Day: December 16, 2017

Happy 100th Birthday to @DenverWater

Denver Water Service Area via Denver Water.

2018 is the centennial year. Click here to go to their website:

Everyone in Colorado shares in the beauty of our water and in the responsibility for taking good care of it. Because water doesn’t just sustain our bodies, it nourishes our state’s agriculture, industry, recreation, tourism, and environment.

In 2018, Denver Water celebrates its 100th anniversary — a milestone that will usher in a new century of innovation and foresight to preserve and protect our water supply for generations to come.

We have some impressive stories in our past: The longest underground tunnel in the world, the tallest dam in the world, even a project built with a blast from President Calvin Coolidge. But between those remarkable engineering feats, we’ve built something unparalleled: A system that delivers safe, clean water to a quarter of all Coloradans.

Water pioneers knew Denver had potential to be a world-class city, but it couldn’t do much without a reliable water source. In Denver’s early years, multiple water companies fought, collapsed and merged trying to provide water to the growing city. But nobody stayed for long. That was until 1918, when residents voted to establish Denver Water, supplying the city “with water for all uses and purposes.” That progressive move paved the way for 100 years of stable water service, foresight we value now more than ever.

A century later, there are new trails to blaze. And our legacy is only beginning. We’re expanding a dam, undergoing a planning process to guide our water system for 50 years, modernizing our north system and using revolutionary sustainability practices in our new operations complex. We’re proud of our century of service to the Denver-metro area, and we’ll continue to build on our impressive legacy long into the future.

As we enter our next century of service, we’re facing new challenges with innovation, hard work and grit, never swaying from our original pursuit to manage and improve the complex system entrusted to us. We stand by and thank our fellow citizens who are also good stewards of water, our life-giving, finite resource. Past, present and future: our commitment to water runs deep.

Webinar: Policy Questions Around Alternative Transfer Methods — @WaterEdCO

Photo credit: Allen Best

Click here for all the inside skinny and to register:

Flexible water sharing agreements or alternative transfer methods (ATMs) could help keep water in agriculture while supplies are shared with municipalities or others to meet the many water needs of the state’s population. Colorado’s Water Plan calls for 50,000 acre-feet of water to be identified in ATMs by 2030.

How can Colorado reach its goal and scale up the adoption of alternative transfer methods? Join Water Education Colorado to explore the conversations around existing policy and policy changes that might increase the adoption of ATMs.

We’ll hear from expert speakers:

Kevin Rein, Colorado’s State Engineer

Peter Nichols, Special counsel to the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District and to the Lower Arkansas Valley Super Ditch Co., Inc.

When: January 11th, 2018 9:30 AM through 10:30 AM

Webinar Fee:

WEco member $ 10.00
non-WEco member $ 15.00

#LakePowellPipeline: FERC is moving ahead with the EIS #UT

Glen Canyon Dam

From The St. George News (David DeMille):

In agreeing to move ahead with the environmental analysis, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission launches a 60-day period for public comment on the project, which has been controversial in communities along the Colorado, a river system that supplies water to some 40 million people across seven states but is in danger of shrinking supplies because of climate change and overuse.

“This is a major milestone toward meeting southern Utah’s need to diversify its water supply and develop resources to meet anticipated demand,” said Eric Millis, director of the Utah Division of Water Resources. “Permitting a water project is a lengthy process and this is a significant step.”

The latest #ENSO diagnostic discussion is hot off the presses

Click here to read the discussion from the Climate Prediction Center. Here’s an excerpt:

ENSO Alert System Status: La Niña Advisory

Synopsis: La Niña is likely (exceeding ~80%) through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2017-18, with a transition to ENSO-neutral most likely during the mid-to-late spring.

La Niña strengthened during the past month, as indicated by an increasingly prominent pattern of below-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. The latest weekly Niño-3.4 index value was -0.8C, with the easternmost Niño-3 and Niño-1+2 indices at or below -1.0C during much of the month. Sub-surface temperature anomalies weakened slightly during November, but remained significantly negative due to the anomalously shallow depth of the thermocline across the central and eastern Pacific. The atmospheric circulation over the tropical Pacific Ocean also reflected La Niña, with convection suppressed near the International Date Line and enhanced over Indonesia. The low-level trade winds were stronger than average over the western and central Pacific, with anomalous westerly winds at upper-levels. Overall, the ocean and atmosphere system reflects La Niña.

La Niña is predicted to persist through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2017-18 by nearly all models in the IRI/CPC plume and in the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME). Based on the latest observations and forecast guidance, forecasters favor the peak of a weak-to- moderate La Niña during the winter (3-month Niño-3.4 values between -0.5C and -1.5C). In summary, La Niña is likely (exceeding ~80%) through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2017-18, with a transition to ENSO-neutral most likely during the mid-to-late spring (click CPC/IRI consensus forecast for the chance of each outcome for each 3-month period).

La Niña is anticipated to affect temperature and precipitation across the United States during the upcoming months (the 3-month seasonal temperature and precipitation outlooks will be updated on Thursday December 21st). The outlooks generally favor above-average temperatures and below-median precipitation across the southern tier of the United States, and below-average temperatures and above- median precipitation across the northern tier of the United States.