Greeley to allow developers to pay cash-in-lieu of water

Greeley in 1870 via Denver Public Library

From The Greeley Tribune (Tyler Silvy):

In Greeley, developers have historically been required to bring water to the table for any proposed development.

Often, that water is associated with whatever piece of land the developer bought, so it’s an easy transfer.

But when the land has already been dried up, developers are forced to hit the open market, competing with other developers to buy water at increasingly higher prices.

“The way it is now, it’s kind of driving water prices up,” said Martin Lind, a major Front Range developer. “You’ve got 50 developers looking for small (portions) of water here and there.”

In Greeley, there are fewer pieces of land with water rights still attached than ever before, and if Greeley wants to continue to grow — and city leaders say it must — officials say they’ve got to do something.

Greeley’s solution, in the works since at least 2003, exchanges buckets of water for buckets of cash, as city leaders contemplate a transition to a system that allows developers to pay cash-in-lieu of water, a system officials say would be less burdensome on developers.

That plan, based both on a dwindling supply of water and upon Greeley’s ability to potentially strike better deals, likely wouldn’t be approved until August.

For Harold Evans, chairman of the Greeley Water and Sewer Board and a man who has experience in Colorado real estate, the plan would be good for everyone.

“It gives (developers more options),” Evans said. “I think it will be a positive for the development community.”

SMART WATER

Greeley’s water planning goes out to 2065, and the city has been engaged in an aggressive, multi-phase water buying plan during the past several years.

The city owns most of the water in its projected growth area — the areas not yet within city limits but expected to be one day, areas like the ones between Weld County roads 17 and 13, north of U.S. 34.

With that in mind, it’s easy to see why there are fewer water resources available for developers.

Take Journey Homes, which is building a 400-home development at the southwest corner of 83rd Avenue and 10th Street in west Greeley.

Journey Homes Principal Larry Buckendorf said water comes first in almost everything Journey does.

“For Journey, it’s water,” Buckendorf said. “That is the first consideration that we look into — what are the municipalities’ raw water requirements and what kind of water is attached to the land? It’s item No. 1.”

Journey followed probably the simplest process available. It bought the land and the water that came with the land and deeded it to the city.

But what happens when there’s no water attached to the land? That’s literally a growing problem as agriculture users sell their water rights to growing municipalities across the Front Range.

The answer, for Greeley, is to let developers pay cash for water they don’t have. Buckendorf said it’s always good to have more options, and he said he has always enjoyed working with Greeley.

Today, Greeley allows developers to pay cash-in-lieu of water for just 8 acre-feet of water.

To give some perspective, Journey Homes’ development sits on 166 acres. Greeley requires 3 acre-feet of water for every acre of land. That means the city required 498 acre-feet of water from Journey, and Journey could bring cash to the table for just 8 of those.

Switching fully to cash-in-lieu wouldn’t necessarily reduce developers’ costs, as Greeley will factor in not just the cost of water but the relative costs of storage expansion projects and system upkeep. But it would reduce the headache of buying water on the open market.

“We see that we need to start to do a transition to support development,” Water and Sewer Director Burt Knight said. “If I don’t do a transition, and you don’t have water tied to the property, I’m forcing you into the market to buy C-BT (Colorado-Big Thompson). That’s a very difficult market, and it’s expensive.”

A nice, round, roughly accurate number is $30,000 per acre-foot. If Journey paid cash, it would be out $14.9 million just in water — before selling a single home.

To recoup those costs, Journey would need to take out about $40,000 from each of the 400 homes it’s building in west Greeley. That helps explain why housing affordability is so difficult to attain, officials say.

“Before you’ve moved any dirt, before you’ve bought the land, before you’ve done anything, you have to calculate about $100,000 per each acre just for the water,” Greeley Community Development Director Brad Mueller said.

It’s possible more housing stock would help drive prices lower, and Greeley does have room to grow. Today, Mueller said the city has more jobs than houses, and that’s an imbalance — although not the worst version of such an imbalance — city officials hope to fix at least in part by switching to the cash-in-lieu system.

DIFFERENT STROKES

Brian Werner is the spokesman for the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which manages a number of projects, including the Colorado-Big Thompson project.

That project diverts water across the continental divide to the Front Range. Talk to anyone who knows water and they’ll say it’s the best water. Why? Well, first, it comes from high in the Rocky Mountains, fed by snowmelt.

Second, unlike almost any other water source in Colorado, it can be used for anything in the South Platte River Basin, all the way to Julesberg and Nebraska, without a decade-long water court battle to change its use. To clarify, if a city buys water that has historically been used to water crops, it must go to court and get approval to use the water for residential development.

Because there are no such requirements for CBT water, though, it’s costly. Werner said an auction earlier this year featured $30,000-per-unit prices.

In 1957, the first year the CBT project was in operation, units sold for $1.50 apiece, Werner said. If CBT water shares simply followed inflation, they would cost $13.47 per share today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.

And back then, 85 percent of the units were owned by agriculture producers. Today, that’s 30 percent.

Werner said that won’t get much lower, as there are a few large farming operations that might not ever sell.

All of that, combined with developers needing the water to help Front Range cities grow, leads to price increases.

It’s another reason Greeley is looking to switch to a cash-based system.

But the same problem leads to different solutions.

Many smaller water districts and municipalities are actually taking an opposite approach to the problem, forcing developers to bring water to the table so those water districts don’t have to deal with the open market.

Werner said there’s no way to say either system represents a smarter approach to water policy, as a variety of factors affect any given water district. And he certainly wouldn’t criticize Greeley, a city he uses as an example of proper water planning.

“They’ve done one of the best jobs in northern Colorado of building a water portfolio,” Werner said. “They’ve been doing it for 150 years, so they’ve got a better starting position than some of these newer communities.”

GROWING PROBLEM

Knight said without the impending change to the way Greeley manages water, it would be difficult if not impossible for new development to move forward.

It begs a question, though: Is there pressure to grow at the expense of smart water policy?

Even if Knight and Mueller said they’ve never felt that pressure, there’s enough at stake that Greeley regularly studies its neighbor municipalities when it comes to water and development policy.

Every five years, the city looks at prices and trends and compares itself with others. The most recent study, completed in July 2015 by BBC Research and Consulting, cost $41,876.27, and the study looked at the 21 fastest-growing municipalities across the Front Range.

That study showed Greeley’s costs, including the amount of water required to be deeded to the city, impact fees and tap fees, were above average among those municipalities, and called the high cost of water significant for developers and new homebuyers.

The prices have only gone up since July 2015, but even then, Greeley’s costs were $36,271 per home — $8,000 higher than average. With CBT shares going for $5,000 more today than before, the costs are closer to $40,000 per home today.

Some of the other municipalities were similar, including Johnstown, which was higher in 2015 at $35,000 per home, and Windsor ($28,500 per home).

Others were far lower, including $11,375 in Evans and $10,000 for the Central Weld Water District, which covers a vast swath of rural Weld County from Evans and Kersey down to Firestone. Longmont and Lafayette were below $10,000.

“There are some communities that we kind of shake our head,” Knight said, refusing to name names. “It looks either low or high. The ones that are low make us wonder, ‘Are they making themselves vulnerable in the future?’ ”

So how does Greeley compete for new development with costs like that?

Buckendorf said the costs tend to shake out in the end.

“Land sellers are very astute,” Buckendorf said. “They know if the raw water requirement is less, they’ll ask for more for their land.”

Knight said Greeley sets its rates in such a way as to ensure the city recoups the necessary costs, and typically that leaves Greeley somewhere in the middle of the city’s Front Range neighbors.

“It’s important for Greeley residents to appreciate that we have a current water board and history of water board members who have been very serious stewards of the water for the community,” Mueller said.

Due to low water flow, @COParksWildlife enacts emergency fishing closure on heavily fished portion of Yampa River below Stagecoach Reservoir

Photo credit Upper Yampa River Water Conservancy District.

Here’s the release from Colorado Parks and Wildlife (Mike Porras):

Due to critically low water flow caused by dry conditions and minimal snowpack levels, Colorado Parks and Wildlife will close a 0.6-mile stretch of the Yampa River between the dam at Stagecoach State Park down to the lowermost park boundary.

The closure begins June 14 and will continue until further notice.

“Should the flow rate increase substantially for a continuous period of time, CPW will re-evaluate the emergency fishing closure,” said Senior Aquatic Biologist Lori Martin. “But for now, we need to take this course of action because of the current conditions at this popular fishery.”

When water flows are minimal, fish become concentrated in residual pool habitat and become stressed due to increased competition for food resources. The fish become much easier targets for anglers, an added stressor that can result in increased hooking mortality.

“We are trying to be as proactive as possible to protect the outstanding catch and release trout fishery we have downstream of Stagecoach Reservoir,” said Area Aquatic Biologist Bill Atkinson. “This stretch of the river receives a tremendous amount of fishing pressure, especially in the spring when other resources might not be as accessible. This emergency closure is an effort to protect the resource by giving the fish a bit of a reprieve when they are stressed like they are right now.”

CPW advises anglers to find alternative areas to fish until the order is rescinded. Many other local areas are now fishable, with tributaries contributing water to maintain various fisheries. Several area lakes are also open and fishing well.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife asks for cooperation from anglers; however, the closure will be enforced by law with citations issued for anyone violating the order.

Wildlife officials warn when a fish population is significantly affected by low flows or other unfavorable environmental conditions, it could take several years for it to fully recover if not protected.

Like many rivers and streams in western Colorado, the Yampa River offers world-class fishing and attracts thousands of anglers each year, providing a source of income to local businesses that depend on outdoor recreation.

“We ask for the public’s patience and cooperation,” said Atkinson. “It is very important that we do what we can to protect this unique fishery, not only for anglers, but for the communities that depend on the tourism revenue this area provides for local businesses.”

For more information, contact Stagecoach State Park at 970-736-2436, or CPW’s Steamboat Springs office at 970-870-2197.

Emerging trends in global freshwater availability — @JayFamiglietti, et al.

Trends in TWS (in centimetres per year) obtained on the basis of GRACE observations from April 2002 to March 2016. The cause of the trend in each outlined study region is briefly explained and colour-coded by category. The trend map was smoothed with a 150-km-radius Gaussian filter for the purpose of visualization; however, all calculations were performed at the native 3° resolution of the data product. Graphic credit: Jay Famiglietti, et al.

Click here to read the report. Here’s the abstract:

Freshwater availability is changing worldwide. Here we quantify 34 trends in terrestrial water storage observed by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites during 2002–2016 and categorize their drivers as natural interannual variability, unsustainable groundwater consumption, climate change or combinations thereof. Several of these trends had been lacking thorough investigation and attribution, including massive changes in northwestern China and the Okavango Delta. Others are consistent with climate model predictions. This observation-based assessment of how the world’s water landscape is responding to human impacts and climate variations provides a blueprint for evaluating and predicting emerging threats to water and food security.

Pope Tells Oil Executives to Act on Climate: ‘There Is No Time to Lose’ — New York Times #ActOnClimate

From The New York Times (Elisabetta Povoledo):

Three years ago, Pope Francis issued a sweeping letter that highlighted the global crisis posed by climate change and called for swift action to save the environment and the planet.

On Saturday, the pope gathered money managers and titans of the world’s biggest oil companies during a closed-door conference at the Vatican and asked them if they had gotten the message.

“There is no time to lose,” Francis told them on Saturday.

Pressure has been building on oil and gas companies to transition to less polluting forms of energy, with the threat of fossil-fuel divestment sometimes used as a stick.

The pope said oil and gas companies had made commendable progress and were “developing more careful approaches to the assessment of climate risk and adjusting their business practices accordingly.” But those actions were not enough.

“Will we turn the corner in time? No one can answer that with certainty,” the pope said. “But with each month that passes, the challenge of energy transition becomes more pressing.”

He called on the participants “to be the core of a group of leaders who envision the global energy transition in a way that will take into account all the peoples of the earth, as well as future generations and all species and ecosystems.”

In an era when the White House is viewed by many scientists as hostile to the very idea of climate change, with President Trump announcing the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, Francis is seen as an influential voice to nudge oil executives to take action on the issue.

From The Hill (Avery Anapol):

“We know that the challenges facing us are interconnected,” he said, according to Reuters. “If we are to eliminate poverty and hunger … the more than one billion people without electricity today need to gain access to it.”

“But that energy should also be clean, by a reduction in the systematic use of fossil fuels,” he added. “Our desire to ensure energy for all must not lead to the undesired effect of a spiral of extreme climate changes due to a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, harsher environments and increased levels of poverty.”

From United Nations Climate Change:

According to a report by FTSE Russell, a key provider of stock market indices and associated data , the green economy is now worth as much as the fossil fuel sector and offers more significant and safe investment opportunities, pointing towards even more significant growth in the future.

The green economy is defined as an economy that aims at reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without degrading the environment.

The green economy is also characterized by being efficient, clean, circular, collaborative and low carbon. As such, it is central to achieving the key objective of the Paris Agreement on climate action.

Presently, the green economy is worth as much as the fossil fuel sector with 6% of the global stock market, roughly $4 trillion USD, coming from the clean energy, energy efficiency, water, waste and pollution services.

If the sustainable economy maintains its current course, it could represent as much as 10% of the global market value by 2030, assuming around $90 USD trillion in green investment have been made by then.

Green companies generate higher returns than the broader stock market

FTSE Russel found that, over the last five years, green companies generated higher returns than the broader stock market. The report finds large investment opportunity, backed by global efforts to combat climate change and broader environmental challenges.

“Climate change is the death of progress and prosperity. Doing nothing about it is simply a bad investment in the future.”, said UN Climate Chief Patricia Espinosa in a message to the World Manufacturing Convention in China earlier this year. “The shape of the new economy is clear: it’s clean, green and prosperous, and I encourage all of you to get on board,“ she added.

The FTSE Russel report finds the green economy has spread across companies of various size, nature, and geographical range in contrast to fossil fuels which has shrunk. Still, more work is required to keep the global economy on track to meet the Paris agreement goals.

The report analyzes a broad range of products and services from different sectors. Findings were based on the impact of these factors on climate change mitigation and adaptation, water, resource use, pollution, and agricultural efficiency.

In terms of diversification, large companies lead the way by representing roughly two thirds of the total green market value. Similarly, small and medium sized firms now represent a larger number of green companies.

The energy industry, a very diverse segment ranging from building insulation to cloud technology, makes up more than half of the green economy with food, agriculture, water and transport being other important sectors.

High-Tech, Renewables Have Major Role to Play in the Green Economy

Specifically, the buildup of cloud infrastructure technology is a focus for industry leaders such as Microsoft and Amazon. According to a recent Accenture report, companies can reduce carbon emissions by up to 90% by switching to cloud computing technology.

