From The Pueblo Chieftain (Matt Hildner):

The annual [groundwater Sub-district 1] replacement plan, which still requires the approval of the State Engineer, will be the subject of a public meeting Tuesday. One of the main impacts from pumping has been to deplete stream flows and a court-approved computer model has determined the subdistrict will be responsible for paying back 5,016 acre-feet to the Rio Grande this year…

To meet that demand, the subdistrict has amassed 8,072 acre-feet in three reservoirs near the Rio Grande’s headwaters. The division engineer will determine when those releases will be made, starting May 1…

The subdistrict also has contracted with 39 growers to fallow 10,312 acres, a move the plan predicts will reduce consumptive use by roughly 12,700 acre-feet. The subdistrict’s goal is to add between 300,000 to 500,000 acre-feet back into the aquifer from its current level.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.

The Rio Grande Water Conservation District has been working diligently for several years to set up groundwater subdistricts to reduce pumping from the aquifer underlying the valley. The hope was to avoid having the State Engineer’s office come in a shut down wells as has happened in the South Platte and Republican River basins. The effort in the Valley has led to the creation of groundwater Subdistrict No. 1 which will start operations this season with a goal (set by the State Engineer’s office) of a 5,000 acre-foot reduction. Here’s a report from Matt Hildner writing for The Pueblo Chieftain Click through and read the whole article. Here’s an excerpt:

The unconfined aquifer, or shallower of the valley’s two major groundwater bodies, is recharged every spring when irrigation canals pull water from the Rio Grande River to fields in the district where it percolates down. Farmers pump it back up later in the growing season. But drought and largely unregulated use have seen the aquifer drop by 740,000 acre-feet, down to its lowest level since water managers began monitoring it in 1976. The subdistrict aims to reverse that trend by retiring up to 40,000 acres of farm ground over the next decade, a move they hope would return between 340,000 and 540,000 acre feet to the aquifer.

While the subdistrict doesn’t expect to finalize all of ifs fallowing contracts until April 1, up to 10,000 acres could be pulled from production this growing season, said Steve Vandiver, manager of the subdistrict’s parent organization, the Rio Grande Water Conservation District. “That will probably be 20,000 acre feet we’re not pumping,” he said. “That’s a big start.”[…]

The subdistrict’s other main task will be to replace the injury pumping of wells causes to surface water users. The valley’s aquifers and streams are connected to varying degrees depending on where one is in the area. And for more than four decades the valley’s surface users have had to bear the burden of the state’s compliance with the Rio Grande Compact as irrigation ditches were curtailed so water could be sent downstream. Groundwater wells faced no such burden. But that will change this season. State computer modeling has determined that the subdistrict will have to return 5,000 acre-feet to the river to make up for the injuries caused to surface water owners. While the subdistrict will have to formally submit its replacement plan to the Office of the State Engineer next month, Vandiver said the subdistrict could have between 6,500 acre-feet and 7,000 acre-feet at its disposal. Most of that water is stored in reservoirs on the Rio Grande upstream of the subdistrict.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.

From the Valley Courier (Ruth Heide):

A few days ago the Valley reached another milestone in its sub-district journey with Wolfe’s expectation letter telling the sub-district and its sponsoring district the Rio Grande Water Conservation District how much replacement water must be delivered this year — 5,000 acre feet.

Rio Grande Water Users Engineer Jim Slattery clarified the 5,000 acre feet is the amount of depletions a groundwater model determined must be replaced this year, but it does not begin to replenish the Valley’s greatly reduced aquifer.

Wolfe said the first sub-district must submit a plan to the state by April 15 that includes the specified water replacement amount, and the state will hold a public hearing in April before acting on the plan. The sub-district’s plan must be updated and approved annually…

The groundwater model Slattery and other engineers and scientists have spent countless hours developing is designed to help sub-districts determine how much water they need to replace, and until recently the model was not calibrated to a point where that number could be specified.

Wolfe said now that the groundwater model is refined enough to provide specific data about the kind of water replacements required in the Rio Grande Basin, the first sub-district and several other sub-districts in various stages of formation can move forward more rapidly.

In addition, Wolfe and a large advisory group can begin moving forward again on groundwater rules and regulations for the Rio Grande Basin. The well rules advisory group has not met since last August but will resume its meetings soon, Wolfe said.

