Click here for the pitch and links for registration. From email from the Colorado Water Congress (Doug Kemper):
The 2013 Colorado Water Summer Conference is now just over 7 weeks away. We are excited to release the program outline for the first day of the conference, Wednesday, August 21 and a description of some of the POND activities. Additional conference details will be released over the next several days.
Our conference this year will bring to a close a run of 3 consecutive years in Steamboat Springs. It may be another 2 or 3 years before we return for our summer event. So this will be our chance to say farewell for a while. Our POND Committee has organized an evening on the mountain again this year – ride the gondola up to the Thunderhead deck on Thursday for a great evening of music and networking.
The Interim Water Resources Review Committee will meet on Wednesday morning. Their work will begin in earnest on what promises to be an energetic 2014 Legislative Session.
We will have 3 workshops on Wednesday morning. Emily Brumit, our new Communications Coordinator, will lead a session on how to use social media to stay informed and for professional development. We will begin a program called Snow School. Most every water professional in Colorado should have a deep understanding of snow accumulation by river basin, the factors that drive snowmelt, and how to track snow water equivalent. Our third workshop will be on recent Supreme Court cases and legislation of importance in water storage and changes of use.
We are very excited to open the Summer Conference with Dan Keppen who is the Executive Director of the Family Farm Alliance. A dynamic speaker, Dan runs one of the most effective water advocacy groups in the Western U.S. He will give an agricultural perspective on the Colorado River Basin Study and discuss the economic importance of irrigated agriculture.
Certainly the Colorado Water Plan has the water community buzzing with concerns and expectations. The plan will be the focus of the early part of the conference. Our State Affairs committee begins work next week to coalesce the water community’s reaction to the plan and will present their thinking. For some additional perspective, we are excited to have Tim Quinn representing the Association of California Water Agencies, back this year to talk about the California Water Plan and other California activities of interest to us. And we will do something unique that we are calling the Gallery of State Water Plans. This will be an entertaining opportunity to learn about the planning activities in many other Western States in a very condensed format. You can decide which State you think is doing the best job.
We are pleased to announce a collaboration with the Water Law Section of the Colorado Bar in a ceremony recognizing the careers of several of our water attorneys. The induction of the Ancient and Honorable Order of the Water Buffalo will be held on Wednesday evening.
Our focus on Day 2 of the conference will be on agricultural conservation as a source of water supply for instream flow and municipal water supply. We will lay the foundation for the discussion on this controversial topic that will be a major area of focus for us over the next several months.
On Day 3, we will turn our attention to a very serious issue that has evolved over the past 30 days. Both California and Texas have withdrawn from the National Water Resources Association that has represented Colorado and other western states in Washington D.C for about 80 years. As a result, the future of the organization is in peril. We are actively working on next steps as we develop how we will engage on water matters at the federal level.
The conference will conclude with a presentation on the survey of public attitudes toward water that the Water Congress has just commissioned. This is the first time that we have contracted to do such a survey. It is the first substantive work product of the Public Trust Special Project that is off to a strong start.
And we will spend some time reviewing how this water year went as we somewhat nervously look ahead to the 2014 snow accumulation season.