Alternative energy also plays a significant role in with rapidly growing and diversifying solar and more established technologies, such as large hydroelectric. Resources such as lithium for batteries, lightweight materials, organic foods or seeds developed to boost agricultural yields are also a key area of the green economy.

Moreover, the study found approximately 3,000 globally listed companies with exposure to the green economy. This number has risen by approximately 20% since 2009 and covers 30% of global, listed market value.

The largest companies in the green economy are a mix of both companies where the majority of their revenue is green, such as Tesla or Waste Management Inc, and large companies where a segment is green, such as Microsoft or Siemens.

The report allows investors to understand their interactions with the green economy while developing investment strategies by quantitatively measuring the world’s transition to sustainability.

The Global Climate Action Summit, which will take place from September 12-14 in California, is the next big opportunity for businesses to provide confidence to governments to ‘step up’ ambition to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, and we can expect a further strengthening of the green economy at that event, co-chaired by the Patricia Espinosa as the UN’s top climate change official.

Click here for the FTSE Russel report

Cranmer Award to Ken and Ruth Wright

Cranmer Award to Ken and Ruth Wright Colorado Open Lands

Ken and Ruth

A remarkable team,
you’ve embraced Colorado
thoroughly enough

to gauge its most basic
dimensions, its mountains,
mesas, canyons, plains;

that we the creatures of this
great land in trapezoidal fashion
depend upon our abilities

to abide with each other;
in this, you teach that every
potential answer requires

re-phrasing the question
based on experience gained
in following the evidence to

its next incremental intuition;
your chosen professions,
engineering and the law

you use as problem-solving
parabolas arching over
canyon rims to ribbons

of streams, diminishing or
roaring through public discourse;
clean and healthy enough

to cultivate a whole new
generation of eager and true
Ruth and Kens!

Greg and Bobbie Hobbs
6/7/2018

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“Decreases in water levels oftentimes … reduce habitat” — Paul Foutz #ActOnClimate

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Zach Hillstrom):

Less precipitation doesn’t only mean less water, it also means less food, less vegetation and less places for animals to hide, making wildlife especially vulnerable when drought conditions persist.

The lack of vegetation can pose some serious problems for the animals that call the region home, including many of its bird species,

according to Brian Dreher, a senior wildlife biologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

“Essentially, when it’s dry, what we tend to see is that a lot of plants don’t appear, and plants are important for bug life and communities,” Dreher said. “So that’s obviously a food source for a lot of birds. Also, there’s just the lack of vegetation. If you’re a bird that nests on the ground, you can become more vulnerable because of the lack of vegetation around.”

Fortunately, Dreher said, the area’s wildlife are extremely adaptable, and even sparse events of precipitation can make a major difference in helping species rebound.

“These are dynamic systems that can respond quickly to rain, and wildlife can certainly adapt to the environment as it changes,” he detailed…

“Decreases in water levels oftentimes … reduce habitat,” said Paul Foutz, a native aquatic species biologist for CPW. “It can condense whatever is occupying that water body into a smaller volume of water, which can be impactful to things like water quality.”

While lower water levels can impact all of the region’s aquatic life, it is perhaps most detrimental to the fish who dwell in smaller bodies of water, such as those that live in small streams on the eastern plains.

Click on the graphic to read the paper from NOAA.

The latest “CWCB Confluence” newsletter is hot off the presses from @CWCB_DNR

Click here to read the newsletter. Here’s an excerpt:

STATE OF THE WATER STATE

Drought Activation

On May 2, 2018, in response to persistent and prolonged drought in portions of Colorado, the Governor activated the Colorado Drought Mitigation and Response Plan for the agricultural sector for select counties. The Drought Task Force, a cabinet level group, will meet throughout the period of drought activation to ensure coordination among state agencies, the Governor’s Office, and federal partners. The Agricultural Impact Task force is also meeting throughout the period of activation and will assess and track the impacts to the agricultural sector, as well as work with federal partners to get aid and resources to people in the impacted areas. The goal of these groups is to improve communication among state and federal agencies, increase the speed with which aid gets to impacted communities, and to address concerns before they become crises. Learn more about the drought.

Reckoning with History: The devolution of conservation’s trust fund — @HighCountryNews

From The High Country News (Adam M. Sowards):

The Land Water Conservation Fund is set to expire, thanks to a partisan Congress.

Reckoning with History is an ongoing series that seeks to understand the legacies of the past and to put the West’s present moment in perspective.

In 2015, Congress allowed the Land and Water Conservation Fund to lapse. The LWCF functions like a trust fund, where Congress directs offshore oil and gas royalties into conservation projects; it remains very popular across the country and across the political aisle. Because of the public outcry when it expired, Congress extended the fund three more years, which means that it will die at the end of September — unless lawmakers vote to revive it. If the fund folds, it will be in part because of the partisan environment that has developed since its inception. But its collapse will close off a popular and successful avenue for federal and local collaboration.

The fund’s history stretches back to the 1950s, when pent-up consumer demand and a growing population pushed more Americans into the leisure-seeking middle classes. They flooded national parks, forests and refuges to recreate, and public-land agencies needed a plan to respond to the demand. The Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, authorized in 1958 by Congress, recommended a public fund to support recreation, in places ranging from city parks to wilderness. Congress obliged and passed the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act in 1964 “to assist in preserving, developing, and assuring accessibility” for outdoor recreation opportunities “for individual active participation … and to strengthen the health and vitality” of Americans and visitors from other countries. The LWCF furnished money to acquire new lands, such as inholdings within existing federal parks or wilderness areas, and to match state grants to bolster local public parks, including those in urban neighborhoods. Support for the bill was bipartisan; just a single representative in each house of Congress voted against it.

Initially, the funding came from user fees, sales of surplus federal property and a tax on motorboat fuel. By 1968, Congress had modified the funding formula to grab a share of oil and gas leasing receipts from drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, a clever way to soothe legislators’ feelings of guilt for allowing exploitation of natural resources by funding conservation. (Today, the LWCF is nearly fully funded by offshore drilling royalties.)

The Bonneville Shoreline Trail winds along the hills above Salt Lake City. It received support from the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Michlaovic/Wikimedia Commons

The authorized annual limit of the fund has steadily increased, to $900 million, but Congress must specifically appropriate the money. Only twice in its half-century history has the Land and Water Conservation Fund been fully used. So while money flows into the account — some $36.2 billion since 1965 — Congress has only appropriated $16.8 billion. Even that deflated sum has been sufficient to acquire close to 7 million public acres. In its early years, the fund helped create new national parks and recreation areas. In 1968, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act authorized using up to $17 million from the LWCF to protect wild river corridors. More recently, the LWCF helped prevent development and acquire land to connect portions of long-distance paths, such as the Pacific Crest Trail and Continental Divide Trail, or more modest and local favorites like the Bonneville Shoreline Trail along the Wasatch Front. Virtually every Western county has received LWCF investments; 42,000 grants have been sent to states to partner in developing recreational opportunities.

Despite such successes, the fund has drawn the ire of lawmakers over the years, especially as the way it was distributed changed. The original law provided that 60 percent of the fund should be allocated for state projects and 40 percent for federal. Now, the law specifies that not less than 40 percent should go toward federal projects. In 1998, Congress amended the LWCF to allow for “other purposes” aside from land acquisition. In a 2000 Senate hearing about restoring full funding to the LWCF, Larry Craig, R-Idaho, put it clearly: “I don’t want the federal government owning one more acre in Idaho. I’m mainly concerned because federal lands become king’s lands.” Today, conservative and free-market environmental think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation and the Property and Environment Research Center, similarly object to reauthorizing the fund and expanding federal holdings, drawing inspiration from the Sagebrush Rebellion’s opposition in the 1980s. Such opponents argue instead that private property and the free market offer the best path forward for improving conservation. Some critics also oppose the migration to “other purposes” and the shift toward greater benefits to federal compared with state and local projects, because they maintain that federal agencies do a poor job managing existing lands.

When Congress debated the law in the early 1960s, National Park Service Director Conrad Wirth urged senators to support it so that unborn generations could develop “their God-given right to understand, enjoy, and obtain inspiration and healthful benefits from the very land, water, and air from whence all have sprung.” No such rhetoric may be able to save the fund now, even if Wirth’s faith in parks and wildernesses still widely endures. For more than 50 years, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has helped create a full range of outdoor recreation and conservation opportunities, from favorite neighborhood parks to remote wild canyons and sometimes the trails that connect them, adding immeasurable wealth to the United States. Unfortunately, a conservative bloc in our partisan Congress seems unwilling to admit that.

Adam M. Sowards is an environmental historian, professor, and writer. He lives in Pullman, Washington.

This story was originally published at High Country News (http://hcn.org) on June 8, 2018 date

Fountain Creek: U.S. Sen. Bennet introduces amendment to Pentagon budget bill that would appropriate $9 million for PFC mitigation

The Fountain Creek Watershed is located along the central front range of Colorado. It is a 927-square mile watershed that drains south into the Arkansas River at Pueblo. The watershed is bordered by the Palmer Divide to the north, Pikes Peak to the west, and a minor divide 20 miles east of Colorado Springs. Map via the Fountain Creek Watershed Flood Control and Greenway District.

From The Colorado Springs Gazette (Tom Roeder):

Bennet’s amendment would provide as much as $9 million to reimburse water utilities in Security, Widefield and Fountain for what they laid out in 2016 after learning their drinking water contained unsafe levels of perfluorinated chemicals from toxic firefighting foam released by Peterson Air Force Base.

“This builds on years of our work with the Air Force to address … contamination and is long overdue for the local water authorities who worked to provide safe drinking water to Colorado residents,” Bennet said in an email. “We’ll continue to push for its inclusion in the defense bill.”

Security Water and Sanitation District would get up to $6 million to pay for a pipeline it installed to pump clean Pueblo Reservoir water to its more than 19,000 customers.

“That’s something we have been working for and hoping for,” said district General Manager Roy Heald.

Southern El Paso County water districts began piling up bills in May 2016 after tests of water from the aquifer revealed contamination levels up to 30 times more than the maximum recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Districts’ officials assumed the Air Force would pay to fight the contamination and were shocked when the military refused to pay the bill. The Pentagon concluded it couldn’t reimburse the districts without authorization from Congress.

That’s where Bennet’s amendment comes in. The brief measure piggybacks on a similar move to reimburse towns where water contamination came from National Guard bases and expands it to include active-duty posts including Peterson.

Bennet got support from Colorado Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, who signed on as a co-sponsor.

Heald said the senators have worked for months to figure out a fix for the utilities’ financial woes.

“They have both been here to talk to us directly about these issues,” he said.

But Heald isn’t counting the federal cash just yet. The provision for the money is a tiny part of the massive National Defense Authorization Act, a bill that sets spending across the military and includes hundreds of policy tweaks and changes.

With $716 billion at stake, lawmakers are expected to fight for weeks over every word the bill contains.

Bennet will need Senate approval, which seems likely with bipartisan support. But then he will have to fight with House lawmakers who signed off on their version of the defense bill, which doesn’t contain the water money.

Meanwhile U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton is pushing the EPA to keep their lawsuit active to get relief for Pueblo County from Fountain Creek stormwater. Here’s a report from Pam Zubeck writing for The Colorado Springs Independent. From the article:

U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, has joined plaintiffs in the EPA’s lawsuit against the city of Colorado Springs in urging EPA chief Scott Pruitt to stay the course in the Clean Water Act litigation…

Here’s Tipton’s letter, the latest salvo in the dispute:

Dear Administrator Pruitt,

I am writing in regard to the lawsuit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Colorado Public Department of Public Health an Environment (CDPHE) have filed against the City of Colorado Springs, Colorado. The lawsuit was filed on November 9, 2016, pursuant to Sections 309(b) and (d) of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and the Colorado Water Quality Control Act.

The City of Colorado Springs’ failure to control stormwater has led to decades of discharge that is not in compliance with state and federal clean water laws. The stormwater has led to sediment buildup in Fountain Creek and created significant problems for downstream communities, especially for Pueblo, Colorado, which is in my Congressional District.

Recent reports that the EPA may re-enter negotiations with the City of Colorado Springs raise questions about the future of the lawsuit and the ability of the EPA to provide long-term certainty to downstream communities that their upstream neighbors are complying with clean water laws.

The long history of stormwater negotiations between Colorado Springs and downstream water users has not yielded positive, lasting results for communities like Pueblo. While I have been encouraged by the commitment demonstrated by Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers to solve the long-standing problem, the lawsuit was filed by both the EPA and the CDPHE for a reason. It is imperative that the EPA work to permanently protect the water quality for communities downstream from Colorado Springs.

If you have any questions or wish to discuss this issue further, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers has said he’d rather spend money on stormwater projects than litigation, but the city’s failure to fix its drainage system over the years has instilled distrust in downstream communities.

Voters approved a stormwater fee last fall that kicks in on July 1 but litigants in the lawsuit question if the $17 million a year for 20 years will be adequate to reduce flooding and mitigate sediment in Fountain Creek.

Fountain Creek erosion via The Pueblo Chieftain

Please vote for the environment in the #Colorado primary election, June 26, 2018

Flooded corn crop September 2013.

Drought impacted corn. Water stress can lead to insufficient water supply for cities, agriculture, and vegetation. Dry vegetation may facilitate the propagation and increase the risk of wildfires.

Brad Udall likes to tell folks that, “Climate change is water change,” and he is right.

Please consider voting for the environment. You owe it to those that have a good chance of being alive in 2050. With the CO2 in the environment already the atmosphere will continue to warm for generations. Science has known about the greenhouse gas effect over a 100 years.

Here’s a look at water sustainability from Rebecca Lorenzen writing for NewSecurityBeat:

Food and Floods: Challenges

“Agriculture currently uses about 70 percent of the world’s freshwater resources, with only about 10 percent going to cities and residents, and 20 percent going to industry,” said Kate Tully, Assistant Professor of Agroecology at the University of Maryland. Water is “embedded in the foods that we eat,” she said; the most “water hungry” foods—like beef and pork—represent much more water use than poultry and legumes.

Through agricultural products, virtual water moves around the world. “The globalization of trade has decoupled the environmental effects that are a result of our agricultural production from the places that are consuming those products,” said Tully. “We now are relying very heavily on a few water-rich regions to provide most of our food.”

But environmental changes, including climate change, may threaten this reliance. For example, at the current rate of sea-level rise, a good portion of habitable and agricultural land space in Bangladesh will be underwater. In Africa and Asia, eight major crops may be lost by 2050, warned Tully.