His goal is to submit well regulations to the water court before the end of the year. How long between his promulgation of the rules to their implementation will depend on how many objections there are to the rules and whether or not a trial becomes necessary, he said. Wolfe said in similar regulation promulgations in other basins in the state, the time frame was about a year between the time the rules were submitted to the court and implemented.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.

From the Valley Courier (Steve Vandiver):

In 2004, the Rio Grande Water Conservation District (RGWCD) supported legislation (SB04-222) that granted the State Engineer wide discretion to permit the continued use of underground water consistent with preventing material injury to senior surface water rights and ensuring sustainability of the unique aquifer systems in the San Luis Valley.

The district, as well as other water interests and well owners in the San Luis Valley, undertook this effort to try and reduce the severe negative economic impacts that have come about in other basins as the result of strict priority administration of groundwater by the state. The bill was signed into law in 2004, and codified as section 37-92-501. It prevents the State Engineer from curtailing groundwater withdrawals so long as those withdrawals are included in a groundwater management subdistrict and the withdrawals are made pursuant to the subdistricts’ properly adopted and approved groundwater management plan.

The district supports the development of subdistricts in the Valley as a flexible and innovative alternative to a strict priority administration by the state, as they can ensure protection to senior surface water rights, the viability of the aquifer systems and ensure the protection of the local economy that is dependent upon sophisticated agricultural practices. Water users developing subdistricts determined that subdistricts could be formed in communities of interest with relatively uniform hydrologic conditions that would reflect a local system, all the while protecting senior vested rights and sustaining the aquifer.

More Colorado Water 2012 coverage here.

From The Valley Courier (Lauren Krizansky):

The management plan’s purpose is to recharge the Valley’s aquifer, and one way to fill it back up is to stop taking water out. The RGWCD Subdistrict 1 is offering a tiered district fallowing program to persuade water users to do just that.

Water users qualify for the program if they have a three-year average of 50 percent reduced pumped groundwater. Contract prices for the 2012 irrigation begin at $300 an irrigated acre for zero groundwater use, $200 an irrigated acre for up to six inches of groundwater use and $100 an irrigated acre for up to 10 inches. The program is not offering incentives for more than 10 inches.

The deadline for fallow acreage bids is Wed., Feb. 15, but the board could extend the deadline if interest grows.

RGWCD Manager Mike Mitchell said that the program is calling for a significant irrigation reduction.

“Twenty-four inches is what is used on the common crops,” Mitchell said. “The whole focus of this is to see how much we can save.”

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Matt Hildner):

High commodity prices and a below-average snowpack prevented the normal recharge of the shallower of the valley’s two major groundwater bodies from bouncing back during runoff as it customarily does. “This last year has been pretty brutal,” Allen Davey, an engineer who monitors groundwater for the Rio Grande Water Conservation District, said at the district’s quarterly meeting Tuesday…

From January of last year pumping has reduced the aquifer by 200,000 acre-feet, according to the district’s monitoring wells that are clustered in the north-central part of the valley. It’s down 740,000 acre feet from when officials started charting the aquifer’s levels in 1976…

“I’ve talked to several users who have indicated they’re having trouble with their wells at this level, which is really no surprise,” Davey said.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.

From the Valley Courier (Ruth Heide):

The board of managers for Special Improvement District No. 1 of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District (RGWCD) held a special meeting on Monday to wade through some of the complicated issues facing the sub-district as it navigates the waters ahead. The Valley’s first sub-district affects 175,000 irrigated acres and 500 or more individual property owners in Alamosa, Rio Grande and Saguache Counties north of the Rio Grande. Its goals include replacing injurious depletions from well pumping to surface water users, restoring the Valley’s aquifer levels and ensuring compliance with the Rio Grande Compact. By court order, the sub-district must begin replacing depletions to surface water rights this spring…

Water district attorney David Robbins said the judge required any wells not originally in the sub-district to go to the peer review committee to make sure any depletions they were causing would be accounted for in the groundwater model and replaced by the sub-district…

The board on Monday decided to extend to February 15 the deadline for applications from those wishing to enter fallowing contracts with the sub-district this year. The initial deadline was January 31. The board said by extending the deadline into February they could give farmers one last push during the potato grain conference in early February.

