Rafters learn about #codrought, #ecology on community river float. #coloradoriver @blazingadv @coloradowater aspenpublicradio.org/post/rafters-l…
— Marci Krivonen (@MarciKrivonen) June 10, 2013
Day: June 10, 2013
Denver Water: The June 2013 issue of WaterNews is hot off the press #COdrought #ColoradoRiver
Click here to read the current issue. Here’s an excerpt:
Spring snowstorms along the Front Range and in our mountain watersheds helped a lot with our dire water supply situation. But this is the second year in a row of below-average snowpack and drier- than-normal conditions in our watersheds. Denver Water’s reservoirs haven’t been full since July 2011, and our current projections show that reservoirs will still be below normal.
We never know what future weather is going to be like, so it’s always important to manage water supplies carefully. The snowpack in Denver Water’s watersheds ended up below the average peak. At this time, Denver Water and several other local water providers still expect to have the Stage 2 mandatory drought restrictions in place to save as much water as possible this summer. Area water utilities will know more about their water supply situations in July after the runoff.
More Denver Water coverage here.
Colorado State University Water Resources Archive Digitizes More Than 43,000 Water History Documents
Here’s the release from Colorado State University (Kate Hawthorne Jeracki):
Over 100 years of Colorado water history — more than 43,000 pages of primary source materials related to water use in the state — are now freely available online.
The Colorado State University Water Resources Archive recently scanned, digitized and posted the items that include reports, images, oral histories and data, thanks to a $50,000 grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB). This is the fourth such grant from the CWCB to the archive.The unique project took just under a year to complete and added material from 15 previously undigitized collections and 24 total collections to the archive’s online offerings. Scanned materials relate to today’s water issues, and include groundwater research and administration, snow hydrology, agricultural water use, the 1976 Big Thompson flood and early water leaders. Digitization also preserved more than 200 rare glass-plate images of Colorado and several thousand slides of dams and waterways in the western United States.
Searchable free access
Patrons can browse documents or find specific items with simple keyword searches on the archive’s website, http://lib.colostate.edu/archives/water/. Online access to archival materials is intended to aid those who want to educate themselves about water but who don’t have the time or money to travel to Fort Collins to view these historic documents.
Some highlights from the recently digitized materials include 41 oral history interviews from survivors and emergency responders of the Big Thompson flood, USGS Civil Engineer Robert Glover’s diaries from 1923 to 1984, and data and reports from Colorado’s portion of the six-state High Plains-Ogallala Aquifer study conducted between 1979 and 1981. Those interested in Colorado history will also find 79 images of farms, towns and mountains in the 1890s from the Delph Carpenter collection particularly fascinating.
The Water Resources Archive, part of the University Libraries, is Colorado’s only repository dedicated specifically to preserving the history of water in the state and the American West. Most of the documents in the archive are unique and unavailable elsewhere. Holdings, contained in nearly 2,000 boxes, cover more than a century of water history and provide access to the studies, debates and legislative deals that have shaped Colorado’s water legacy.
More education coverage here.
Drought news: Dust storms in southeast Colorado reminiscent of 1930s Dust Bowl #COdrought
From The Denver Post (Colleen O’Connor):
Dirt is almost all that people can talk about these days in communities along U.S. 50 and 287. Photos of fierce dust storms rolling across the state’s Eastern Plains are showing up on Facebook and local TV news, harking to the Dust Bowl years that devastated southeastern Colorado in the 1930s. Farmers and ranchers are tolling their losses. People are praying for rain. It’s the inevitable result of three seasons of extreme drought in the area — D4 this year, the worst on the U.S. Drought Monitor scale, and no relief in sight, said state climatologist Nolan Doesken. “The first year, it was very dry, but there was still reasonable vegetative cover,” he said. “That started deteriorating last year, with more and more bare ground.”
For miles on either side of U.S. 287 between Kit Carson and Lamar, the earth is brown and bare during a season that should be bursting with green native grasses and wheat. Even weeds aren’t growing. Failed crops mean vast swaths of land with no roots to anchor parched topsoil. “(Farmers and ranchers) are watching the clouds gather, and then they get nothing but dust storms,” Doesken said. “It’s very depressing.”