Droughts and floods in the United States also threaten trade. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages navigable rivers, channels, and dams, can recover from floods relatively quickly, said Kathleen White, the lead of the Corps’ Climate Preparedness and Resilience Community of Practice. But droughts can present significant challenges: If “you can’t get any barges down the river, then there’s a real problem.” Improving the United States’ hydroclimatic forecasts will help improve dam management, she said.

Upcoming Event: #Colorado #Climate Action Plan and Next Steps with Governor John Hickenlooper #ActOnClimate

Here’s the release from the Alliance Center via PR Newswire:

On Thursday, June 14 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., Governor John Hickenlooper and other state officials will speak at The Alliance Center (TAC), 1536 Wynkoop Street, Denver, to discuss the 2018 version of the Colorado Climate Plan. The governor will address how climate actions across the state have and will continue to create economic opportunities, and how clean energy jobs continue to build our state’s economy. Following the governor’s remarks, a panel of the governor’s staff will talk about strategies and actions to address a broad range of sectors including water, energy, transportation, and public health.

In 2017, Colorado joined the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of states pledging to uphold the climate goals of the Paris Agreement, and by executive order, Gov. Hickenlooper created a specific, measurable goal for carbon reduction. The state objective is to cut greenhouse gases by 26 percent from 2005 levels by 2025, and to cut carbon from the electricity sector by 25 percent compared to 2012 by 2025 and 35 percent by 2030.

The Colorado Climate Plan, a statewide set of policy recommendations and actions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and to increase Colorado’s level of preparedness, was updated to set clear and specific emission reduction goals for the state. This update follows Gov. Hickenlooper’s executive order from July 2017, Supporting Colorado’s Clean Energy Transition and Colorado Electric Vehicle (EV) Plan, which commits the state to additional climate action.

This event is sold out, but it will be live streamed here. Spanish translation will be available for in-person attendees. The program will begin at 6:00 p.m.

NRCS: Colorado Water Supply Outlook Report June 1, 2018

Click here to read the report:

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NRCS: Water Supply Conditions Vary Widely Across Colorado

Here’s the release from the NRCS (Brian Domonkos):

Since the first of May, mountain weather conditions in Colorado have been dominated by a drier weather pattern with snowpack melting earlier than normal. Statewide snowpack on the first of June was 24 percent of normal. “While these conditions are more favorable for hiking Colorado’s mountains, snowpack and precipitation shortages in May further depleted Colorado’s summer water supply outlook,” says Brian Domonkos, Colorado Snow Survey Supervisor, Hydrologist with the NRCS. In a normal year, on the first of June there are 21 of a total 115 SNOw TELemetry network sites in the mountains of Colorado that show an inch or more of snow water equivalent. However, this year on the first of June only ten sites had any measurable snow at all. With snowpack on its way out, other contributors serve as indicators for summer water supply predictions such as precipitation, reservoirs, and current streamflows.

At 55 percent of average, May 2018 precipitation was the second driest month of this water year behind December which was 50 percent of normal. Unlike April, when precipitation was near 95 percent of normal in the northern half of Colorado, May precipitation failed to top 75 percent of normal in any of the major basins across the state. Only three of the major watersheds in Colorado received at least half of their average monthly precipitation; the South Platte, Colorado, and combined Southwestern basins. Fortunately, statewide year-to-date precipitation showed only a small decrease from 72 percent of average on the first of May, to now 70 percent of normal on the first of June.

Statewide reservoirs remain slightly above normal, at 106 percent of average, dropping six percent since May 1. Most of the declines occurred in the southern basins including the Gunnison and combined southwest basins where storage fell 14 and 16 percent, respectively, and most notably in the Rio Grande basin, which fell 25 percent. These decreases in reservoir storage are due to calls for irrigation to supplement receding runoff.
Many streams which typically peak in June, peaked in May this year, two to three weeks early. In dry years especially, Domonkos adds, “When streamflows peak early, less water is available later in the summer when it is needed most.” With peak streamflow in the past, streamflows are forecasted near record lows at some stream gauges in the Gunnison, through the southwest corner of the state to the Rio Grande. Shifting the focus northward, basin-wide reservoir storage remains above normal, above 110 percent. Streamflow forecasts however are generally lower, between 50 and 85 percent of normal.

For more detailed information about June 1 mountain snowpack and streamflow forecasts refer to the June 1, 2018 Colorado Water Supply Outlook Report. For the most up to date information about Colorado snowpack and water supply related information, refer to the Colorado Snow Survey website.

Fryingpan River proposal would increase winter flows, help trout populations — @AspenJournalism

Flow in the Fryingpan. Photo credit Brent Gardner-Smith (@AspenJournalism).

From Aspen Journalism (Heather Sackett):

A proposal to increase winter flows on the lower Fryingpan River could have big benefits for downstream trout populations.

The Colorado River District is proposing to the Colorado Water Conservation Board a one-year, renewable lease of some of the water it owns in Ruedi Reservoir to boost winter flows in the Fryingpan. CWCB staff presented the proposal to the board at its May meeting in Salida.

Currently, the decreed instream flow rate between Nov. 1 and April 30 in the Fryingpan below Ruedi is a minimum of 39 cubic feet per second. Often, winter flows are higher than this, but in dry years they can hover around the minimum amount.

But 39 cfs is not enough to maintain a healthy food source for the Gold Medal fishery’s population of trout. The proposal seeks to boost the minimum flow to 70 cfs.

The proposal is a collaboration between the Colorado River District and the Roaring Fork Conservancy.

Heather Tattersall Lewin, watershed action director with the conservancy, explained that low streamflows, combined with frigid temperatures, can lead to the formation of anchor ice on the bottom of the river.

This ice has a negative effect on the population of aquatic insects, known as macroinvertebrates, which are food for the brown, rainbow, and cutthroat trout that call this 14-mile stretch of river home.

“When the water and air temperatures are both really cold, the anchor ice can scour the bottom of the river,” Tattersall Lewin said. “It can scrape the macroinvertebrates in that area and they can get moved downstream. The insect population is what we are concerned about because it’s the fish food.”

Extra water in the stream will prevent anchor ice from forming. The conservancy estimates that 56 days is the maximum amount of time the leased water would be needed during the winter.

“This is a great opportunity to manage water to the benefit of environmental and recreational needs,” Tattersall Lewin said.

Under the proposal, the CWCB would lease up to 3,500 acre-feet of Ruedi Reservoir water from the river district. It would cost $65.25 per acre-foot, plus a $400 application fee, which for the total 3,500 acre-feet would cost $228,775.

The river district owns a total of 11,413.5 acre-feet of water in Ruedi, with 7,500 acre-feet of that available for leasing. Of the total the river district owns, 5,412.5 acre-feet is to support flows for the endangered fish recovery program.

Colorado River District General Manager Andy Mueller said there are two reasons his organization decided to offer up their water for lease. The first is to improve the health of the river and its trout populations. The second is related to the business arm of the district.

“We are charged with maximizing our assets and our assets are pools of water in different reservoirs,” Mueller said. “In this instance, we are leasing water to the CWCB and they are paying our district’s enterprise fund to release that water. It’s a win-win from our perspective.”

The Fryingpan River is popular with anglers because of predictable hatches that lead to fish feeding frenzies and great conditions for dry fly fishing.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife supports the increased winter flows.

In a letter of support to the CWCB, CPW instream flow program coordinator Jay Skinner wrote, “recent history has taught us that more flow during the winter months improves fish habitat, increases spawning success and fry emergence for brown trout, promotes a more robust macroinvertebrate food base for fish and most importantly, addresses issues related to anchor ice formation and accumulation.”

The CWCB will consider the proposal for approval at its July meeting. If approved, the increase in flows could begin this winter.

Editor’s note: Aspen Journalism is collaborating with The Aspen Times, the Glenwood Springs Post Independent, the Vail Daily and the Summit Daily on the coverage of rivers and water. The Times and the Post Independent published this story in their print editions on Thursday, June 7, 2018.

Fryingpan River downstream of Ruedi Reservoir. Photo credit Greg Hobbs

#ColoradoRiver: “…even more problematic is the total water going into #LakePowell” — Victor Lee #runoff #COriver

From Westword (Michael Roberts):

The Colorado River has already reached its peak flow for the season, and that’s lousy news when it comes to fire danger, water supply for farmers and residential users, recreational opportunities and the health of numerous fish species, among other things. And while Victor Lee, an engineer with the Bureau of Reclamation, isn’t ready to hit the panic button yet, he concedes that bad can still turn worse.

“If we end up with several dry years, the situation can change pretty quickly,” Lee says. “And even more problematic is the total water going into Lake Powell right now. It’s much less than average, and that could have very severe consequences for the upper-basin states of Wyoming, Utah and Colorado.”

Brenda Alcorn, senior hydrologist for the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center in Salt Lake City, notes that the low peaks “are indicative of the poor snowpack and poor runoff this year, and what we’ve got is pretty much what we’re going to get. We’ve reached the bottom line in terms of volume — and we’re not expecting a lot of water to flown down into Lake Powell this year.”

She adds that “this is one of the earliest peaks we’ve seen” for Colorado River flow. “Last year was a pretty good runoff year, but in general during the last fifteen years or so, we’ve definitely been on the dry side, with a few wet years mixed in. It does appear to be a trend, and that leads to earlier peaks and lower volumes.”

A commercial raft on the Colorado River, during 2017 bridge construction in Glenwood Springs. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

Lee elaborates on Alcorn’s points.

“Two elements to focus on would be the earliness of the peak and the magnitude of the peak,” he points out. “We’re dealing with the low snowpack, but upstream, in the upper basin, we’re not extremely low. If we move further south in the state, though, the snowpack gets very low. In some places, it’s the lowest snowpack and forecasted runoff in the historical record, as far as the earliness of the peak. And that’s concerning for water management, because it’s an indication there may not be so much water later on in the year that we would normally have — flows that are adequate to meet agricultural demands or biology needs or even recreational needs.”

Potential shortages also exacerbate longtime conflicts within the state over water use, as Lee, who works directly on the Colorado-Big Thompson and Fryingpan-Arkansas projects, knows from personal experience…

Low flows also impact the Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program.

Colorado River Basin. Graphic credit: Water Education Colorado

“There are four species of fish that are native to the Colorado River that are considered endangered: the humpback chub, the bonytail chub, the Colorado pikeminnow and the razorback sucker,” Lee goes on. “And there’s a stretch of water between the Gunnison River confluence in Grand Junction that, if it didn’t have extra water during the September-October period, would be de-watered. That would affect the fish’s ability to move from the lower to the upper portion of the river, so we release water from the reservoirs at different times to make sure that doesn’t occur. But we also need to meet the needs for irrigation and agricultural users, as well as municipal and industrial water users. So there are a variety of concerns over that, in addition to concerns about biology and also water quality.”

The upper Colorado River basin “isn’t in as much pain as other areas of Colorado,” Lee acknowledges. “All of the reservoirs are expected to fill or get near to full, in part because we’ve had several previous years of quite a bit of water — and there’s a lot of water in the system right now. But in the southern part of the state, they don’t have much water at all. They’re definitely in pretty severe-to-extreme drought conditions at this point, which has very significant consequences for what water’s available for a variety of different uses.”

Celebrate and protect our oceans on #WorldOceansDay

Colorado Water Conservation Board approves $3.1 million in state water plan grants

#Drought news: Kiowa County downgraded

US Drought Monitor June 5, 2018.

West Drought Monitor June 5, 2018.

Colorado Drought Monitor June 5, 2018.

Click here to go to the US Drought Monitor website. Here’s an excerpt:

Summary

Frontal and thunderstorm activity provided moderate to heavy rain (at least 0.5-inch) over northern, eastern, and central portions of the CONUS this past week. A weakness in the mid-tropospheric subtropical ridge over the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern states contributed to the influx of subtropical moisture across this region. Over the weekend, a cold front moved into the mid-Atlantic area and stalled, providing a lifting mechanism for the inflowing moisture. This resulted in heavy rain (generally 2-6 inches, locally greater) across much of Virginia, Maryland, eastern West Virginia, and southern Pennsylvania. Temperatures were near to above average across practically the entire contiguous U.S., with the greatest departures (6-12 degrees F above average, locally greater) for a large portion of the southern Great Plains, the Mississippi Valley, the Dakotas, the Great Lakes region, and the Ohio Valley…

South

According to ACIS, measured precipitation during the past 7-days was less than 0.5-inch over much of the South. Weekly temperature departures generally ranged between 4-10 degrees F above average. Significant 30-day precipitation deficits and near-record warm temperatures prompted the expansion of D0 across portions of Texas. In fact, the entire Texas drought depiction experienced another major overhaul this week. Low stream flows have been an issue in the Texas Hill Country for several months already. The position of the impacts line was adjusted to approximately bifurcate the state into a western portion (now SL, with longer-term deficits appearing), and an eastern portion (still S). Across the deep South Texas counties of Willacy and northern Cameron, conditions were degraded this week from D1 to D2, based on stressed fields of cotton (despite ongoing irrigation), high KBDI levels (600-700), and a 120-day SPI blend. In Oklahoma, continuing degradation of conditions led to an expansion of both D0 and D1 in southeast parts of the state. A few tweaks were made to the depiction in western Oklahoma as well, based on recent rainfall. Hot, relatively dry conditions prompted a broad expansion of D0 across most of Louisiana, western Arkansas, and adjacent portions of western and southern Mississippi this week. Current NLDAS soil moisture anomalies for the root zone (top one-meter) indicate values ranging from 1-3 inches below normal. Shreveport, LA, reported its warmest May on record, 78.4 degrees F, which supplanted the old record of 77.8 degrees F set back in 1933. Two areas of D1 were introduced in northwestern and south-central Louisiana this week. Topsoil moisture (Very Short to Short) for a few states include: Louisiana (73% this week, 55% last week), Arkansas (34%, 21%), Mississippi (22%, 14%) and for the Contiguous U.S. as a whole (28%, no change from last week). For Rangeland/Pastures, the percentages rated Very Poor to Poor this week compared to last week include: Louisiana (30% this week, 17% last week), Arkansas (6%, 8%), Mississippi (11%, 11%)…

High Plains

Heavy rain (2-6 inches, locally greater) fell over portions of North Dakota this week, with the highest amounts over the northwest part of the state. Much of the heaviest rain actually fell north of the Canadian border in extreme southeastern Saskatchewan. Slight alterations (both improvement and deterioration) were rendered to the depiction in western, north-central, and southeastern North Dakota, based in part on the 1-month EDDI, which takes into account evaporative demand. Both improvements and degradations were also made to the South Dakota depiction, which received much less rain this week than its northern counterpart. For example, Aberdeen reported only 0.52-inch of rain in May (2.59 inches below normal), making it the seventh driest on record. An area of severe drought (D2) was introduced to northeastern South Dakota, based on 60-day precipitation deficits, 30-day and 60-day SPI, recent warm temperatures, and increased water demand through evapotranspiration. A spectacular dust storm, attended by 50-80 mph winds, blew through this region (Hand and Faulk Counties) on June 1st. In southeastern Colorado, a one-category degradation was made to the depiction in Kiowa County. Decent soil moisture from the wet summer and fall of 2017 is now gone, due to the recent hot, dry weather. This, in turn, has taken its toll on crops. Although welcome rains fell across eastern Nebraska this week, it was decided not to make any changes to the state depiction until more information is at hand next week…