In addition, the board is still working out rules that will govern fallowing contracts and plans to review a draft of those rules on Monday morning, Jan. 30, at 8:30 a.m. in the Bureau of Reclamation office just east of Alamosa. The sub-district board will meet again at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 8.

More Rio Grande River basin coverage here.

From The Denver Post (Bruce Finley):

…the commercial agriculture that built up the valley is large-scale and competitive, and relies on center-pivot irrigation devices that pump heavily from underground aquifers. Commercial production of potatoes and hay — using 6,000 wells and 2,700 center-pivots to irrigate 120-acre crop circles — exploded after the 1950s. The pumping has depleted aquifers by more than 1 million acre-feet since 1976 and now is affecting surface streams…

By May, center-pivot farmers must activate a plan to reduce the water pulled from the aquifer by about 30,000 acre-feet a year. “They’ve got to start to restore it,” state engineer Dick Wolfe said. To avoid state shutdowns of wells — as happened in 2009 in northeastern Colorado — commercial farmers propose to pay to pump or purchase new surface-water rights and use these to offset pumping from aquifers…

“These communities, and no doubt other communities around the world, are coming to the realization that business as usual has to change,” said Mike Gibson, manager of the San Luis Valley Water Conservancy District and chairman of the Rio Grande roundtable that participates in statewide planning…

But the time has come for commercial farms “to pay for the impacts they are causing to the river,” said Steve Vandiver, manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District and the leader of efforts to find water to replace water pumped from wells.

More Rio Grande River basin coverage here.

Farmers and the Rio Grande Water Conservation District have been working for a number of years now on rules for groundwater sub-districts that will incent farmers to remove land irrigated from the Valley’s aquifers. The Colorado Supreme Court recently blessed their work so all is well, right?

The short answer is nope. Senior surface irrigators are still claiming injury and now, it appears, high commodity prices are affecting farmers decision process when it comes to removing acreage from production.

Here’s a report from Brett Walton writing for Circle of Blue. Click through and read the whole article. Here’s an excerpt:

Simply put, the San Luis Valley no longer has enough water to support the abundant farm production that is becoming increasingly supercharged by rising prices for the crops grown here.

There may be a way out. Water officials in the region’s six counties are working with the federal government on a voluntary plan that would pay farmers to take land out of production. If things turn out as planned, up to 16,000 hectares (40,000 acres) of the valley’s roughly 240,000 irrigated hectares (600,000 acres) will not be farmed.

Though it is still being negotiated, the plan has a significant obstacle: the explosive rise in food prices, which are making the sums offered by the water-conservation program less enticing. Prices for the valley’s mainstay — potatoes — have increased 25 percent in the last five years. Wheat, alfalfa, and barley prices have done even better, more or less doubling over the same period.

“The commodity markets are going to drive this,” said Steve Vandiver, the general manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District, in an interview with Circle of Blue. “If prices stay high, it’s going to be harder to get farmers to sign up.”

If the voluntary program does not work, Vandiver went on to say, the result would be worst for farmers. The state, he said, would then step in — like it did in not long ago in the nearby South Platte Basin — and force well owners to shut down, without compensation. “We’re trying to keep that from happening here,” he said. “We’re trying to provide a soft landing.”[…]

Climate change plays a role in the new river patterns, Gibson told Circle of Blue. Wind storms from the deserts in Arizona and New Mexico are more frequent, and they drop dust on the mountain snowpack, which is the primary water source for the valley’s rivers. The warming effect of the dust, combined with higher temperatures, means that the spring melt has moved several weeks earlier in the year. With a longer dry period in the summer, more groundwater is required to balance the changes in the river.

New reservoirs to store the altered flows are prohibited under a compact between Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, Gibson told Circle of Blue, but existing reservoirs are being renovated to maximize their storage capacity.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Matt Hildner):

The ruling, written by Justice Greg Hobbs, declined to uphold any of the eight objections to the plan and cleared a path for the valley’s first groundwater subdistrict, which could be followed by as many as six others. “This truly is a historic moment in the San Luis Valley,” said Steve Vandiver who is manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District and also spent more than three decades in the valley working for the engineer’s office.

