Day: September 4, 2010

Colorado River: Efforts to keep flows up when the Shoshone power plant is offline

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Here’s the release from the Colorado River District (Jim Pokrandt):

Rafters, endangered fish and municipalities are iting from an agreement among reservoir owners and water users that maintains flows in the Colorado River even when the Shoshone Hydropower Plant is not calling for its senior water right.

In addition to producing green power for owner Xcel Energy, the Shoshone Plant’s nonconsumptive water right creates an unofficial minimum streamflow in the Colorado River. The rafting industry, individual recreationists, endangered fish and agricultural producers in the Grand Valley depend on the benefits of the Shoshone call. The water also helps communities that draw drinking water from the river.

From time to time, the Shoshone Plant, located on the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon, must reduce diversions for necessary maintenance and cannot place its call for water. To maintain streamflows, however, water leaders in the river’s upper basin have worked out an agreement that makes Shoshone issues invisible to the public and keeps water in the river.

Currently, the century-old plant is expected to be partially shut down or completely down through the fall for maintenance and repairs. At this time of year, with declining natural river flows, many would notice the impacts of not having Shoshone’s 1,250 cubic feet per second (cfs) call on the river.

To compensate, reservoir owners, including the Bureau of Reclamation, Denver Water and the Colorado River District are operating to maintain a “target flow” of 1,250 cfs at the Dotsero gage, just upstream from the plant. The Colorado Division of Water Resources’ Division 5 office in Glenwood Springs is coordinating the plan.

The target flow is maintained through normal reservoir operations that include power plant releases and water held in storage to help protect endangered fish habitat in the Grand Valley. Some of the water would otherwise be released in the winter to make room for next year’s snowmelt. By releasing it now, the benefits accrue to rafters, agricultural producers and drinking water treatment plants.

Additional support for the program is coming from the Grand County Commissioners who have asked the Bureau of Reclamation to start releasing the water they store in Granby Reservoir to the Colorado River. Grand County paid the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District to pump the water into Granby through its Windy Gap Project this spring for late summer when flows through the county ordinarily are thin.

To learn more about this collaborative program, contact Jim Pokrandt with the Colorado River District via phone at 970.945.8522 x 236 or e-mail jpokrandt@crwcd.org.

More hydroelectric coverage here and here.

Colorado River: Tagging endangered fish for data collection

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From the Summit Daily News:

At the Price-Stubb Diversion Dam on the Colorado River near Rifle, a new “passive integrated transponder” (PIT) tag system is now monitoring the movement of endangered fish that are PIT tagged. A PIT tag is similar to a small microchip placed in a dog or cat at a veterinary clinic for individual identification if lost. The new PIT tag system, installed in early August, consists of four, 6-foot-by-5-foot antennas attached to the box culvert at the top of the fish passage. The system detects PIT tags to track whether fish are moving up or down the Price-Stubb Fish Passage. The system provides remote sensing and is built to withstand the flows and debris of the Colorado River. “This type of research tool is a safe, cost-effective way to monitor fish movement in the fish passage,” said Recovery Program Research coordinator Tom Czapla.

Four days after the system became operational, the first PIT-tagged fish — an endangered Colorado pikeminnow — used the passage. Data obtained at Price-Stubb and other locations show that the fish swam 130 river miles during the past year. “We anticipate receiving important information about all four species of endangered fish from this remotely sensed structure,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service project leader Michelle Shaughnessy. “Most of the endangered fish are PIT-tagged, and this tracking system will help identify the type and number of species that move through the fish passage and inhabit this river reach.”[…]

More endangered species coverage here.

Creede: Water line replacement update

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From The Mineral County Miner (Toni Steffens-Steward):

The water line project started with the first phase that replaced lines under La Garita Street, and the second phase was just recently finished. The fourth and final phase of construction is planned to start in the spring of 2011. Replacement work will begin at the south end of town on Sept. 7, and the town council is assuring businesses that the project will be done as delicately as possible…

The project became necessary mainly due to the age of the system, but it will also help to increase system capacity and fire protection requirements.

More infrastructure coverage here.

2010 Sustaining Colorado’s Watersheds: Learning from the past to protect the future

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Click here for all the dope about the conference. Here’s an excerpt:

October 5-7, 2010 at the Vail Cascade Resort and Spa

The draft agenda is available here.