West

Minor adjustments were made this week to the D0 area along the eastern Montana state line. In northwestern Montana, it was eventually decided to postpone the introduction of D0 to the region. Although some drying has occurred, this area experiences healthy stream and river flows, due to continuing snow melt. In nearby northern Idaho, recent flooding precludes the introduction of any D0 at this time. This area will continue to be monitored for the possible inclusion of D0 in the next week or two. In western Oregon and western Washington, an extended dry pattern set in ahead of schedule, with rapidly declining stream flows (most are now within the lowest quartile of the historical distribution for the day of the year). There is a notable degradation in the SPI maps going from 60- to 30-days out. The more recent SPI values in this region range between -2.0 and -2.5. Accordingly, D0 was expanded across western portions of both Oregon and Washington this week. Finally, in southwestern New Mexico, water restrictions were initiated as storage in the Elephant Butte and Caballo reservoirs (along the Rio Grande in Sierra County) dropped below 400,000 acre-feet…

Looking Ahead

For the ensuing 5-day period (June 7-11, 2018), the northern and eastern CONUS are generally predicted to receive 0.5-1.5 inches of rain. Heavier amounts are forecast over portions of the western Corn Belt, the southern Great Lakes region, and the Florida peninsula. A relative maximum of 3-4 inches is possible in Iowa, likely due to nocturnal thunderstorm clusters (MCS) which are common at this time of year. Little to no precipitation is expected elsewhere during this period. For the subsequent 5-day period (June 12-16, 2018), CPC predicts elevated odds of above normal rainfall across the southern CONUS, with a weak tilt toward above running northward across the Mississippi Valley and eastern Great Plains region. Elevated odds of below normal rainfall are highlighted over the Northwest, the northern High Plains, and most of the Atlantic Coast states from Maine to Virginia.

CU Denver to begin testing blood of residents exposed in Widefield Aquifer PFCs pollution

Widefield aquifer via the Colorado Water Institute.

From The Denver Post (Bruce Finley):

…this week, a University of Colorado Denver public-health study funded by the National Institutes of Health will begin testing the blood of 200 residents, The Denver Post has learned.

No government agency has systematically investigated health impacts of the contamination. This area of southern El Paso County is among the most populated of more than 70 places where PFCs detected at levels up to hundreds of times higher than an EPA health advisory limit are spreading from military bases that used firefighting foam containing the chemicals.

Municipal firetrucks also carry the foam and PFCs are used in consumer products, including fast-food wrappers. They have emerged as one family in a widening array of synthetic chemicals detected in water that cannot be removed easily due to molecular structures…

Neither the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment nor the EPA has been monitoring PFC levels in the Fountain Creek watershed. Tests done more than a year ago showed contamination at levels far above the EPA health advisory limit.

CDPHE officials last week welcomed the EPA visit and said they’re pushing the Air Force to move faster into a planned 2019 “remedial investigation” phase that would include tracking the spread of PFCs in groundwater beyond the military base and airport.

The CU public health study will focus on people exposed to PFCs between 2012 and 2016, study leader John Adgate said. “We recruited more than 200 people from Security/Widefield/Fountain who will be coming to our temporary clinic for the blood draws.”

Air Force civil engineers last week provided their latest data to The Post from an “expanded site investigation” on Peterson Air Force Base and the adjacent Colorado Springs airport. They’ll drill 21 new wells to measure PFC contamination of groundwater.

The testing found PFCs at levels exceeding the EPA health limit contaminating 42 municipal water supply wells, which were shut down, with seven now back in use after the installation of treatment systems. (Fountain and Security stopped using wells for water supply, shifting to water diverted from the Arkansas River. Widefield bought and installed new water-cleaning systems to filter out contamination.)

Air Force officials said they have found 37 private wells with water containing elevated PFCs…

Meanwhile, Colorado Springs attorney Mike McDivitt, with colleagues in Denver and New York, has filed a second massive lawsuit in federal court, seeking funds from PFC manufacturers for medical monitoring. A federal judge is expected Aug. 2 to rule on whether an earlier lawsuit can proceed as a class action.

Northwest Colorado Food Coalition: Protecting Yampa River more than just recreation

The headwaters of the Yampa River. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

From the Northwest Colorado Food Coalition via Steamboat Today:

his time of year embodies the pastoral landscapes the Yampa Valley is known for. The change of seasons brings the return of the familiar sights and sounds of geese, cranes and other migratory birds. People, too, flock from around the world to celebrate this rebirth, as our valley sheds its winter coat and begins to bloom.

While many in our community are watching the weather to see how long they can continue to ski, when bike trails will be dry and how high the river will be for the 38th annual Yampa River Festival, another group of valley residents is tuned into the weather for another reason.

Our agriculture community is tracking the same indicators that skiers, bikers, rafters and fisherman are watching: snowpack, water flows and historical averages. Area farmers and ranchers need this crucial data to determine how long they will be able to irrigate their fields.

Without the extensive use of irrigation on area ranches, our landscape would be very different. Irrigated land provides numerous benefits beyond agricultural yields: It provides habitat for migratory birds, feeds riparian zones along the Yampa and increases late-season flows.

Friends of the Yampa, or FOTY, has done a lot of growing during the past several years. FOTY received its nonprofit status in 2008 and has been hard at work ever since. Branching into roles beyond building recreational features, we now facilitate projects that address noxious weeds, late season flows and other issues specific to the Yampa River.

The Leafy Spurge Project, for example, aims to address a weed that is threatening agricultural and riparian lands throughout the West. Leafy spurge, for those who are not familiar, is an invasive weed that is becoming more prevalent each year. Through partnerships with public and private landowners, state and federal agencies and other advocacy groups, FOTY and its partners hope to address this growing threat.

FOTY continues to support exploring innovative options to provide late season flows through Steamboat Springs. Options such as Alternative Transfer Methods, headed by the Colorado Water Trust and the State Engineer’s Office, provide water-rights holders the ability to lease water to downstream users for up to three years in a 10-year period, while still retaining original rights.

Similarly, FOTY is excited about research into the creation of a water fund. Groups, including the Nature Conservancy, are exploring this concept, which could be used to finance and implement similar transfers to benefit the health of the river into the future.

It is through these collaborative efforts that FOTY hopes it can continue to be a helpful resource for water users throughout the basin. Agriculture, recreation, municipal and industrial users are in this together. Using strategic partnerships and innovative water use practices, we can insure a vibrant river community for generations to come.

Learn more about this and all our work at friendsoftheyampa.com. See you on the river.

Mesa County District Judge Lance Timbreza rules that the Grand Valley Drainage District’s stormwater charge is a tax and subject to TABOR

Grand Valley Irrigation Canal. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

From The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Gary Harmon):

The Grand Valley Drainage District’s charge, which for most of its residents is $36 a year, “runs afoul of (the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights) and is unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt,” Mesa County District Judge Lance Timbreza wrote in a 43-page decision handed down a year after Timbreza presided over a trial on the case.

Mesa County and the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce sued to halt the charge, contending that it was an illegal tax.

While the ruling halts the district from continuing to collect the charge, it’s silent on how or whether the district is to return the $7.2 million already collected over the last three years.

None of the drainage district board members now serving were on the board that instituted the fee and two said they expected to discuss what steps to take next in the coming weeks.

Board Chairman Cody Davis, who joined the board two years ago as an opponent of the charge, preferring that voters approve of any revenue-increasing measure, said he was surprised by the ruling…

Mesa County Commissioner Scott McInnis said it’s now time to deal with stormwater drainage issues across the county and said the drainage district should return to the bargaining table to “pick up where they left off and work toward a unified valley authority. And frankly, they don’t have the leverage to say no.”

[…]

Previous board members had leaned away from an appeal in the event they lost the suit, but the subject has yet to come before the current board.

Timbreza’s decision makes no mention of whether the district should return money to its customers. The county and chamber had made no request in their arguments about the money already collected…

While residents were asked to pay $36 a year, many businesses paid much more than that, up to $10,000 a year, Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce President and Chief Executive Officer Diane Schwenke said…

The chamber and Grisier both noted that the need to deal with stormwater hasn’t gone away.

The drainage district charged businesses, churches, local governments and others with large-area parking lots and rooftops $3 per month for each 2,500 square feet of impervious surface, or surfaces that shed, rather than absorb water.

Residents were charged $3 per month or $36 a year.

Contiguous U.S. had its warmest May on record — @NOAA

From NOAA:

Last month, the U.S. sizzled with record warmth. It also had drenching rains in the East, with lingering drought conditions in the Southwest and Great Plains.

Let’s see how May 2018 and spring fared in terms of the climate record:

Climate by the numbers

May 2018
The average May temperature across the contiguous U.S. was 65.4 degrees F, 5.2 degrees above average, making it the warmest May in the 124-year record, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. This surpassed the previous record of 64.7°F set in 1934, during the dust bowl era. There were more than 8,590 daily warm station records broken, or tied, in May.

The average precipitation for May was 2.97 inches (0.06 inch above average), which ranked near the middle of the record books. Two weather systems, including Subtropical Storm Alberto, helped bring record and near-record rain across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. Meanwhile, more than a quarter of the contiguous U.S. remained in drought.

Year to Date I Meteorological Spring (March – May)
The average U.S. temperature for the year to date (January through May) was 45 degrees F, 1.6 degrees above normal and the 21st warmest on record. The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. during Meteorological Spring (March through May) was 52.4 degrees, 1.5 degrees above average and ranked as the 22nd warmest on record.

The average precipitation for the year to date was 12.66 inches, 0.27 inch above average. For the Meteorological Spring, the average precipitation was 7.91 inches, which ranked near average.

An annotated map of the U.S. showing other climate events that occurred in May 2018. For details, see the bulleted list below in our story. (NOAA/NCEI)

Other notable climate events

Subtropical Storm Alberto: Three days before the official start of hurricane season, Alberto made landfall along the panhandle of Florida, packing 65 mph winds and bringing torrential rain to parts of the South.

Soggy Conditions: Record rainfall triggered floods and mudslides in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast regions. Florida and Maryland saw record-wet conditions.

Temperature spike: Record warmth was observed in parts of the Northwest and stretching from the Southern Plains through the Midwest and into the Mid-Atlantic. On May 28, Minneapolis, Minn., hit 100 degrees F – the earliest on record it got that hot.

Cool, dry Puerto Rico: San Juan was cooler and drier than normal. It was the coolest May since 2011 and precipitation was 85 percent of normal.

Coastal high tide flooding increased last year: An update to NOAA’s annual State of high tide flooding and outlook found that the Southeastern U.S. is currently experiencing the fastest rate of increase in annual high tide flood days, with more than a 150 percent increase since 2000 predicted for the coming year (May 2018 – April 2019) at most locations.

More: Find NOAA’s report and download images on the NCEI climate monitoring report.

@COParksWildlife personnel and volunteers work in Bear Creek watershed to catch and spawn Greenback cutthroat

Cutthroat trout historic range via Western Trout

From KRDO (Stephanie Sierra):

Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists set up a creekside laboratory along Bear Creek Tuesday to catch and spawn an endangered trout species…

Each spring since the trout was located, CPW biologists have waded into Bear Creek to catch the greenbacks, spawn them, and send the fertilized eggs to the National Fish Hatchery in Leadville.

@EPA finds place near Silverton to store #GoldKingMine sludge #AnimasRiver

The EPA’s wastewater treatment plant near Silverton, Colorado, on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2015 — photo via Grace Hood Colorado Public Radio

From The Durango Herald (Jonathan Romeo):

EPA officials announced last week that the agency has entered an agreement with a property owner who owns the Kittimac Tailings, a historic mine waste pile about six miles northeast of Silverton along County Road 2.

The EPA built a $1.5 million temporary water treatment plant north of Silverton in October, three months after the agency triggered the Gold King Mine blowout, which sent a torrent of mine waste down the Animas and San Juan rivers.

Since, the water-treatment plant has been treating and removing potentially toxic metals out of water that continues to discharge from the Gold King Mine. In April, the EPA said the mine was still leaking 450 gallons a minute.

The water treatment plant adds lime to the mine wastewater to raise the pH of the water so that dissolved metals become solid and can settle in settling ponds – a highly effective process.

The process, however, generates a lot of sludge. EPA has said an estimated 4,600 cubic yards of sludge is generated a year.

The agency had been storing this sludge waste product – which is considered non-hazardous – at the site of the water treatment plant in an area known as Gladstone, about six miles north of Silverton along County Road 110.

The EPA announced this spring, however, room was running out at Gladstone for the sludge…

Scott Fetchenheir, a San Juan County commissioner and former miner, said Wednesday local residents are pleased to learn the EPA found a better solution to the sludge waste issue.

“I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “But it’s almost like this big experiment.”

The EPA has said it will mix the Gold King Mine sludge with mine tailings located at Kittimac.

The EPA believes this will reduce high water content of the sludge, and will allow more efficient management, while at the same time immobilize heavy metals found in the tailings pile…

The EPA said it is conducting a bench-scale testing of the sludge and tailings mixture to ensure the maximum reduction of metals leaching from the tailings. The agency plans to conduct a pilot test of this transfer process for one week in mid-June.

The Kittimac tailings pile for years has been used illegally by dirt bikers and ATVers who have disregarded “no trespassing” signs to ride on the mine waste that looks like a pile of sand. Now that the EPA is using the site, access will be more guarded, Tookey said…

While the short-term problem of where to put the sludge is temporarily solved, Fetchenheir said there remains the larger, more complicated matter at hand: what to do for long-term treatment of the mines draining into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River considered the worst polluter in the headwaters.

While lime treatment plants are effective, they are also expensive to operate ($1 million a year) and have to be run in perpetuity. The EPA has yet to release its plan for long-term treatment options.

“It’s hugely open-ended,” Fetchenheir said. “The true hope is some new technology arrives that removes metals without generating a huge amount of sludge. But I haven’t seen anything like it.”

For now, the EPA said it will transfer the sludge via truck using the County Road 110 bypass. The agency said it hopes to reduce negative impacts, such as noise and dust suppression.

After the pilot test in June, the EPA will resume transferring the sludge to the Kittimac tailings after the tourist season, around early fall, for a duration of about five weeks.