The efforts of Subdistrict No. 1 mark the first large-scale effort by groundwater users to compensate senior surface water rights owners who draw water from the valley’s streams, all of which are hydrologically connected, in varying degrees, to the valley’s two main aquifers. Subdistrict No. 1, whose management plan was modified then approved in two local water court decisions, takes in roughly 174,000 acres of irrigated farmland and roughly 3,000 groundwater irrigation wells.

Its plan imposes fees on its members to buy replacement water. It also calls for the retirement of up to 40,000 acres of farm ground with the help of the federal Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program as a means to restore the unconfined aquifer or shallower of the valley’s two big aquifers. Most of the valley’s farmers use some combination of surface water and groundwater, relying on the latter to finish off potato, barley and other crops late in the season.

Here’s the letter from State Engineer Dick Wolfe to the San Luis Valley Advisory Committee Members:

I hope this finds you and your families well in this holiday season. I wanted to give another update on the progress we are making in the rulemaking process. As always, my goal continues to be to advance the many earlier efforts in Division No. 3 water administration with the promulgation of the Rules Governing the Withdrawal of Ground Water in Water Division Three (“Rules”).

As you all know, one of the most important aspects of our rulemaking efforts centers on continuing to refine the data used in the RGDSS ground water model (“Model”), to ensure it is updated with the best and most accurate data available. We have spent a significant amount of work and effort in the past few months on evaluating and updating data inputs, which are pivotal to calculating depletions from ground water pumping in the San Luis Valley. The RGDSS Peer Review Team (PRT) has met 18 times since January 2011. At these meetings, the PRT has made headway in evaluating and refining various data sets including irrigated acreage assessments, water level and artesian pressure data from San Luis Valley wells, crop characteristics and coefficients, farming practices relying on subirrigation, winter diversions, sprinkler efficiencies, return flows, rim recharge, and the geology underlying the Valley.

These efforts have called for the input of many experts, such as agronomists, geologists, computer specialists, and farmers from the San Luis Valley with “boots on the ground” irrigation experience. Our experts want to assure that we include as much new and/or upgraded data as possible, so that the Model reflects ground water movement in the San Luis Valley as closely as possible. These refinements in the data that are uploaded to the Model give us more calibration data points, which in turn, give us more confidence in the accuracy of the predictive capacities of the model. The members of the RGDSS PRT continue to meet and work out the final details on the Model. Once these refinements are completed, our experts will re-run and calibrate the Model. Then we plan on making model pumping impact runs. Pursuant to the San Luis Valley Advisory Committee Member’s (“Committee”) stated desire, we plan to schedule our next meeting when the impact results are available for review. As with any project that combines the efforts of many people, we do not currently have an exact “end” date.

Our team has also been actively exploring the ideas of defining the metrics of a “sustainable” water supply. Currently we are looking at water levels and artesian pressures found in the wells across the San Luis Valley to establish sustainable water supply baselines. We are looking closely at well data logs and creating overlying maps for both the confined and unconfined aquifers to determine areas of correlation. This will assist us in creating “trigger points.” You may recall from previous Committee meetings that these are the points at which we consider the aquifer to be sustainable, less than sustainable, and not sustainable, triggering different degrees of administration. We are also considering the many good ideas on sustainability that have come from the Committee, by way of letter or other communication.

At our last meeting in May 2011, we asked for volunteers to help assist us in defining the important benchmarks, or tasks, which need to be accomplished for the creation of a subdistrict, an augmentation plan, and/or a substitute water supply plan. Examples of “benchmarks” include estimating the time it would take to circulate a petition to form a subdistrict, or the steps involved and the necessary time to nominate and form a Board of Managers for a new subdistrict. A small Benchmark Subcommittee was formed to assist us in this exercise. My staff identified all the statutory time requirements that are involved in these processes, and worked to determine the reasonable time it takes to accomplish each of these tasks. This information was presented to the Benchmark Subcommittee on September 8, 2011. At that meeting, the Benchmark Subcommittee provided insight and recommendations on “real life” steps that are not reflected in the statutes. This gave my staff a more accurate timeline for accomplishing the formation of one of these three methods, by which individuals can replace injurious depletions. Steve Vandiver from the RGWCD also provided insight into what Subdistrict No. 1’s experience has been in setting up the first groundwater management plan. Collectively, these meetings and benchmark exercises will help us craft the section of the rules that addresses the time necessary for a subdistrict to get up and running.

