Day: February 21, 2024

Auction of #ColoradoRiver water nets $4.7 million: Bidders paid an average of $74,600 per acre-foot — @AspenJournalism #SouthPlatteRiver #COriver #aridification

Auctioneer Scott Shuman, right, with Hall and Hall, helped sell 90 units of Colorado-Big Thompson Project water on Wednesday. Bidders had to be cleared to participate in the auction by the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which manages and delivers the water to cities and farms on the Front Range. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

Click the link to read the article on the Aspen Journalism website (Heather Sackett):

February 16, 2024

Longmont dairy farmer Jim Docheff has been in the dairy business for all of his 88 years, and his son Joe grows the corn and alfalfa for the dairy cows on the farm east of the city. On Wednesday, Docheff acquired six units of Colorado River water to use on his family farm by outbidding other would-be buyers in a water auction.

“I came with the idea of buying up to 10 units, but I only got so many dollars to spend,” Docheff said.

Colorado-Big Thompson Project map. Courtesy of Northern Water.

Docheff was one of 42 registered bidders who gathered at Barn A of the Boulder County Fairgrounds for a chance to buy some of the 90 units for sale of Colorado-Big Thompson Project water. The transmountain diversion project, built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the 1940s, takes water from the headwaters of the Colorado River in Grand County and transports it via a system of tunnels, pipes and canals to farms and cities in northeastern Colorado.

The first bid for one unit of C-BT water hit a high mark of $72,000, but prices soon stabilized at around $46,000 per unit. After a bidder won the round, they said how many units they wanted to buy, with some people scooping up two, five or 10 units. A buyer’s premium of 10% was added to the high bid to get the total purchase price, which averaged $52,488 per unit.

After all 90 units had a high bid, auctioneer Scott Shuman with auction company Hall and Hall offered the crowd a last chance to outbid their neighbors and reopen bidding on any of the units, or to buy the entire 90 shares.

“If you didn’t get as much water as you thought you would, here’s your opportunity to add something to it,” he said. “I do not want to say ‘sold’ and then have anybody meet me in the parking lot saying ‘I really wanted to get a couple of those units; I would have given you more for it.’”

But no bidders raised their hands.

“All right, happy Valentine’s Day, ladies and gentlemen, we sold all the water units,” Shuman told the crowd. “Give yourselves a hand, give the Yoakum family a hand.”

When all was said and done, the auction netted a total sale price of about $4.7 million for about 63 acre-feet of water. The seller was longtime Longmont farmer Carol Oswald Yoakum.

Credit: Laurine Lassalle/Aspen Journalism

C-BT water regulated

It’s common for shares of C-BT water to change hands, but a large-scale sale by auction like the one held on Wednesday is rare. The last one was in 2019.

But not just anyone can own C-BT water. It is highly regulated and there are rules about its use. To participate in the auction, would-be buyers had to meet criteria set by the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which manages and delivers the water to users. Northern does not allow more than three acre-feet of C-BT water per irrigated acre, and it’s best if a bidder is an existing water user like an irrigator or municipality within Northern’s delivery area who already has water from a different source since C-BT water is only meant to be used as a supplemental supply. And out-of-state investors looking to speculate get turned down immediately.

First water through the Adams Tunnel. Photo credit Northern Water.

“If they don’t have a farm, if they don’t have a beneficial need for the water, then there’s a very high probability that (Northern) would not approve a contract for them,” said Sherri Rasmussen, contracts manager with Northern Water. “I’ve had calls from New York people wanting to buy C-BT and my first question is: What do you want C-BT for? And they’re like, ‘Well, for investment, what do you think?’ And it’s like no, you don’t qualify.”

The C-BT project provides supplemental water to farms and cities along the northern Front Range and eastward along the South Platte River. Northern delivers this water to 33 municipalities and 120 ditch, reservoir and irrigation companies, according to its website. The project diverts about 200,000 acre-feet a year from the Colorado River basin.

Each year in April, Northern Water’s board determines the amount of water that users will get for each unit depending on whether it’s a drought year and how much water is available. The board most commonly settles on 7/10 of an acre-foot. That means Wednesday’s buyers paid an average of $74,600 per acre foot to own the water in perpetuity. That’s up from an average of $36,300 per acre-foot buyers were paying for C-BT water in 2015, according to WestWater Research, a water market research firm.

According to Adam Jokerst, a regional director with WestWater, C-BT unit prices are simply a function of supply and demand.

“Population growth largely drives water prices on the Front Range and in areas with the fastest population growth in the northern Front Range, that’s where we see the highest water prices,” he said.

But not all the buyers Wednesday were cities looking to transfer water from agriculture to support their continued growth. According to Shuman, of the 15 buyers, six were farmers; four were dairies; two were developers; two were municipalities and one was a farm foundation.