Some folks in SW #Kansas are pushing the “Great Canal of Kansas”

Kansas Aqueduct route via Circle of Blue

From the Kansas News Service. (Ben Kuebrich) via the Hillsboro Free Press:

Great Canal of Kansas

Clayton Scott also uses the latest water technology on his farm in Big Bow. Yet he said that just using water carefully won’t be enough.

He thinks any pumping limits severe enough to preserve the aquifer would dramatically cut back the region’s harvest. That would push up local grain prices, and without cheap grain, livestock feed yards would close, and meatpacking plants would follow.

At its core, the western Kansas economy is built on irrigation.

A 2015 study calculated that losses in irrigation could cost some 240,000 Kansans their jobs and wipe out $18.3 billion of yearly economic activity, or about 10 percent of the state economy.

Scott and others in the region have their eyes on a more drastic solution to the water problem. Kansas could invest in a 360-mile series of canals and pumping stations to bring in water from the Missouri River.

He knows it sounds extreme, but Arizona has already built a similarly sized aqueduct. The Central Arizona Project diverts water from the Colorado River and there’s been extensive research into building a similar canal across Kansas.

“Arizona looked at their situation and decided, ‘We have no other choice,’ ” Scott said. “They estimate almost a trillion dollars of benefit to the economy of Arizona.”

Arizona’s aqueduct has always been controversial. The federally funded canal remains at the center of multi-state disputes of water usage.

Experts say that a generation later, the legal and regulatory hurdles of building a long-distance canal through Kansas only look more daunting.

Water from the Colorado River is channeled through Arizona, much the way some people think it should be diverted from the Missouri River across Kansas.

Pricey pipeline

Still, Kansas and surrounding states have been considering aqueducts for a long time. A 1982 study came up with a plan to bring water from the Missouri River to a reservoir near Utica, Kansas, but nothing ever came of it. At the time, though, losing the Ogallala seemed like a distant prospect.

In 2011, while western Kansas was in a drought and farmers struggled to pump enough water to keep their crops alive, the Missouri River was flooding. Scott says that sparked renewed interest in a canal.

“It’s a long-term solution,” Scott said. “We can harvest the high flows of water off of the eastern rivers and bring them out here into the western High Plains, offset the droughts … and bring things into more of a balance.”

In 2015, the Kansas Water Office and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers re-assessed that 1982 study. The agencies estimated that, depending on the capacity of the canal, it would now cost between $5 billion and $20 billion to build.

Because the water would have to be pumped uphill as it goes west, it could take more than $500 million a year in energy costs alone, for the largest-capacity canal. With interest costs from construction, the yearly tab could exceed $1.5 billion.

At the time, the head of the water office said, “this thing we studied is unlikely to happen.” The costs would simply run too steep.

A canal project would have other barriers. Although the Missouri river sometimes floods, it also experiences lows, and levels would have to be maintained to permit barge traffic. There would also be challenges displacing people in the path of the aqueduct. While a highway can be redirected to avoid a town, a canal’s path is more constrained by topography.

At the same time, environmental issues could come both from taking water from the Missouri and in the path of any aqueduct. Upstream and downstream states on the waterway already tangle over how to manage the water. An effort to siphon away water would further complicate the situation.

Scott knows the project would be massive, and massively controversial, but that’s why he’s talking about it now—before the Ogallala runs dry.

An uncertain future

At a conference in April, Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Jackie McClaskey said public support for an aqueduct is unlikely unless farmers show first that there’s no other way to water their crops.

“Until we can show people that we are utilizing every drop of water in the best way possible, no one outside of this region is going to invest in a water transfer project,” McClaskey said.

Clayton Scott says he isn’t looking for the rest of Kansas to bail out the farmers out west.

Scott imagines the canal would be a federal project, similar to Arizona’s aqueduct. Water users would repay the costs of construction and maintenance through a water use fee.

He also contends that an aqueduct could help a broader region.

Scott says an aqueduct could extend out to Colorado’s Front Range to supply booming cities such as Denver and Colorado Springs that draw water off of the dwindling Colorado River. If they drank from Kansas’ aqueduct instead, that would leave more water to trickle down the Colorado, which extends out into water-starved southern California.

A canal, advocates contend, could supply water at a fraction of the price that southern California farmers pay now and help alleviate shortages in that region.

Scott’s interest in water transfer is common in southwest Kansas but far from universal. For example, Roth isn’t convinced.

“It’s impractical and it’s one heck of a distraction,” Roth said. “Right now we need to concentrate on local conservation with what we do have, what we can do right now.”

Ray Luhman, Northwest Water district manager, thinks the state should consider all options, including channeling water across the state.

“The conversation needs to be had,” Luhman said. “But to, let’s say, mortgage your future on a project maybe 20 to 30 years from completion? We also need to look to something in the interim.”

Ben Kuebrich reports for High Plains Public Radio in Garden City and the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KMUW, Kansas Public Radio, KCUR and HPPR covering health, education and politics.

Hot new world: May 2018 county by county temperature departures from average — @NOAA

may2018temperaturesdeparturefromaveragenoaacountylevel

minimumtempdeparturefromaveragecountylevel052018

maximumtempdeparturefromaveragecountylevelnoaa052018

Click here to go to the NOAA website.

Reusing water to craft a unique summertime beer – News on TAP

Declaration Brewery serves up a sustainable beer to celebrate Denver Water’s 100th anniversary.

Source: Reusing water to craft a unique summertime beer – News on TAP

‘Written in Water’ — Coming to a TV near you – News on TAP

Behind the scenes of a new documentary celebrating Denver Water’s 100 years of service.

Source: ‘Written in Water’ — Coming to a TV near you – News on TAP

#Colorado Primary #election June 26, 2018 #ActOnClimate

Mail-in ballots for the Colorado primary election are in the mail. (Mine arrived yesterday.) Please consider moving the environment to the top of the list of issues when you vote.

Fact: The Western U.S. is drying out and the more arid environment is exacerbating wildfires.

Fact: Action is required now to reduce global warming in the decades ahead.

From CIRES:

CIRES-led team uncovers series of wildfire triggers that culminated in the big burn of 2017

Western wildfire seasons are worse when it’s dry and fuel-rich, and the chances of ignition are high—and all three factors were pushed to their limits last year, triggering one of the largest and costliest U.S. wildfire seasons in recent decades, according to a new paper. Climate change likely helped exacerbate fuels and dryness, the paper found, and people’s behavior contributed the sparks.

“Last year we saw a pile on of extreme events across large portions of the western U.S., the wettest winter, the hottest summer, and the driest fall—all helping to promote wildfires,” said Jennifer Balch, director of CIRES/CU Boulder’s Earth Lab and lead author on the study published today in Fire with INSTAAR, Columbia University, and University of Idaho coauthors.

The 2017 wildfire season cost the United States more than $18 billion in damages. That year, 71,000 wildfires scorched 10 million acres of land—destroying 12,000 homes, evacuating 200,000 people and claiming 66 lives. For comparison, 2016 saw only 5.4 million acres burned.

The research team sought to pinpoint the precursors that led to these fires, to support decision makers considering policies that might prevent or minimize future fire disasters. The study found that the three major “switches” affecting fire—fuel, aridity, and ignition—were either flipped on or kept on longer than expected last year.

It started with a wet winter. Increased precipitation early in 2017 fed the growth of fine grasses across the western United States—grasses that would later serve as fuel for fire. Summer and fall then swept in a wave of dry, arid conditions, baking the dense fields of grasses into dehydrated kindling.

With the fuel growth and aridity switches flipped on, the scene was set for the third switch: ignition. Nearly 90 percent of total wildfires last year were caused by people; previous work by Balch and her team has illuminated just how extensively humans exacerbate wildfire. Human activity triples the length of the average fire season.

Computer climate models project an increased risk of extreme wet winters in California, the paper notes, and a decrease in summer precipitation across the entire West Coast. Those models also tend to project a delay in the onset of fall rain and snow.

“We expect to see more fire seasons like we saw last year, and thus it is becoming increasingly critical that we strengthen our wildfire prediction and warning systems, support suppression and recovery efforts, and develop sustained policies that help us coexist with fire,” said Megan Cattau, Earth Lab researcher and a coauthor on the study.

Although naturally occurring climate variability influences environmental conditions that affect the wildfire season, that variation is superimposed on an anthropogenically warmer world, so climate change is magnifying the effects of heat and precipitation extremes, Balch says.

The authors conclude by noting many ways that policy makers have already taken action to build better and burn better in the face of increasingly flammable landscapes; and they urge continued attention to policies that address the challenge of wildfire.

“The 2018 wildfire season is already underway and here at home in the southern Rockies fuels are very dry,” said Balch. “It is forecasted that June will be a busy month in terms of wildfires due to severe drought and low snowpack.”

@ColoradoClimate: Weekly #Climate, Water and #Drought Assessment of the Intermountain West

Click here to read the current assessment. Click here to go to the NIDIS website hosted by the Colorado Climate Center.

Denver: “Innovation in the water” — Clean River Design Challenge recap

Student showcase their winning design at a recent Board of Trustees meeting. Photo: Mark Stahl

From Metropolitan State University of Denver (Matt Watson):

Sometimes putting plastic in the river can be a good thing.

That was the idea put forth by the MSU Trash Getters, one of eight student teams from the Colorado School of Mines, MSU Denver and the University of Colorado Denver to participate in the Clean River Design Challenge.

The Trash Getters designed 3D-printed fish heads to float atop a waterway and collect trash in their mouths. The brightly colored bits of plastic, printed on campus at the Auraria Library, sit in the water and call attention to the very problem the design challenge hopes to combat: trash in our water.

The Greenway Foundation, a nonprofit helmed by Executive Director and MSU Denver Trustee Jeff Shoemaker, works to advance the South Platte River and surrounding tributaries as a unique environmental, recreational, cultural, scientific and historical amenity that links Denver’s past and its future. The foundation held its first-ever student design challenge in 2015-16 and a second competition in 2017-18. The competition is coordinated and led by TGF’s policy and water-resources arm, the Water Connection (TWC).

“The basis of this is to continue to bring awareness that trash in my neighborhood is trash in my waterways,” Shoemaker said. “That’s the education aspect; the other, more pragmatic aspect is we’re trying to create devices that can be taken from a scale version, put into a working prototype and actually be placed in Cherry Creek or the South Platte River.”

MSU Denver faculty, staff and community members pitch in to clean up the Cherry Creek as part of the recent Roadrunners Give Back Day in partnership with the Greenway Foundation.

The student teams were scored in Round 1 on their trash-collection designs in December, with two teams from Mines placing first and third and an MSU Denver team second. The teams with the top six designs were given $1,000 to build scale models, which were then put to the test for Round 2 in April in a flume at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. In addition to educating people and looking for innovative solutions, the design challenge provides students with hands-on, competitive experience.

“For students to spend a semester coming up with a concept, then have to stand up in front of a dozen working professionals in the world of water and defend their model – in a competitive way, where there are actually winners and losers – is a very valuable experience,” Shoemaker said.

In the BOR Hydraulics Lab testing, which was Round 2 of the competition, MSU Denver students shined. The first-place team was the Water Association of Student Steward Urban Program, the student water-education club associated with the One World One Water Center. The Trash Getters’ fish-head design finished third behind the Colorado School of Mines, which took second.

The top three models will be displayed July 26 at the 15th annual Reception on the River, where students will get a chance to network with more than 200 people from the water industry. The hope is that one of the models, or a combination of them, will work its way into the water in the coming years. TGF/TWC just got the first draft of professional engineering drawings based on the 2015-16 contest winner and will develop a prototype in the coming months for planned testing in Cherry Creek .

The water-cleanup efforts at the Greenway Foundation and MSU Denver aren’t limited to design and engineering, either. Foundation volunteers regularly pick up trash from Denver waterways, while the WASSUP club has adopted a section of Cherry Creek for a monthly cleanup project and University faculty, staff and students partnered with the Greenway Foundation as part of Roadrunners Give Back Day.

To learn more about Denver’s waterways, contact the Greenway Foundation at info@greenwayfoundation.org.

Voices from the River: Thank a beaver for your trout stream — Trout Unlimited

A beaver dam on the Gunnison River. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

From Colorado Trout Unlimited (Toner Mitchell):

I recently visited a tailwater stream known for its capacity to produce lots of brown trout, some of them quite large. The reservoir feeding this stream is operated exclusively for downstream agricultural users, the result of which is that the fishery is also renowned for its poor conditions in winter, when dam releases are curtailed and the stream becomes a thin vein of shallow puddles, trickles, and exposed spawning redds. Since this stream is in the coldest corner of New Mexico, anchor ice is common.

I was pleased to see the latest work of the beaver population, knowing that their ponds would provide winter refuge for fish. But I was there to see the leveling device (beaver deceiver) installed by the New Mexico Game and Fish department to mitigate the legitimate though misplaced concern of downstream irrigators, who felt that the beavers were holding back valuable water from ranches and farms. The deceiver was working as intended, sending water downstream while limiting the pond’s depth and expanse so as not to inundate an adjacent parking lot.

My next stop was a nearby fly shop. I proudly reported my observations to the proprietor, who proceeded to give me an earful. The stretch of stream occupied by the beavers had always been a money spot for his guides and their clients. Until, that is, the beavers took up residence. The pond had since become a bugless sucker hole devoid of trout, and though he acknowledged the positive impact of the beaver impoundment on riparian storage and late season flows, the shop owner judged the local beavers as a net detriment to the fishery. Beavers are either good or bad, he opined, never both.

The beaver is a keystone species, generally defined as an organism that exerts an outsized influence on the function and even formation of an ecosystem. Beaver dams capture peak flows, prolong spring runoff, while supporting and extending baseflows with water stored in riparian aquifers. Their deep ponds concentrate nutrients and macroinvertebrates; they provide shelter and security for trout, especially in winter.

Understandably, the perceived downside of beavers comes with the keystone package. Like wolves, another disproportionately influential animal, beavers disrupt on a landscape scale. They not only plug up streams, but ditches, culverts, and bridges. Their dams inundate yards, fields, and pastures used by livestock and campers. Beavers kill and eat prized trees. The disgruntled fly shop owner hypothesized that his favorite run-turned-hated-beaver-pond might have warmed too much to harbor the trout it once did and, along with possibly consuming too much oxygen, accumulated silt may have buried insect production.

For what little it’s worth, I’ve personally witnessed few instances where beavers have negatively impacted trout. I don’t doubt that it happens, certainly not in this case, but I think such stories should be viewed in the broader context of watershed health. Consider how many of our highest quality fisheries (and grazing pastures) were literally made by beavers. They cleared trees to build their dams, which filled with trapped sediment and forced channel migration across floodplains. Over time, floodplains expanded and thickened thanks to further beaver-induced sediment deposition. This long process created thick, spongy meadows, essentially grass-skinned reservoirs feeding streams with cooled groundwater.

