For 15 or 20 years or more, the conservation community has been telling people how wasteful flood irrigation is and convert to sprinkler,” Colson said.

Farmers have relied on flood irrigation — using gravity to spread surface water across fields — for thousands of years.

Since the late 1960s, however, growers have been moving away from flooding in favor of more efficient sprinklers. On average, 120,000 acres in 11 Western states were converted from flood irrigation to sprinklers annually between 1995 to 2010, according to a study of U.S. Geological Survey water-use data.

Unintended consequences

Conservation funding sources, such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program under the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, have long supported sprinkler conversions with water-efficiency grants.

But the pursuit of efficiency has had unintended consequences. Migratory wading birds feed in flood-irrigated fields, which have provided an artificial alternative to the natural marshes lost to river damming. And Western aquifer levels have dropped in correlation with the disappearance of flood irrigation — historically a major source of incidental aquifer recharge.

In Idaho’s Eastern Snake Plain, for example, officials say the aquifer has been dropping by 200,000 acre-feet per year on average, due to increased groundwater use and reduced flood irrigation.

Zola Ryan, NRCS district conservationist in Harney County, Ore., says her agency’s goals of improving irrigation efficiency and preserving flood irrigation needn’t be at odds.

Ryan explained efficient sprinklers are ideal for irrigators using groundwater, and watering where benefits of flooding aren’t as pronounced.

“There is a place and time for flood irrigation and a place and time for sprinkler irrigation,” Ryan said.

The High Plains Aquifer provides 30 percent of the water used in the nation's irrigated agriculture. The aquifer runs under South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas.
The High Plains Aquifer provides 30 percent of the water used in the nation’s irrigated agriculture. The aquifer runs under South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas.

“#ClimateChange impacts already in the pipeline will require both humans and nature to adapt” — #Arctic Council

2016arcticresilencereportcoverarcticcouncil

Click here to download the report. Here’s the forward:

Life in the Arctic has always been de ned by change and uncertainty. The seasons transform the landscape, the weather is unpredictable, and conditions can shift abruptly, sometimes dangerously. Yet the Arctic is now changing at an unprecedented pace, on multiple levels, in ways that fundamentally a affect both people and ecosystems.

This report is the culmination of a ve-year e ort to better understand the nature of Arctic change, including critical tipping points, as well as the factors that support resilience, and the kinds of choices that strengthen adaptive capacity. Because local changes are nested in larger-scale processes, it is especially important that interactions across scales are better understood.

Resilience features prominently in three major international agreements reached in 2015: the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The Paris Agreement alone mentions resilience six times, recognizing that climate change impacts already in the pipeline will require both humans and nature to adapt.

The changes happening in the Arctic today are driven primarily by external factors. Climate change is the most pervasive and powerful driver of change, but many other environmental changes are taking place as well, alongside rapid social and economic developments. In some contexts, factors such as resource demand, transportation needs, migration, geopolitical changes and globalization are making the greatest impact on the Arctic. Indeed, many Arctic social-ecological systems face multiple stressors at once.

Slowing Arctic change and building resilience are thus crucial for the people and ecosystems of the Arctic – but the report also highlights the stakes for the world as a whole. Arctic social and biophysical systems are deeply intertwined with our planet’s social and biophysical systems, so rapid, dramatic and unexpected changes in this sensitive region are likely to be felt elsewhere. As we are often reminded, what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic.

The Arctic Resilience Report is the final output of a process set in motion at the start of the Swedish Chairmanship of the Arctic Council (2011–2013). The project has been led by the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Stockholm Resilience Centre, in collaboration with the Resilience Alliance. It has been pursued in consultation with Arctic countries and Indigenous Peoples, and has included collaboration with several Arctic scientific organizations.

An integral part of the assessment is to identify policy and management options that may be needed for strengthening resilience, for adaptation, and for transformational change when this is necessary. We hope this work will inform, inspire and lay the groundwork for collaborative action.

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