This year’s conference highlights include:

– Pre and post-conference workshops and field trips on water education, 319 grant requirements, algae identification, willow installation and much more
– How to measure results in education, restoration and water quality programs with a workshop by John La Rocca on Outcome Management
– Opportunities for private investment in Colorado’s watersheds by Margaret Bowman of the Walton Family Foundation
– Jon Waterman’s 1,450-mile journey down the Colorado River, documented in his new book Running Dry: A Journey from Source to Sea Down the Colorado River
– Tracks on: tools for watershed restoration, water and land use, statewide water issues, oil & gas regulations, and non-profit management
– And much more!

Registration is $155 for members/$180 for non-members. Register soon! Registrations received after September 20 are subject to a $50 late fee.

More education coverage here.

CWCB: Board meeting September 13-15

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From email from the Colorado Water Conservation Board (Lisa Barr):

The Colorado Water Conservation Board is meeting on September 13-15, 2010, at Ute Water Conservancy District’s Headquarters Office, 2190 H ¼ Road, Grand Junction, CO 81505.

The agenda is available on the CWCB website. CWCB staff memos and other materials will be available September 3, 2010, on our website.

The meeting will be “streamed” via the internet through the CWCB’s website. Click on the “Listen to the meeting LIVE!” link, found on our home page just before the meeting begins.

Presentations are also being made available. To watch presentations that accompany agenda items, click the “Watch Presentations” link on the CWCB website homepage just before the meeting begins…

If you need more information about this Board meeting, please contact Lisa Barr at lisa.barr@state.co.us.

More CWCB coverage here.

Fryingpan-Arkansas Project update

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From email from Reclamation (Kara Lamb):

Just wanted to let you know that Ruedi will maintain its current release through the holiday weekend. The Fryingpan River will remain around 322 cfs.

More Fryingpan-Arkansas Project coverage here.

Colorado-Big Thompson Project update

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From email from Reclamation (Kara Lamb):

This weekend, we will see the water elevation at Lake Estes fluctuate a little, but average out at 7471 feet. It will likely be above 7471 in the afternoons and early evenings, and at 7471, or slighly lower, in the mornings. Releases from Olympus Dam to the Big Thompson are matching the native flow on the Big Thompson River coming into Lake Estes. They will remain around 60 cfs. Pinewood Reservoir has started its more typical flucutation pattern due to power generation. The daily average of the water level elevation through the holiday weekend should be around 6573. Carter Lake is also seeing operations typical of this time of year. Water users continue to take water and the elevation is slowly dropping. We are also running water north from Carter to generate hydropower and meet demands on the Big Thompson River. As a result, the water elevation at Carter is at 5722. It will likely remain in the 5720s through the weekend, a fairly average water elevation for this time of year. Horsetooth continues to see a slow draw. It is at an elevation of 5402 and is anticipated to stay near the 5400 mark through the weekend.

From email from Reclamation (Kara Lamb):

We are currently releasing about 625 cfs from Green Mountain Reservoir to the Lower Blue. There might be some slight fluctuations, but 625 cfs will be the average release through the weekend.

More Colorado-Big Thompson Project coverage here.

Boulder: Wastewater treatment plant exceeds new rules for effluent discharge temperature in winter months

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From the Boulder Daily Camera (Heath Urie):

The Colorado Water Quality Control Commission in 2007 approved new standards for wastewater discharge lines that require municipalities to better control the temperature of the water that’s treated and then dumped into creeks and rivers. The rules were put in place to protect fish and other wildlife that are sensitive to water temperature.