In addition to logging, mining, grazing, floodplain development, and road building, our large scale beaver extirpation in the late 1800s contributed greatly to watershed degradation. Without beavers, natural and man-made “nick points” went unrepaired, leading to channel incision and headcutting. By armoring and straightening streams for flood control, we actually intensified flooding by concentrating flow and increasing its cutting force. As a result, our beaver-created meadow reservoirs have been drying from within for many decades.

As climate change tightens its unpredictable yet certain grip on our landscapes, it falls on us, the ultimate keystone species, to restore the land’s capacity to absorb disturbance while maintaining function. To hedge against drought, we must lift and spread water tables and reconnect streams with their floodplains, especially in headwater regions. Reconnected floodplains will also enable our streams to de-energize high intensity precipitation events, particularly important in this era of common wildfire.

Where beavers live, we must make them welcome, as they are the cheapest and most efficient means of restoring the greatest acreage of watershed in the shortest timeframe. They work around the clock and accept food as payment; no matter how hard we try, we will never find a better deal than that.

And where they don’t live, we must imitate them; thanks to conservation groups in New Mexico, including the Truchas Chapter of TU, imitating beavers may soon become the hottest trend in stream restoration. Volunteer-made beaver dam analogs (BDAs) employ natural materials and are designed to pass water, trap sediment, and raise riparian water tables. Combined with willow and cottonwood plantings, which provide stream shading and future beaver food, BDAs create true beaver habitat and often attract the real animals to continue this important work.

As a wise man I know once said, “In times of flood, prepare for drought. In drought, prepare for flood.” I’m not sure, but I think this guy may have been a beaver in a previous life.

Toner Mitchell is TU’s New Mexico Water and Habitat Program coordinator for New Mexico.

Essay: Flash #Droughts: A Review and Assessment of the Challenges Imposed by Rapid-Onset Droughts in the United States #aridification

Click here to read the essay from Jason A. Otkin. Here’s the abstract:

Given the increasing use of the term “flash drought” by the media and scientific community, it is prudent to develop a consistent definition that can be used to identify these events and to understand their salient characteristics. It is generally accepted that flash droughts occur more often during the summer owing to increased evaporative demand; however, two distinct approaches have been used to identify them. The first approach focuses on their rate of intensification, whereas the second approach implicitly focuses on their duration. These conflicting notions for what constitutes a flash drought (i.e., unusually fast intensification vs short duration) introduce ambiguity that affects our ability to detect their onset, monitor their development, and understand the mechanisms that control their evolution. Here, we propose that the definition for “flash drought” should explicitly focus on its rate of intensification rather than its duration, with droughts that develop much more rapidly than normal identified as flash droughts. There are two primary reasons for favoring the intensification approach over the duration approach. First, longevity and impact are fundamental characteristics of drought. Thus, short-term events lasting only a few days and having minimal impacts are inconsistent with the general understanding of drought and therefore should not be considered flash droughts. Second, by focusing on their rapid rate of intensification, the proposed “flash drought” definition highlights the unique challenges faced by vulnerable stakeholders who have less time to prepare for its adverse effects.

The 416 Fire and memories of 2002 — and 1879 — @JonnyPeace

From Jonathan P. Thompson:

Someone noticed a puffy cumulonimbus cloud rising up in the gap formed by the Animas River gorge and gave a little cheer. Winter and spring had been freakishly dry and warm, and we really could have used the rain. Something was off about the cloud, however, and we all grew quiet. It wasn’t a cloud at all, but a billowing tower of smoke.

That was 2002 and the smoke was from the Missionary Ridge Fire, ignited that afternoon on a slope about 35 miles south of where we sat. Over the coming weeks, the blaze would eat through 73,000 acres of parched scrub oak and aspen and conifer forest along with 83 structures. The local tourism economy, already dampened by the Dotcom bust and the 9/11 attacks of the previous year, was battered. It would be remembered as southwest Colorado’s summer of discontent.

Memories of and comparisons to that summer emerged last week when the 416 Fire broke out just across the valley from where the Missionary Ridge Fire was sparked 16 years earlier. The comparisons, unfortunately, are apt. Precipitation for the 2018 water year (which started Oct. 1, 2017) has thus far mostly mirrored 2002. Flows on the Animas River are slightly better than they were 16 years ago, but only slightly (see accompanying graphs). The conditions are therefore in place for a rerun of that smoky summer.

At this point, however, the 416 Fire does not appear to be a Missionary Ridge repeat, at least in terms of severity. The 2002 blaze was started by an errant spark, possibly from a car’s exhaust pipe, in the early afternoon of June 9, and it had blown up to 6,500 acres within hours. As I write this, the 416 Fire is spreading much more slowly, having charred 2,400 acres — and no homes — after four days of burning. High winds and hot temperatures could change all of that, of course.

The cause of the 416 Fire remains unknown. Embers from the coal-fired narrow gauge train that travels between Durango and Silverton are a fire hazard, yet the US Forest Service has reported the ignition point as being in the right of way of Highway 550, meaning the fire just as easily could have been started by a motorist’s tossed cigarette butt. In any event, the railroad and the tourism economy that depends on it will be affected. Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge RR officials say they won’t run the train until June 10 at the earliest, and after that will use a diesel locomotive — to the displeasure of authenticity-seeking passengers. (UPDATE 6/6: InciWeb continues to list fire cause as “unknown,” but the coordinates it gives for the fire, and witness accounts, indicate that the fire started near the railroad tracks, not long after the train passed, far from Hwy 550. Also, the D&SNGRR announced on 6/5 that train service will be suspended until at least June 17.)…

It’s certainly too early to guess how big of a blow the 416 Fire — and any other fires to follow — will have on the regional economy. Still, it’s a tough break coming after a thin ski season and at the beginning of what will surely turn out to be a rough one for commercial rafters, with or without any more fires. It’s also a potent reminder that climate change is bad for a lot of things, including the local economy.

While 2018 is shaping up to mirror 2002, it also closely resembles another dry and disastrous time — the summer of 1879. No one was keeping official tabs on the weather or snowpack or streamflows back then, but from anecdotal and newspaper reports, we can gather that the 1878-79 winter was just as dry and warm as 2017-18. And the results were equally smoky: In early June of that year, a blaze broke out a few miles north of where the current 416 Fire is burning. It ended up charring 26,000 acres of relatively high-altitude forests.

To read more about the Lime Creek Burn, and the way it was used in anti-Ute propaganda; the local community’s love/hate relationship with the tourist train; and a heck of a lot more, get a copy of my book, River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics, and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster.

From The Durango Herald (Shane Benjamin) via The Cortez Journal:

Federal firefighters have not released the cause of the 416 Fire. A federal wildfire information database, InciWeb, lists the cause as “unknown.” A longitude and latitude entered into the database pinpoints the fire just west of the train tracks in an area where nothing else is around. Chione confirmed that is about where the fire started.

The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad is not taking responsibility for the fire, but that could change based on the outcome of local and federal fire investigations, General Manager John Harper told The Durango Herald on Tuesday…

The U.S. Forest Service in conjunction with the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office and the Bureau of Land Management are conducting the investigation, according to an email sent Tuesday from Cam Hooley, acting spokeswoman for San Juan National Forest.

“A team of trained investigators was on scene as soon as Friday night, the day of ignition,” she wrote in the email to the Herald. “USFS investigators include both local and regional personnel. Because of the size of the fire, the cost of suppression and the impact on the community, the investigation team will take the time needed to conduct a comprehensive and thorough investigation before any determinations are released. No timeline has been given for release of information.”

Chione and his neighbors often spot fires started by the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. The Meadowridge subdivision, with eight houses, sits only a couple hundred feet east of the train tracks and is located on a steep grade between Hermosa and Rockwood – an area known locally as Shalona Hill.

Locomotives work hard to power up the mountain, and some hot cinders from the coal-fired engine land on the ground and start little fires. A pop car typically follows each train three to five minutes behind the train to look for fires. Five minutes behind the pop car is a water tender that can douse flames, if necessary.

It is not unusual for the train to start spot fires through this section of track, Chione said. In fact, residents are so aware of the fire danger that they converted an old insecticide spray truck into a brush truck that can spray water to help douse the spot fires.

When he sees a fire, Chione typically calls his neighbor, Cres Fleming, who either walks down to the tracks to help extinguish flames, or if the fire is more serious, drives the water truck to the tracks to help douse the blaze.

“I got a call on Friday morning after the second train had come by that there was a small fire at the bend in the tracks,” Fleming said. “I high-tailed it over there with the truck, and as I came up on the railroad tracks, I saw the fire was probably 35 feet up the hill from the tracks. The railroad patrolman was there on his radio, I guess letting dispatch know what was going on. The fire at that point was really too much for his small sprayer that he had on that first pop car.”

Flemming unraveled the hose on his make-shift water truck, but he had a water-pressure problem. By the time the hose was working, the fire had advanced 80 or 90 feet up the hill – beyond the reach of his sprayer.

“It was moving incredibly fast,” Fleming said. “I fired a stream of water and dragged a hose up the hill, which is hard for me because I’m not exactly young any more.

“I feel sort of heartbroken that I just missed putting that fire out because I know it has really caused a lot of problems for a lot of people,” Fleming said. “If I had been there a minute earlier, I think I could have gotten it.”

The Colorado West Land Trust June News is hot off the presses

Click here to read the newsletter. Here’s an excerpt:

Kids learn about conservation and birding on conserved land

Last month East Middle School 6th graders enjoyed a morning bird-watching hike at Avant Vineyards conserved property on East Orchard Mesa. Thanks so much to Nic Korte from the Grand Valley Audubon Society for leading the hike and Neil Guard at Avant Vineyards for hosting!

Photo credit: Colorado West Land Trust

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#Colorado Primary #election June 26, 2018 #ActOnClimate

Leaf, Berthoud Pass Summint, August 21, 2017.

Mail-in ballots are in the mail for Colorado’s primary election.

Fact: To combat climate change humankind must end the burning of fossil fuels.

Fact: The means to replace fossil fuels are at hand, economic and effective.

Please consider voting for candidates that put the environment at the top or near the top of their list of issues. You can find their positions on the environment and in particular climate change on their websites.

To view the election calendar click here.

Here’s a look at the U.S. Climate Alliance from USA Today (Jerry Brown, Andrew Cuomo and Jay Inslee):

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change was a landmark moment in human history. It crystallized decades of negotiations into a framework embraced by every country in the world to confront the existential threat of climate change and work together to solve the challenge.

President Trump’s announcement exactly one year ago that he intended to withdraw from the Paris Agreement raised global concerns that the agreement could weaken or unravel. Instead, Trump’s retreat has catalyzed leaders in America and around the world to stand shoulder to shoulder and press forward with climate solutions.

June 1 is not the anniversary of an end to one of the world’s greatest acts of consensus; it is a celebration of what Americans have done to fill the federal void. On the same day Trump abdicated climate leadership last year, we formed the U.S. Climate Alliance to uphold the Paris Agreement commitment in our states. In just one year, the alliance has grown into a bipartisan coalition of 17 governors representing 40% of the U.S. population and a $9 trillion economy — larger than that of every country in the world but the U.S. and China.

President Trump’s announcement last year centered on his allegation that the Paris Agreement hurts the U.S. economy. The fact that our collective economies are stronger than non-alliance states proves just the opposite. Alliance states are not only reducing emissions more rapidly than the rest of the country, but we are also expanding our per capita economic output twice as fast. Alliance states are attracting billions of dollars in climate and clean energy investments that have created 1.3 million clean energy jobs. The Alliance states are not alone: meeting the most ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement is projected to save the world $30 trillion in avoided economic damages.

While the Paris Agreement is one of the greatest tests in global collaboration, this interstate effort stands as one of the biggest and most important experiments in American policymaking. From modernizing power grids to scaling up renewable energy and reducing pollution, we are saving money and cleaning our air.

We will do everything in our power to defend and continue our climate actions. This includes continuing to oppose any federal proposal to cancel the Clean Power Plan, weaken clean car and appliance standards or expand offshore drilling. One year after President Trump’s abdication, the rapid economic growth of states within the U.S. Climate Alliance remain a beacon to all Americans and to every other nation that Americans are still in the Paris Agreement and will not retreat.

Despite President Trump’s Paris Agreement decision, the world continues to move forward and not backward on climate. One year after the president’s announcement, every other nation on earth has signed onto the Paris Agreement. China canceled plans for more than 100 coal-fired power plants in 2017, offshore wind energy is competing without subsidy in northern Europe, and several countries are making plans to shift cars from gas and diesel to electric, including China, France, India, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom.

We will work in lockstep with the nations of the world and continue our work to uphold the Paris Agreement. However, it is clear that we cannot meet the climate challenge alone. We need commitment from every U.S. state and we need the federal government to get back in the game. We invite others to join us and mark June 1 not as an anniversary of retreat, but as the moment when a bold, new movement of climate action took root in America.

Democratic Govs. Jerry Brown of California, Andrew Cuomo of New York and Jay Inslee of Washington are co-chairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance. Follow them on Twitter: @JerryBrownGov, @NYGovCuomo and @GovInslee.

#Drought news: Fremont County update

From The Canon City Daily Record (Carie Canterbury):

Currently, Colorado is experiencing the third lowest snowpack on record, with only 2002 and 1981 being drier, according to CPW. Extreme drought has expanded to cover most of the southern half of Colorado, with the worst conditions being in the southwest corner.

The Water Availability Task Force reports that in order to respond to persistent and prolonged drought conditions throughout the southern half of the state and along the western border, the Governor activated the Colorado Drought Mitigation and Response Plan for the agricultural sector on May 2 in 33 counties that are experiencing severe, extreme or exceptional drought as classified by the U.S. Drought Monitor. Fremont County is not included in this list, but if present trends continue, other regions and sectors of the state’s economy may also be affected, the report indicates.

As of May 15, exceptional drought continues to affect southwest Colorado and has also been introduced in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, covering eight percent of the state. Extreme drought covers 23 percent of the state; severe drought 20 percent and 14 percent is classified as moderate drought, including most of Fremont County. An additional 14 percent of the state is currently experiencing abnormally dry conditions.

The May 2018 Drought Update issued by the WATF states that October 2017 through April 2018 was the fifth warmest and the fifth driest on record for the state as a whole. Some locations throughout southern Colorado have experienced their driest and/or warmest October-April period on record.

“Most regions of Southern Colorado reached their snow accumulation peak two to three weeks early and have experienced rapid snowmelt, resulting in melt out occurring three weeks earlier than normal,” the report states. “Streamflow forecasts in the southern half of the state are extremely low, with multiple sites showing below 15 percent of normal.”