We are working very diligently to finalize the refinements to the Model and to present the results to the Committee. As always your input on these issues is essential, so any thoughts you have are welcome.

Thank you for your patience. I wish you and your family a happy holiday season.

More coverage from Ruth Heide writing for the Valley Courier. From the article:

“The General Assembly has adopted a series of statutes applicable to confined and unconfined aquifers within the San Luis Valley and Water Division No. 3, empowering the subdistrict to adopt and implement the plan. The plan as approved and decreed adequately addresses the replacement of well depletions that injure adjudicated senior surface water rights, along with restoring and maintaining sustainable aquifer levels in accordance with the applicable statutes,” the court stated in its Dec. 19 decision.

“The subdistrict bears the burden of going forward and the burden of proof to demonstrate that annual replacement plans prevent material injury to adjudicated senior surface water rights caused by ongoing and past well depletions that have future impact…

“Because the subdistrict must replace all injurious depletions, and bears the burden of proof of non-injury, we expect the subdistrict, in order to avoid needless controversy, will replace all predicted injurious depletions … If the subdistrict does not adhere to the plan, or the plan is not preventing material injury to senior surface water rights, the State Engineer must curtail groundwater withdrawal in the subdistrict as necessary to prevent material injury to senior surface water rights, even in the absence of rules and regulations.”

At the conclusion of its 70-page decision the Colorado Supreme Court acknowledged the work of the San Luis Valley residents, including objectors to the plan, who had a hand in shaping the final plan and the General Assembly that developed statutes specific to the Valley’s unique hydrology, “accomplishing a balancing of land and water resources.”

Sponsored by the Rio Grande Water Conservation District (RGWCD), the sub-district was set up to replace injurious depletions to surface water users by well pumping, ensure Rio Grande Compact obligations to downstream states and help restore the San Luis Valley’s aquifer…

With the court decision in place, one of the few remaining pieces of the sub-district puzzle now is the groundwater modeling efforts, which are still being finalized. The model will be crucial to determining how much water groundwater irrigators must pay back. Vandiver said a couple more peer review sessions will probably be held between now and the end of the year, and hopefully soon after the first of the year the model will be fully operational. The first sub-district’s board of managers meets the second week of January, and the sponsoring RGWCD board meets on January 17…

Those appealing the case to the higher court were: San Antonio, Los Pinos and Conejos River Acequia Preservation Association; Save Our Senior Water Rights, LLC.; Richard H. Ramstetter; and Peter D. Atkins. Objectors alleged trial court failures to abide by Colorado statutory and case law applicable to augmentation plans…

Referring to the late Ray Wright who as RGWCD board president spearheaded the sub-district efforts for years, Vandiver said, “he ought to be dancing on his grave this morning.”

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.

From the Valley Courier (Ruth Heide):

Since the plan is still pending in the courts, the fees collected this year have been held in escrow by the sponsoring district, the Rio Grande Water Conservation District (RGWCD), which continues to upfront the costs of its first sub-district as well as other pending sub-districts throughout the Valley. The purposes of these sub-districts include repairing the damage from well users to surface water rights, helping the state meet its Rio Grande Compact obligations to downstream states and replenishing the Valley’s underground aquifers…

The Valley’s first sub-district, affecting 175,000 irrigated acres and 500 or more individual property owners, lies north of the Rio Grande in what is known as the closed basin area of the San Luis Valley. The sub-district lies in three of the Valley’s six counties (Alamosa, Rio Grande and Saguache.) RGWCD Attorney David Robbins said the Colorado Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the sub-district plan of management case on September 28. He expected a ruling from the court in two to four months. Groups forming other water management sub-districts throughout the Valley are waiting for the court’s ruling before finalizing their sub-districts. Meanwhile, they are accumulating data required to form their sub-districts…

[Rio Grange Water Conservancy District Manager Steve Vandiver] reported during the water district board’s quarterly meeting this week that so far expenses for the first sub-district have totaled $1.37 million, with expenses on the other five sub-districts totaling about $350,000. One of the expenses for the first sub-district is water acquisition to replace injurious depletions to surface rights. The sub-district by court order must begin replacing those depletions in 2012. The sub-district is acquiring several options on water that can be used for replacement water in 2012 and is looking at several other possibilities, according to Vandiver. He said the sub-district has options on 3,500 acre feet for 2012 with another 1,500 acre feet being held for the sub-district if it is needed. Until the groundwater model runs are completed, the sub-district does not have a total for the amount of replacement water that will be required in 2012, he explained…