According to Jeff Stahla, public information officer for Northern Water, dairy farming in the district has been growing in recent years.

“That’s one of the takeaways from today: A lot of this water is staying in agriculture,” he said.

Another water auction is set to take place on Feb. 28 in Ault, east of Fort Collins. The Carlson Family Trust will sell 96 units of C-BT water and 154 acres of land.

This story ran in the Feb. 18 edition of The Aspen Times, the Vail Daily, Summit Daily, SkyHi News.

Ute Water kicks in $2 million for Shoshone water rights purchase — The #GrandJunction Daily Sentinel #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridfication

Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant back in the days before I-70 via Aspen Journalism

Click the link to read the article on The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel website (Dennis Webb). Here’s an excerpt:

February 16, 2024

A regional effort to purchase major Colorado River water rights in Glenwood Canyon gained major Western Slope support this week when the Ute Water Conservancy District pitched in $2 million toward the cause. The Mesa County entity’s board unanimously approved the contribution on Wednesday. An effort being led by the Colorado River District is seeking to buy water rights associated with the Shoshone hydroelectric power plant in Glenwood Canyon from Xcel Energy for $98.5 million, plus $500,000 to cover Xcel’s transaction costs. The rights include a right to flows of 1,250 cubic feet per second that dates back to 1902, along with a second, 158-cfs right that was appropriated in 1929…

The purchase is intended to ensure the flows continue even if the plant ever closes, through reaching an agreement with the state and pursuing a water court decree that would change the rights so they are not just for hydropower production but are instream flow rights would also ensure the flows continue.

The river district has committed $20 million itself for the purchase, and the Colorado Water Conservation Board recently supported pitching in $20 million in state funds, contingent on approval by the state legislature. The river district also has said it hopes to secure $49 million in federal funding and $10 million from West Slope governments and water entities.

2024 #COleg: Colorado lawmakers gear up to create new protections for unshielded wetlands and streams — Fresh Water News

Blanca Wetlands, Colorado BLM-managed ACEC Blanca Wetlands is a network of lakes, ponds, marshes and wet meadows designated for its recreation and wetland values. The BLM Colorado and its partners have made strides in preserving, restoring and managing the area to provide rich and diverse habitats for wildlife and the public. To visit or get more information, see: http://www.blm.gov/co/st/en/fo/slvfo/blanca_wetlands.html. By Bureau of Land Management – Blanca Wetlands Area of Critical Environmental Concern, Colorado, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42089248

Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):

February 14, 2024

What’s the best way to protect hundreds of acres of wetlands and streams in Colorado, in the absence of federal rules that once did that work? It’s one of the biggest water issues facing state lawmakers this year.

But as the legislative session kicks into high gear, there is no consensus yet on how to proceed.

Last week, Republican Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, introduced Senate Bill 24-127 as a first stab at figuring it out. 

At issue is how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now defines so-called Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, which determines which waterways and wetlands are protected under the federal Clean Water Act. The definition has been heavily litigated in the nation’s lower courts since the 1980s and has changed dramatically under different presidential administrations.

In May, in Sackett v. EPA the U.S. Supreme Court decided, among other things, that the WOTUS definition that included wetlands adjacent to streams, was too broad.

In its ruling, the court said only those wetlands with a direct surface connection to a stream or permanent body of water, for instance, should be protected.

The court’s decision in the WOTUS case means it will now be up to the state to handle that regulation — including permitting — and enforcement.

Last year limited temporary emergency protections were put in place to give the state time to create a new program.

Water experts said the Sackett decision and the new Colorado permitting program will have far-ranging implications for the environment, as well as agriculture, construction and mining, all major parts of Colorado’s economy.

The Sackett decision may have more impact in semi-arid Western states, where streams don’t run year-round and wetlands often don’t have a direct surface connection to a stream.

The U.S. Geological Survey, for instance, estimates 44% of Colorado’s streams are intermittent, meaning they are sometimes dry, and 24% are ephemeral, meaning they can be dry for months or years and appear only after extraordinary rain or snow. Just 32% of Colorado streams are classified as being perennial, meaning they flow year-round.

Kirkmeyer’s bill would create a new, nine-member commission appointed by the governor that would be housed in the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. The commission would oversee a staff responsible for issuing permits regulating how any activity impacting nearby streams and wetlands, such as road building, home construction and mining, would be conducted to minimize and repair any disturbances the activity caused. It would also sharply limit the kinds of streams and wetlands that could be protected, in keeping with the narrow scope enshrined in law by the U.S. Supreme Court in its Sackett v. EPA decision, Kirkmeyer said.

“These waters are important to all of us,” the Brighton lawmaker said. 