Additionally, the report states that reservoir storage statewide is at 111 percent of normal, with all but the southwest basins above average. The Arkansas basin is reporting the highest average storage at 129 percent. Front Range water providers mainly draw water resources from areas of the state that received near normal winter precipitation, and are therefore expecting reservoirs to fill, and are not anticipating any water use restrictions outside normal operations.

Defense Department Reaffirms That #ClimateChange Is A National Security Issue

Western spring snowpack has been below normal six of the past seven years, meaning less water during the traditionally dry summer months. Graphic credit: Climate Central

From the Center for Climate Security:

Notably though unsurprisingly, due to consistent expressions of concern about climate change from senior defense leaders over the past year, the Department of Defense (DoD) on Sunday reaffirmed its stance on the growing national security risks associated with a changing climate. In a statement to the Washington Times, DoD spokesperson Heather Babb noted:

The effects of a changing climate continue to be a national security issue with potential impacts to missions, operational plans and installations…DOD has not changed its approach on ensuring installations and infrastructure are resilient to a wide range of challenges, including climate and other environmental considerations.

The article also quotes the Center for Climate and Security’s Director, John Conger, who commented on the practical, mission-based rationale for the military’s concern:

There are mission reasons to do these kinds of things. … If sea level rise is going to impact infrastructure, if a runway gets flooded, that’s a mission impact and that’s the kind of thing you’ve got to pay attention to.

It’s not like they’re doing some altruistic thing…They’re not trying to be good about climate change. They just recognize the reality that’s in front of you.

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Pueblo Reservoir faced releasing millions of gallons of water in April, but its fast-acting users averted a major spill — Your Water Colorado Blog

By Jerd Smith Water Education Colorado It’s a drought year, right? But back in April, Pueblo Reservoir in southeastern Colorado was so full of water it came within days of releasing the excess, also known as “spilling,” to make room for spring runoff. Spilling water is painful in a semi-arid state, in part because whomever […]

via Pueblo Reservoir faced releasing millions of gallons of water in April, but its fast-acting users averted a major spill — Your Water Colorado Blog

Reusing water to craft a unique summertime beer – News on TAP

Declaration Brewery serves up a sustainable beer to celebrate Denver Water’s 100th anniversary.

Source: Reusing water to craft a unique summertime beer – News on TAP

Event Listings from Uncompahgre Watershed Partnership

From email from the Uncompahgre Watershed Partnership:

11th Annual Ridgway RiverFest, Saturday, June 30, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Rollans Park, Ridgway. Enjoy a community watershed celebration with live music, river races, food booths, arts & crafts, beer, margaritas, silent auction, and more. Funds raised support activities of the Uncompahgre Watershed Partnership. For info: http://ridgwayriverfest.org…

River of Lost Souls Reading, Monday, Aug. 13, Sherbino Theater, 604 Clinton St., Ridgway. Come meet and ask questions of author Jonathan P. Thompson about the gripping story behind the 2015 Gold King Mine disaster that turned the Animas River orange with sludge and toxic metals. Organized in cooperation with the Uncompahgre Watershed Partnership. For info: http://www.uncompahgrewatershed.org/events/…

Ouray Ice Park – Uncompahgre River Canyon Cleanup & BBQ, Saturday, September 15, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Join the Ouray Ice Park and Uncompahgre Watershed Partnership volunteers to pick up litter and debris in the ice climbing areas of the Uncompahgre River Canyon in Ouray. Then, enjoy a BBQ party to celebrate our efforts. For info: http://www.uncompahgrewatershed.org/events/

The San Luis Valley Conservation Fund scores $540,000 to bolster #conservation efforts

From the San Luis Valley Conservation Fund via The Conejos County Citizen:

The San Luis Valley Conservation Fund (SLVCF), a partnership between Colorado Open Lands, Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust, Western Rivers Conservancy and the LOR Foundation, announced its third round of grant awards for organizations working in Colorado’s San Luis Valley.
A total of $540,000 was awarded recently by the SLVCF to bolster conservation efforts within the Valley and to help preserve the region’s rich cultural heritage while enhancing livability for local communities.

A total of 21 organizations received grants that ranged from $5,000 to $50,000.

“There is great work being done by the organizations and communities in the San Luis Valley, and the most recent round of grants from the SLVCF will only strengthen that work, maintaining the rich culture and natural beauty of this region for future generations,” said Jake Caldwell, program officer at the LOR Foundation. “We are proud that we are able to make these grants to 21 different local organizations in partnership with Colorado Open Lands, Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust and Western Rivers Conservancy.”
Local grants follow:

Conejos Clean Water
Preserving Community: Sustaining Community Engagement and Construction of Facilities for Promotion –$30,000
This project will sustain programs that CCW has developed to enhance livability and health of San Luis Valley communities, especially through outdoor recreation and environmental education opportunities for valley youth and families; additional preservation of local communities and their rich cultural heritage; and conservation of valley land and water through sustainable natural resource management practices.

Costilla County Conservancy District
Upper Culebra Watershed Planning Project – $35,000
This project aims to engage stakeholders in an inclusive process to develop a scope of work and prepare an RFP for a watershed assessment of the Culebra Watershed. Stakeholders will determine the needs of the ecological conditions of the area, identify problems, and develop a list of prioritized objectives needed for the assessment.

Costilla County Economic Development Council, Inc.,
Funding for project coordinator – $12,000
This award will fund the Project Coordinator position, which complements the work of the Hispano Farm Curriculum project by developing a signature exhibit at the Sangre de Cristo Heritage Center on acequias and the Hispano farm. The Coordinator will collaborate with public and private agencies and individuals to enhance collaborative partnerships for CCEDC projects and other projects such as Congreso de las Acequias.

Sangre de Cristo Acequia Association
Developing Strategies for the Sustainability of the Traditional Acequia Culture – $50,000
The Developing Strategies for the Sustainability of the Acequia Culture will be centered on the practices that were adopted through the Association’s ongoing strategic planning process for 2018. This includes employment of the association’s executive director, identifying member acequias, and developing training sessions for acequia producers, as well as collaborating with partners to develop needed programs.

Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado
Sustaining and Growing Our Valley Organizations – $30,000
As the San Luis Valley grows and evolves, its nonprofit organizations will be challenged to step up their community support. This project offers tools and techniques to sustain current operations and to position organizations for future growth.

The partners’ efforts are focused on the Rio Grande and the open space surrounding and dependent upon the river and its tributaries. The Rio Grande provides crucial habitat for fish and wildlife, including pronghorn, elk, bighorn sheep, over 200 bird species and 95 percent of the Rocky Mountains’ greater sandhill crane population.

The Rio Grande and its tributaries sustain the working ranches and farms that form the base of the region’s agricultural economy. They are also the primary source of water for the valley’s historic acequias, a system of communal irrigation in the southern portion of the valley that predates Colorado’s statehood and has connected local communities for generations.

The river also provides some of the best recreation opportunities for people throughout the San Luis Valley.
With the support of the LOR Foundation, COL, RiGHT and WRC are working together to help preserve the valley’s rich heritage, balancing agricultural needs with conservation and recreation along and around the Rio Grande.

San Luis Valley Local Foods Coalition, Environmental and Regenerative Farming Education at the Rio Grande Farm Park – $35,000
This award will support RGFP’s initiative to enhance its environmental and regenerative farming educational offerings, which help visitors draw connections between the environment, recreation, and conservation. Park staff will create construction documents for an education pavilion and work with many partners to ensure that the plan meets the needs of local youth, families, residents, and other community stakeholders. In addition, the San Luis Valley Local Foods Coalition, Valley Roots Food Hub Regenerative Soil Farmer Project was awarded $5,000

The project will build on the burgeoning soil health movement in the SLV. This phase will feature participating farmers in a soil health marketing campaign aimed at area restaurants, schools, and other retailers. This will be accomplished by going to participating farms, touring the land, documenting and interviewing the farmer, and constructing the results into an effective marketing campaign.

Walk2Connect, Caminos del Valle Capacity Building – $13,000
This project is an investment in capacity building and new program development alongside a diverse list of partners for the San Luis Valley’s Caminos del Valle connection-focused walking community. The project will support development of meaningful walking events, walking leader training and community outreach throughout the Valley.

@COWaterCongress accepting nominations for 2019 Aspinall Award

A bust of Wayne Aspinall, in Palisade, facing the Colorado River. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

From email from the Colorado Water Congress (Meg Meyer):

The Colorado Water Congress is currently accepting nominations for the 2019 Aspinall Award to be awarded at the 2019 Annual Convention in January. All nominations must be received by July 1, 2018.

The Colorado Water Congress presents the prestigious Wayne N. Aspinall “Water Leader of the Year” Award annually to an individual Coloradan who has long demonstrated courage, dedication, knowledge and strong leadership in the development, protection and preservation of Colorado water.

Honorees reflect those attributes so clearly possessed by the award’s namesake, Wayne N. Aspinall. The late Mr. Aspinall, a lawyer and former longtime member of the U. S. House of Representatives, remains one of the most influential water leaders in Colorado history.

Please follow this link https://www.cowatercongress.org/aspinall-award.html [coloradowatercongresscoassoc.wliinc15.com] to find the nomination form and return to Meg Meyer.

Shoshone plant water rights in Glenwood Canyon eyed by Colorado River District — @AspenJournalism

Penstock blowout at Shoshone hydro plant. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

From Aspen Journalism (Heather Sackett) via The Aspen Times:

The Colorado River District is renewing its efforts at preserving a major Western Slope water right: the Shoshone hydropower plant.

But this time around, under the new leadership of general manager Andy Mueller, the district’s discussions with plant owner Xcel Energy are focusing on finding a way to maintain the water right instead of purchasing outright the plant or associated water rights.

The Shoshone plant is located on the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon, upstream of Glenwood Springs and the popular Shoshone boating stretch of the river.

The plant began operating in 1909, and has a senior water right dating to 1902. That water right keeps 1,250 cubic feet per second flowing down the Colorado River. That means upstream junior water rights holders must leave enough water in the river for Shoshone to receive its full decreed amount. It also means that full amount becomes available for downstream users.

Some Western Slope water managers fear that if Xcel were to sell the plant or discontinue generating power at the site, the guaranteed 1,250 cfs could be lost. It would be a major blow for Western Slope water users.

At the Colorado River Basin Roundtable’s meeting in May in Glenwood Springs, Colorado River District general counsel Peter Fleming delivered a history of the Shoshone hydropower plant and an update on the efforts of the river district to preserve the flows associated with the plant.

“Simply by virtue of its very senior priority and large size, it is the controlling water right on the river upstream of Glenwood Springs,” Fleming said.

He said river district officials have met with Xcel officials about five times over the past few months to talk about ways to preserve the Shoshone water right for the Western Slope, and he anticipates additional meetings in the future.

In the past, conversations have centered around the Colorado River District potentially purchasing the hydro plant from Xcel. But those talks have shifted to ways of preserving the flow without ownership changing hands.

“A lot of it is explaining to [Xcel] why this is an important issue for the West Slope and that we are not out to interfere with their business,” Fleming said. “We don’t have any interest in operating a power plant. But maybe there’s a win-win concept out there to achieve the permanency of the Shoshone flows.”

Michelle Aguayo, Colorado media relations representative for Xcel, said in a statement the company has begun discussions with the river district, 20 West Slope water providers, and government entities about the possibility of achieving permanent management of the flow of the Colorado River so that it mimics current and historic flows.

“Although Xcel Energy is willing to talk with parties that express interest, Xcel Energy wants to reiterate that this does not signal any desire or commitment to transfer or sell any rights related to the company’s assets,” the statement reads.

Mueller said he does not view Xcel’s statement as a closing of the door and remains optimistic a solution can be found.

The Minneapolis-based energy company provides electricity and natural gas to customers in eight states, including 1.5 million people in Colorado.

Preserving flows of the Shoshone plant has long been priority for Western Slope water managers and the Colorado River District. In 2007, Xcel and Denver Water reached an agreement that during drought conditions, Xcel would “relax” Shoshone’s call on the river down to 704 cfs, cutting it roughly in half. The agreement allows Denver Water to fill its reservoirs earlier, which made some Western Slope water managers nervous.

Then came the 2012 Shoshone Outage Protocol, a 40-year agreement between Front Range and Western Slope water managers. It says that when the Shoshone plant is shut down for repairs, maintenance, or other reasons, the flows must still be maintained.

Colorado River Basin Roundtable member Chuck Ogilby said the Colorado River District should have played a bigger role in negotiating these deals and that the organization has not taken a strong enough lead in protecting the Shoshone flows.

Ogilby would like to see a group of Western Slope water managers attend an Xcel board meeting to lobby for protection of the Shoshone flows.

“It’s maddening to me,” Ogilby said. “They have missed the boat on this entire activity. … Now here we are trying to make up for their lack of engagement. We all pay taxes to the river district and this is the most important thing they can do and they are dragging their feet.”

That may be changing under the new leadership of Mueller, who took over in December.

“I was specifically requested by the board to lead that charge on behalf of the district, so I think yes, the discussions are reinvigorated and we feel reasonably optimistic about it,” Mueller said. “And we appreciate the willingness of Xcel to sit down and have discussions with us.”

Aspen Journalism is collaborating with The Aspen Times on the coverage of rivers and water. More at http://www.aspenjournalism.org.

Suddenly, solar energy plus storage is giving conventional fuels a run for their money —

As the owners of the largest coal-burning power plant in the West map out the details of closing in the next two years, the Navajo Nation has taken its next step in its energy development by starting operations at a new 27-megawatt solar farm not far from the source of the coal that fuels Navajo Generating Station. The Kayenta solar project, owned by the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority and operated by First solar, is the first large-scale solar energy facility on the reservation. The electricity is sold to the Salt River Project for distribution. The project’s 120,000 photovoltaic panels sit on 200 acres and are mounted on single-axis trackers that follow the movement of the sun. It provides enough electricity to power approximately 7,700 households. The tribe entered a lease agreement with NTUA in 2015 for the location, a groundbreaking ceremony was held in April 2016, followed by six months of construction that started last September. The $60 million facility was built using a construction loan from the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation.

From ENSIA (Daniel Rothberg):

In December, the state’s largest utility — Xcel Energy — released a short report summarizing the responses to the solicitation it had issued to power suppliers for bids to bring new sources of electricity to the grid. The utility received 430 bids, and 350 of those were for renewable energy projects.

That was remarkable on its own, but what surprised people even more were the bids for projects that added battery storage to the mix. They were cheaper than anyone expected.

“It’s a testament to how quickly the market is changing,” Pierce says.

