From The Colorado Springs Gazette (Matt Steiner):
The Board of County Commissioners voted on the resolution Tuesday, passing it by a 3-2 vote. Lathen said Darryl Glenn and Peggy Littleton cast the dissenting votes, noting that they wanted to wait until an Oct. 9 presentation by Mayor Steve Bach and consulting firm CH2M Hill before they gave their OK.
The City Council approved the same resolution 7-1 on Sept. 24. Helen Collins opposed it and council member Andy Pico was absent.
Bach has opposed the resolutions while awaiting the consultant’s input.
The commissioners had voted unanimously to approve a resolution in February, but the City Council waited until April after Bach insisted that a private study needed to be done. The mayor also said in February that the decision needed to wait for the new council, which was seated in April.
The outgoing council defied the mayor’s request and passed a regional stormwater resolution as one of its last actions. Scott Hente, the outgoing council president, said after the April 9 vote, “Stormwater is not politics. Stormwater is floods coming into your home. This is something that’s important to the community,” he said.
Lathen echoed Hente’s statement Wednesday when asked why the city and county needed to pass the recent resolutions after both government bodies had already voted in the joint effort. The commissioner stressed that this time, City Council and the BOCC each endorsed the same plan.
“This one is the same resolution signed by both bodies, and we’re excited about that,” Lathen said.
From the Colorado Springs Independent (Pam Zubeck):
For more than a year, local officials have been trying to figure out what to do about drainage. The long-overdue debate has centered on whether it’s best for Colorado Springs to go its own way, as Mayor Steve Bach wishes, or whether all agencies in the watershed need to cooperate to tackle the problem, which by one estimate will cost nearly $1 billion.
Next week, things will come to a head when Bach unveils his long-awaited proposal, along with a report from consultant CH2MHill about whether the city’s projects list alone really totals some $700 million.
From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
Apparently, Fountain Creek is a moving target when it comes to Bureau of Reclamation environmental impact studies. Buried in the documents regarding the Arkansas Valley Conduit and master storage contract for Lake Pueblo released in August is Reclamation’s response to a concern raised by Pueblo County last year.
In a Nov. 30, 2012, letter, Pueblo County’s water attorney Ray Petros asked about the discrepancy of flows on Fountain Creek between the EIS for Southern Delivery System and the conduit when it comes to Colorado Springs’ repeal of its stormwater enterprise in 2009.
Petros also asked if Reclamation intended to reopen the SDS environmental study in light of the stormwater repeal, especially looking at the cumulative impacts of both projects.
Reclamation responded that it would not open a new investigation of Fountain Creek flows because additional storage contracts for some El Paso County cities that are tied into the conduit EIS would have only negligible impact on Fountain Creek.
With regard to the discrepancy in flows on Fountain Creek — they are reduced by 12 percent in the conduit-master contract study — Reclamation responded that different time frames were used. The SDS study looked at 2006 and compared it to 2046 projections, while the conduit study looked at 2010 and compared it to 2070.
The lack of a Colorado Springs stormwater enterprise is of concern to Pueblo County commissioners because it was in existence when a previous board issued a 1041 land-use permit in 2009. Commissioners are evaluating Colorado Springs compliance with 1041 conditions.
The Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District is preparing a federal lawsuit against the Bureau of Reclamation over its lack of action on a request to reopen the EIS for SDS because of the stormwater issue.