Wetlands, which are havens of biodiversity, offer priceless ecological benefits. As wetlands are lost to development nationwide, critics of the dam project worry about its local impact. (Photo Credit: John Fielder via Writers on the Range)

The bill is supported by the Colorado Livestock Association, Weld County and the mining giant Freeport-McMoRan. Conservation Colorado and the Sierra Club, and liberal environmental nonprofits, oppose the measure.

Kirkmeyer  said she proposed placing the program in the Department of Natural Resources, in part, because the Colorado Department of Public Health Environment’s Water Quality Control Division has been plagued with huge backlogs in processing permits in other programs it oversees.

Her proposal, however, may face an uphill battle in the Democratically controlled legislature. There are also questions about what the state’s new regulatory burden will mean in terms of cost.

A broad-based working group convened last year by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is still analyzing options on how best to address the regulatory gap, and has been briefing lawmakers on possible options. Those options, however, would likely give the regulating job to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and would likely seek to cover a broader class of streams and wetlands than Senate Bill 127 envisions, according to Alex Funk, a member of the working group who is also director of water resources and senior counsel at the Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

Iron Fen. Photo credit from report “A Preliminary Evaluation of Seasonal Water Levels Necessary to Sustain Mount Emmons Fen: Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests,” David J. Cooper, Ph.D, December 2003.

Funk said he wants to see a bill that is housed within the health department and which offers broader protection for uniquely Colorado waters, such as fens, a kind of high-altitude bog, as well as playa lakes, small shallow pools found on the high plains.

“There is a real opportunity (this session) for Colorado to provide some clarity once and for all with a program that is inclusive of all stakeholders,” Funk said.

“The federal program has been a tennis ball,” he said, referring to the program’s long history of lawsuits over shifting definitions of what constitutes protected wetlands and streams.

 “Everyone has agreed that hasn’t worked well. But I think Colorado can get this right.”

Confronting the #Wildfire Crisis — USFS

Click the link to read the release on the USFS website:

In January 2022, the Forest Service launched a robust, 10-year strategy to address the wildfire crisis in the places where it poses the most immediate threats to communities. The strategy, called “Confronting the Wildfire Crisis: A Strategy for Protecting Communities and Improving Resilience in America’s Forests,” (leer en español) combines a historic investment of congressional funding with years of scientific research and planning into a national effort that will dramatically increase the scale and pace of forest health treatments over the next decade. Through the strategy, the agency will work with states, Tribes and other partners to addresses wildfire risks to critical infrastructure, protect communities, and make forests more resilient.

In early 2023, the USDA Forest Service added 11 additional landscapes. This announcement followed a year of progress in collaborating with partners across 10 initial landscapes to address wildfire risk to infrastructure and communities.

Year 3 – 2024 – nearly $500 million investment expands critical work to reduce wildfire risk.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced on February 20, 2024 that the United States Department of Agriculture is investing nearly $500 million to expand work on the USDA Forest Service’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy to reduce wildfire risk to communities, critical infrastructure and natural resources from the nation’s wildfire crisis.

Approximately $400 million of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds will be allocated to ongoing efforts on the 21 priority landscapes across the West. This work is beginning to reduce wildfire risk for some 550 communities, 2,500 miles of power lines and 1,800 watersheds.

An additional $100 million will be allocated through a collaborative process with tribes, communities, and partners as part of new agency-established program – the Collaborative Wildfire Risk Reduction Program. Inspired by past examples and the success of programs such as the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program, the new Collaborative Wildfire Risk Reduction Program expands work in high-risk wildfire areas outside the 21 priority landscapes.

These landscapes and efforts to expand the work under the Wildfire Crisis Strategy are determined using scientific research and analysis that considers the likelihood that an ignition could expose homes, communities, infrastructure, and natural resources to wildfire.

In 2023, the Forest Service and a wide-range of partners, communities, and tribes treated more than 4.3 million acres of hazardous fuels, including nearly two million acres of prescribed burning, on National Forest System lands across the nation – both are record highs in the agency’s 119-year history and over a million acres more accomplished than the previous year.

Credit: USFS

The #BlueRiver Integrated Water Management Plan is live — Blue River Watershed Group #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

Map of the Blue River drainage basin in Colorado, USA. Made using USGS data. By Shannon1 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69327693

Click the link to go to the Blue River Watershed Group website to access the plan:

BRWG has partnered with Trout Unlimited to create an Integrated Water Management Plan (IWMP) for the Blue River Watershed, that will provide a comprehensive roadmap for future water use, restoration projects, and other solutions to the issues that currently threaten the health of the watershed. The IWMP will guide the strategic direction of BRWG for the next several years through ongoing scientific research and resource evaluation, planning of restoration projects and acquiring funds to sustain those projects, implementation of projects that have secured funding as well as evaluating and maintaining completed projects.