Changing Attitudes

For years, renewable energy advocates have pushed utilities and regulators to consider adding battery storage to their electrical generation portfolios for flexibility and to reduce intermittency problems that come with solar and wind. Until recently, it wasn’t considered a realistic option: Batteries were expensive and largely untested by utilities, and risk-averse regulators mostly let grid managers ignore them in their bids, statements and long-term planning documents.

Analysts say that’s starting to change as batteries come down in price, as momentum builds behind renewables and as renewables create a natural market for storage. Utilities are increasingly looking at batteries as a tool for leveling out power available over the course of the day and for replacing bulky and expensive peaking power plants that have high costs but only occasionally run at or near full capacity to meet peak demand (in the Southwest, this might be one hot day in the summer when everyone has their air conditioning turned up).

Some see the Xcel Energy report as the most recent case in a growing trend. Xcel’s preliminary analysis from December (a more thorough report is expected to come out June 6) showed that the median bids for battery storage projects coupled with solar and wind generation came in at about US$36 and US$21 per megawatt-hour, respectively. The prices of projects that combined solar or wind with storage, according to the report, were still more expensive than conventional fuels but only marginally more expensive than bids for standalone solar or wind projects. What it shows, analysts say, is that utilities can use batteries without adding huge costs to renewable projects.

Xcel is not alone. Utilities across the country appear to be more receptive to the idea of adding storage to their portfolios. Tucson Electric Power’s decision to build a solar-plus-storage project for US$45 per megawatt-hour generated dozens of headlines last year — and that price-point is higher than the Xcel median. Earlier this year, NV Energy, an affiliate of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, announced it would include battery storage in its bidding process for the first time. Around the same time, California regulators pushed a utility to procure energy storage as a replacement to natural gas. A few months later, Florida Light & Power announced a project adding storage to an existing solar plant.

Kate McGinnis, the Western U.S. market director for Fluence Energy, a global battery storage provider that Siemens and AES Corporation launched last year, says it’s clear that attitudes toward storage are changing. “We’re seeing utilities talk directly to us to learn more about what storage can do and how it can help them to meet the various grid challenges they are experiencing,” McGinnis says.

But she also offered the following warning: The Xcel numbers, as medians, reveal difficulties in comparing different energy storage projects. Batteries are diverse and complex. Different batteries have different capacities — some might be able to hold enough energy so they could discharge power over five hours. Others might be able to store enough for 10 hours…

Boosting Efficiency, Replacing Gas

A big driver of the shift in energy storage is cost, says Yayoi Sekine, an analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance. She notes that the price of lithium-ion batteries has dropped from about $1,000 per kilowatt-hour in 2010 to about $209 per kWh in 2017. The decreases came as more batteries were produced at a more efficient scale to accommodate a growing electric vehicle market.

“That’s a massive decrease in prices over not that long of a period,” she says.

Utilities, Sekine says, see an opportunity to use storage to make the grid more efficient. Adding more solar to the grid has created big issues for how grid operators manage a utility’s generation portfolio, the biggest of which is commonly known as the “duck curve” (the name comes from the a graph of net load on the grid; it forms what looks like the outline of a duck). It occurs when so much solar power is produced during the day that it creates a slew of issues for meeting demand at night. The thinking is that if some of that solar power were stored in a battery, it could be dispatched with more flexibility and deployed more gradually to better balance supply and demand.

Others want to take storage and solar a step further. They believe that, as prices become more competitive, the two together can obviate the need for some natural gas plants. According to a new report from Greentech Media, solar and storage together are expected to compete directly with natural gas peakers — plants built to meet peak electricity demand — by 2022.

“That is an application where we think [battery] storage can be highly competitive,” says Ravi Manghani, an industry analyst who directs Greentech Media’s energy storage research.

The industry still faces some headwinds. Analysts say costs need to decrease even more for batteries plus renewables to compete head-on with most conventional fuels. David Hart, a professor at George Mason University and a co-author on a recent working paper on energy storage, says that more research and development is necessary. He proposes that government mechanisms encourage innovation, especially research in battery types other than lithium-ion.

Another challenge, Hart says, is the fact that electricity prices vary based on time and location.

Berthoud: #Conservation Gardens Fair at @NorthernWater, June 9, 2018

From the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District via The Loveland Reporter Herald:

Residents can learn about landscaping that requires less water in Colorado’s semiarid climate during a Conservation Gardens Fair at Northern Water on Saturday.

The free event, held June 9, will feature demonstrations and seminars on lawn and garden practices that are ideal for Colorado’s climate. Residents also can explore Northern Water’s conservation gardens, which showcase hundreds of plants and turf grasses that flourish in this region.

“Northern Water’s staff collectively has decades of experience in water-efficient landscaping and best practices for our climate, and we want to share that knowledge with the public,” Lyndsey Lucia, Conservation Gardens public outreach coordinator, said in a press release. “We encourage anyone who’s interested to join us at this event, as the wide variety of information provided at the Conservation Gardens Fair will be valuable for homeowners, businesses and green industry professionals alike.”

Joining Northern Water’s experts are representatives from Colorado State University’s Extension Office and master gardeners program, Colorado Vista Landscape Design, EWING Irrigation, Gardens on Spring Creek, Green Hills Sod Farm, Loveland Youth Gardeners, Plant Select and Turf Master.

Activities for children also are on tap at the Conservation Gardens Fair, the first 400 people will receive a free perennial and a gift from the prize wheel, and there will be a limited number of free sandwiches during the lunch hour, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The event is open 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 9 at Northern Water’s headquarters, 220 Water Ave., in Berthoud. More information on the fair, including a list of how-to seminars and activities, is availalbe at http://northernwater.org.

US rivers “snake” diagram via MapPorn

Court battle continues over Windy Gap firming project — @AspenJournalism

Looking east toward the Chimney Hollow Reservoir site, which is just this side of the red ridge. On the other side is Carter Lake Reservoir and beyond that, the Loveland area.

From Aspen Journalism (Lindsay Fendt):

In western Larimer County a sedimentary rock ridge runs parallel to the gradual beginnings of the Rocky Mountain foothills, forming a large valley known as Chimney Hollow.

In May 2017, federal agencies approved plans to flood the valley — which is between Longmont, to the south, and Loveland, to the north — to create a 90,000 acre-foot reservoir.

But while the 14-year federal permitting process has now come to an end and construction slated to begin early next year, a federal lawsuit from six environmental groups could stop the project from moving forward.

“We are just trying to inject some sanity and stop the madness,” said Gary Wockner, director of Save the Colorado, an environmental nonprofit based in Ft. Collins that supports the Colorado River and is the lead petitioner in the case. “The Colorado River is the most dammed, drained, depleted river on the planet.”

The construction of Chimney Hollow Reservoir is the foundation for the $400 million Windy Gap “firming project,” a supplemental storage plan tied to the existing Windy Gap dam and reservoir, which is on the main stem of the Colorado River in Grand County. The firming project also includes construction of a bypass channel at Windy Gap’s original diversion point in order to help mitigate existing impacts on fish and water quality.

The relatively modest Windy Gap reservoir, which holds 445 acre-feet, was built in 1985 to draw water from the Colorado River and pump it uphill to Lake Granby and into the Colorado-Big Thompson project. The water is then sent under the Continental Divide and into Larimer and other Front Range counties.

The Northern Colorado Water Conservation District based in Berthoud, owns the Windy Gap reservoir, operates the Colorado-Big Thompson system, and is intent on constructing Chimney Hollow reservoir to store additional Colorado River water.

Fourteen municipalities and water districts throughout the Front Range are signed up to help pay for the Chimney Hollow reservoir, based on the share of the water they intend to use.

Though the existing Windy Gap Project can today draw as much as 90,000 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River, due to junior water rights and a lack of storage, the project is often unable to provide any water at all to the Front Range.

With the Chimney Hollow Reservoir in place, the Windy Gap project could supply a guaranteed 30,000 acre-feet of water per year to its customers.

A graphic from Northern Water showing the lay out of Windy Gap Firming Project.

Other alternatives?

Wockner and Save the Colorado have been joined by five other environmental groups — Save the Poudre, Wildearth Guardians, Living Rivers, Waterkeeper Alliance and the Sierra Club — in suing the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers over their environmental review of the Windy Gap firming project.

The petitioners allege that the agencies violated the National Environmental Protection Act and the Clean Water Act by failing to consider alternatives, like water conservation, instead of building a new project.

“Rather than rigorously exploring and objectively evaluating ways to meet (Northern’s) actual water supply needs, the federal agencies accepted (Northern’s) claimed need at face value and only considered reservoir options that would further (Northern’s) preconceived goal of “firming” Windy Gap water supplies,” says the petitioner’s complaint.

Both the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers declined interview requests for this story, but according to the Bureau’s Final Environmental Impact Statement, the firming project would supply only about 10 percent of its customers projected 2050 water demand.

Because conservation cannot account for the entire projected gap, the FEIS states that the agency did not consider conservation as an alternative to the firming project.

The agencies’ assumptions about the demand gap are consistent with those of the 2015 Colorado Water Plan the state’s official water strategy document, which estimates that water demand in 2050 could exceed supplies by as much as 560,000 acre-feet.

To make up for this gap, the plan calls for conservation measures and also the significant expansion of water storage facilities.

Because of the water plan’s call for storage, the Windy Gap firming project is considered a critical storage project by the state and received endorsements from both the Colorado Water Conservation Board and Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Outflow from the dam across the Colorado River that forms Windy Gap Reservoir. Taken during a field trip the reservoir in September, 2017.

Conservation included

Northern, which is not a defendant in the lawsuit, filed a motion in March to intervene on behalf of the defendants in the lawsuit to help defend the permit process.

When asked why conservation was not considered as an alternative, officials from Northern said that the demand estimates already assume that municipalities will increase water conservation.

“We did not count conservation as an alternative. We built conservation into our demand projection,” said Jeff Drager, Northern’s director of engineering and the project manager for the Windy Gap firming project. “So when we looked at how much water our participants need we figured we factored in some level of conservation already.”

Though Northern and the state use the projected demand gap to justify the firming project, the petitioners say the demand estimates are inflated.

On May 3, the petitioners filed a motion to add a statistics report to the case’s administrative record.

According to the report, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps failed to update the estimated water use statistics in their impact statements with the actual water use data as it became available over the course of the 14-year permitting process.

The report found that the agencies’ estimates for municipal water use were between 9 and 97 percent higher than the actual water use figures.

“The thrust of our claim is that the federal government just took the project participants word for how much water they would need,” said Kevin Lynch, the attorney for the petitioners. “The agency has a duty to independently verify that need and they didn’t do anything. They took projections from 2005 and that data was wildly over-inflated.”

The court is now reviewing the petitioners’ administrative motions as well as motions by both Northern and the Colorado Department of Natural Resources to intervene on behalf of the defendants.

These changes will likely delay court proceedings for at least several months.

Updated timeline: the Maroon and Castle creek conditional water storage rights — @AspenJournalism

Will Roush, left, of Wilderness Workshop, and Ken Neubecker, right, of American Rivers, hold up tape on Sept. 7, 2016 showing where the base of a 155-foot-tall dam would be located on Maroon Creek if the City of Aspen were to build the potential Maroon Creek Reservoir.

From Aspen Journalism (Brent Gardner-Smith):

Timeline from 1881 to pre-May 2018.

May 8, 2018, a status conference is held in the two cases in front of the water court referee. The city must respond to opposer’s settlement proposals by June 1. The next status conference is set for June 29. Meanwhile, the City of Aspen’s two due diligence applications remain before the water court referee, in a quasi-administrative, non-trial-track status.

May 9, 2018, Aspen Journalism and The Aspen Times report that city has reached agreement with one of the opposing parties in the dam cases.

May 24, 2018, A staff memo regarding stipulation agreements on the water rights is published by the city. The packet for a May 29 staff meeting also includes a proposed resolution.

The title of the resolution is “A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF ASPEN, COLORADO, AUTHORIZING THE CITY’S ATTORNEYS TO EXECUTE STIPULATIONS WITH OPPOSERS TO THE DILIGENCE CASES FOR CONDITIONAL WATER STORAGE RIGHTS ON CASTLE AND MAROON CREEKS ON BEHALF OF THE CITY OF ASPEN, COLORADO.”

The Aspen Daily News reports on the city council’s pending vote related to moving its move water rights out of Castle and Maroon creek valleys, as does The Aspen Times, Aspen Journalism, and Aspen Public Radio. APR’s story was headlined “Aspen agrees to never build dams on Castle and Maroon.”

A map prepared for the City of Aspen that shows the five potential water-storage sites in the Roaring Fork River valley.

May 29, 2018, The Aspen city council votes unanimously to approve agreements with five opposing parties in the Castle and Maroon creek cases. Agreements have yet to be reached with the other five opposing parties.

The Aspen Times and the Aspen Daily News each publish stories about the vote.

The city issues a press release with the headline, “City Council Votes to Support Moving Conditional Water Rights off Wilderness Areas.”

As of May 29 there were stipulation agreements signed by five parties. Three of those parties are in both the Castle and Maroon creek cases. Below is a list, with links to the agreements signed to date, and made public by the city.

There is also a draft degree included as Exhibit A to the agreements for both the Castle Creek stipulations and the Maroon Creek stipulations.

The Pitkin County stipulation is listed at the top, as it is the most restrictive of the stipulation agreements yet signed. It eliminates the use of the county-owned Moore Open Space as a potential storage site, while the earlier agreements with other parties include it.

Pitkin County – Maroon Creek Reservoir
Pitkin County – Castle Creek Reservoir

Wilderness Workshop – Maroon Creek Reservoir
Wilderness Workshop – Castle Creek Reservoir

Western Resource Advocates – Maroon Creek Reservoir
Western Resource Advocates – Castle Creek Reservoir

Double R Cross Ltd – Castle Creek Reservoir

ASP Properties, LLC – Castle Creek Reservoir

Agreements were not signed by May 29 with five other opposing parties, three of whom are in both cases:

USFS – Maroon Creek Reservoir
USFS – Castle Creek Reservoir

American Rivers – Maroon Creek Reservoir
American Rivers – Castle Creek Reservoir

Trout Unlimited – Maroon Creek Reservoir
Trout Unlimited – Castle Creek Reservoir

Larsen Family LP – Maroon Creek Reservoir

Roaring Fork Land and Cattle Co. – Maroon Creek Reservoir

May 30, 2018, Western Resource Advocates issues a press release about the city’s vote, with the headline, “Conservationists reach settlement with Aspen to permanently move water rights for dams out of Maroon & Castle Creeks.”

WRA is also encouraging people to sign a thank you card to the city of Aspen, saying “We’re celebrating a landmark agreement two years in the making: the City of Aspen has agreed not to build dams on Maroon and Castle Creeks!”