Now, Boulder is finding itself to be something of a guinea pig for the state, as it’s the first municipality to renew its wastewater-discharge permit since the rules went into effect last year for streams within the South Platte River Basin. When city utility officials received a proposed draft of the new discharge permit earlier this year, they found out that Boulder’s 75th Street Wastewater Treatment Plant — which discharges about 20 million gallons a day into Boulder Creek — is not meeting the new standards during the coldest months of the year. According to the Water Quality Control Division of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment — which is tasked with enforcing the standards and issuing permits — the new rules limit the maximum average temperature of discharged water to 59 degrees during the winter. But Boulder’s water ranges from 53.24 to 61.34 degrees from December through February…

“They’re pretty close to meeting the standards,” Steve Gunderson, director of the state Water Quality Control Division, said of the Boulder utility. “They are not quite there for the winter months.” Gunderson said the state has proposed giving Boulder until October 2013 to comply with all of the standards. “This is a challenge for a domestic wastewater treatment plant,” he said. “It can be pretty expensive to upgrade a wastewater treatment center.”[…]

Williams said it’s not yet clear how the city will meet the new temperature requirements. “We’re trying to sort it out, better understand it, talk to the state about it and see what might happen in our final permit,” Williams said. He told the City Council earlier this week that a worst-case scenario is that the utility will be forced to “chill our wastewater.” That could force the city to make some “very unusual” capital improvements, such as purchasing a giant chiller that would cool the water, or creating detention ponds where water can naturally cool off, Williams said. It is possible that the city could ask the state for an exemption from the temperature rules, but that would have to be approved through both the water commission and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The city has until late September to file a response about the state’s offer for a three-year grace period.

More wastewater coverage here.

Energy policy — oil and gas: Larimer County Commissioners turn down proposed Deep Water Metropolitan District

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From the North Forty News:

Despite an affirmative recommendation from the planning commission and planning staff, Larimer County Commissioners voted 3-0 against a metropolitan district that could eventually have provided an emergency water source for Wellington. Commissioners said the proposal did not provide enough information for them to support the idea, which would create a quasi-governmental authority. Commissioner Steve Johnson said water owner Richard Seaworth could just as easily form a private company to sell water to Wellington. Creating a metro district now is “backward to me,” he said.

More Wellington coverage here and here.

Hiawatha Lake outlet works maintenance

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From the North Forty News (Stephen Clearheart Johnson):

Truth is the lake is being drained to enable routine maintenance in rebuilding the outlet head gate and strengthening the dam. Routine, that is, if gauged over a long time span. “We think the dam was last rebuilt in 1954,” said Gene Barker, “but the records aren’t clear.” Barker is a board member of Red Feather Storage & Irrigation, the company that owns the lake. Known locally as S&I, the company manages water rights on the many lakes, ditches and diversion controls in the area. The lake has been drained as far as possible. A shallow pool averaging 8 inches remains. The pool will be aerated to keep the water healthy for remaining fish. Barker said he thinks most of the fish went downstream with the water…

“We’ve improved the quality of the system by quite a bit by redesigning the outlet structure,” said Barker. The improvements should prevent the action of winter ice from damaging both metal and concrete components of the outlet gate.

More South Platte River Basin coverage here.

Montezuma County: Tamarisk forum recap

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From the Cortez Journal (Kimberly Benedict):

The evening forum, held at the Calvin Denton Room at Empire Electric, was presented by the Dolores Conservation District in partnership with Colorado State University Extension. “Our main focus is to hear from everybody what you want to be doing with tamarisk in the county,” said Steve Miles, of the Dolores Conservation District. “We really want to hear input as to what you want to see the conservation district do.”[…]

Miles, Clark Tate, with the Tamarisk Coalition, and Dan Bean, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, gave brief presentations on the progress of tamarisk eradication in the west, focusing on the use of tamarisk beetle biocontrol. First released in 2001 in experimental sites, tamarisk beetles are now widespread throughout Colorado and Utah. The small beetles are native to China and Kazakhstan and were part of a $1 million USDA project aimed at finding a biocontrol agent for tamarisk. “The tamarisk biocontrol project started in the ’70s with a look at tamarisk and the problems and potential for developing agents for control,” Bean said. “At the time their was a belief you could not control trees and shrubs with an insect so they shelved it. In the late ’80s they reconsidered.”

Tamarisk beetles do not kill plants directly, they consume the foliage resulting in stressed plants that have difficulty greening after a few seasons, according to Tate. The beetles have left a wake of dead tamarisk in their path in Nevada, resulting in a 75 percent mortality rate. “We are seeing a lot of stressed out tamarisk,” Tate said. “It is hard to tell if they are actually dead, but just looking at them, they are very, very stressed. It is time to start thinking about the void that is going to be created.”

More tamarisk control coverage here and here.