Click here for a copy of the letter from State Engineer Dick Wolf to the SLV Advisory Committee.
More coverage from Ruth Heide writing for the Valley Courier. From the article:
Groundwater users will begin to pay back surface water users for the harm they have caused them on May 1, at least in the closed basin area north of the Rio Grande where the San Luis Valley’s first water management sub-district was formed.
Before that happens, however, area residents will have an opportunity to comment on the sub-district’s annual replacement plan detailing how it will begin to replace depletions this year.
The state engineer’s office plans a formal public hearing on the replacement plan next Thursday, April 19, at 10 a.m. at the Ramada Inn (formerly Inn of the Rio Grande) in Alamosa.
Colorado Division of Water Resources Division Engineer for Division 3 Craig Cotten said the sub-district board at its meeting on April 3 took comments on its replacement plan and voted to send the plan on to the state engineer’s office with some minor modifications and additions. The sub-district has to have its final annual replacement plan to the state engineer by April 15.
The state engineer will then hold a formal public hearing on April 19. People may sign up that morning to speak, and comments will be recorded. State Engineer Dick Wolfe will likely make a decision soon afterward and must make a decision prior to May 1, when the replacements must begin.
Here’s the link for the Rio Grande Water Conservation District Annual Replacement Plan from the Division of Water Resources.