The conditions are taxing the financial ledgers and the creativity of people who make their living from the land…
It’s like the silent spring, empty and eerie. Hardly a tractor in sight, as far as the eye can see. No one laboring to prepare for the wheat harvest. No cattle grazing, because the grasses have gone dormant and ranchers are selling off their herds or trucking them elsewhere…
At Stulp Farms, a few miles south of Hixson Farms, they’re down to their last bales of hay. “We’re about to run out,” said Jensen Stulp, a veterinarian who manages the family farm.
His father, John, is a former Colorado commissioner of agriculture who spends most of his time in Denver working as special policy adviser on water to Gov. John Hickenlooper. “We’re down to a fifth of a herd,” Stulp said. “I’m selling 20 pairs every two weeks until it rains, or we run out of cattle.”
San Miguel River watershed: Instream flow right granted in May should keep the river whole from stem to stern
From The Colorado Springs Gazette (Ryan Handy):
One of the last free-flowing rivers in Colorado, the San Miguel will continue to course through the western slope unchecked by mankind, thanks to a May 20 Colorado Water Court ruling granting it protected status. Granted “in-stream flow protection,” the San Miguel will continue to be a natural habitat for three fish species, as well as fuel the down-stream rafting economy, said John Fielder, a landscape photographer and champion of natural resources preservation. “Like the Yampa (River), the San Miguel is one of the last undammed major rivers in the state,” Fielder said.
The in-stream water rights guarantee that no one can take water out of the river, said Rob Harris, a lawyer for Western Resources Advocates, a resources conservation non-profit. Instead, the San Miguel’s water will be preserved for three native fish: the Roundtail Chub, the Flannel Mouth Sucker, and the Bluehead Sucker, Harris said…
To preserve the fish natural habitat, the Colorado Water Conservation Board applied for in-stream flow protection for the San Miguel in 2011, at the urging of Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Bureau of Land Management. The in-stream protection protects a 17-mile segment of the river, which runs west of Montrose near Naturita.
Arkansas River Basin: Two Rivers Water and Farming Co. is proposing to purchase shares of the Excelsior Ditch
From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
Shareholders in the Arkansas Groundwater Users Association will learn the details at meetings this week about a proposed purchase of Excelsior Ditch shares by Two Rivers Water and Farming Co. Last month, Two Rivers announced it would acquire majority interest in the ditch, located east of Pueblo, for a $3.5 million purchase price. Two Rivers also would provide storage to AGUA in a proposed reservoir that would be located on Southwest Farms property.
Meetings are scheduled for Tuesday. They will be at 10 a.m. at Cottonwood Links in Fowler; 12:30 p.m. at the AGUA offices, 212 36th Lane; and 3 p.m. at Coke’s Diner in Fountain. “These are educational meetings that will allow shareholders to ask questions,” said Scott Lorenz, AGUA manager.
AGUA’s board approved a tentative agreement to sell 53.77 percent of the Excelsior Ditch shares to Two Rivers in May, subject to approval by its 320 shareholders.
AGUA provides augmentation water for well pumping along the Arkansas River and Fountain Creek. It uses other sources of water in addition to the Excelsior Ditch.
Even after the proposed sale, the water would be available to AGUA.
Two Rivers CEO John McKowen sees a mutually beneficial relationship with AGUA, and has provided some water leased from the Pueblo Board of Water Works at cost to keep wells pumping this year.
McKowen’s company has purchased nearly all of the Huerfano-Cucharas Ditch system, including Cucharas Reservoir. He has also purchased other farms on the Bessemer Ditch and under Orlando Reservoir in Huerfano County. His goal is to farm high-value crops and create more opportunity for other farmers. Plans include fallowing some land to lease the water and working out cooperative agreements with cities. “Acquiring the Excelsior shares enables Two Rivers to provide muchneeded capital improvements and implement its storage program. The storage facilities will benefit all water users on the Arkansas River and further the plans of AGUA and other shareholders of the Excelsior Ditch,” McKowen said.