Well users who are not part of management sub-districts face the potential under pending state well regulations of having to shut down their wells or develop individual augmentation plans. Robbins said individual plans are no easier to develop than the sub-district plans, and some Valley residents have already begun that process. “If you are going to change water rights from irrigation to replacement, the same sort of responsibilities exist to surface streams,” [RGWCD Attorney David Robbins] said. “The same standards apply … the same obligation applies to make up projected depletions with the replacement supplies.”

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Matt Hildner):

The valley’s local Water Court signed off on the plan of management for Subdistrict No. 1 in May 2010, but three parties made up largely of surface irrigators have appealed that ruling. They argue that the management plan does too little to protect the owners of senior surface water right from injury caused by the pumping of the subdistrict’s roughly 3,000 irrigation wells…

The appellants include two groups — The San Antonio, Los Pinos and Conejos River Acequia Preservation Association and Save Our Senior Water Rights which are represented by Arvada attorney Tim Buchanan. Richard Ramstetter and Peter Atkins have joined as individual appellants, who are represented by Alamosa attorney Stephane Atencio.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.

From the Valley Courier (Ruth Heide):

In its annual meeting this month, the sub-district board of managers struggled with some of those kinks, most of them surrounding water accounting issues. Although the sub-district itself has been approved, its plan of management is currently under appeal at the Colorado Supreme Court level. Because of the court appeal, fees collected for the sub-district for the first time this year must essentially be held in escrow. If/once they are freed up, funds can be used for such purposes as sub-district staff and water acquisition…

In addition, several potential water sellers have already approached the district and sub-district to sell replacement water, which the sub-district cannot buy until its funds are cleared, assuming the state court appeal goes in the sub-district’s favor. One of the main purposes for the sub-district, which lies in the Valley’s closed basin area, is to replenish well-pumping depletions to surface rights. Vandiver said a number of people have offered replacement water, including the San Luis Valley Conservancy District and a local real estate company with a ranch for sale on La Jara Creek. The ranch comes with senior water rights. Jim McCullough, who attended the sub-district board’s April 5 meeting, also offered for consideration shares he owns on the Excelsior Ditch. He said he would like to find a way to use that water to replace the depletions he owes within the sub-district. Vandiver said he had fielded several inquiries from people who wanted to use surface water that is not part of the sub-district as augmentation water…

Recharge credits are another area where the sub-district board is fine tuning the details. Board and audience members questioned how recharge would be credited to farmers who had recharge reservoirs, flood irrigated or in other means replaced water to the aquifer. For example, Monte Vista area farmer Dick McNitt said he felt like he was being penalized for his conservation efforts through reservoirs on his property. The board and audience also talked about reconsidering how surface water credits are calculated, and Sub-district Board Chairman Lynn McCullough appointed a committee to review that portion of the plan and develop recommendations. The committee includes board members and some of the audience members who requested to be a part of the discussion…

One issue that was easy to resolve during the board’s annual meeting was the election of officers. The board unanimously voted to keep the same slate of officers, with Lynn McCullough as chairman.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.

From the Valley Courier (Ruth Heide):

When the state pulls the trigger on groundwater rules and regulations, many Valley irrigators could be shut down. Colorado Division of Water Resources Division Engineer for Division 3 Craig Cotten reported during the Rio Grande Water Conservation District’s quarterly meeting on Tuesday that those rules are very close to being completed. State Engineer Dick Wolfe has been working with a large advisory group for the better part of two years to develop regulations that governing groundwater use in the Rio Grande Basin. Well irrigators who are not part of a water management sub-district or who have not completed individual augmentation plans may find themselves out of business when the rules go into effect and the state begins shutting down wells.

Currently, one water management sub-district of the sponsoring Rio Grande Water Conservation District is on appeal with the Colorado Supreme Court, while five or six other sub-districts throughout the Valley are in various stages of development. Because it appears the state’s rules could be in place before the sub-districts, the state engineer’s office asked legislators like State Senator Gail Schwartz and State Representative Ed Vigil to carry legislation adding language to existing legislation that would give folks within a pending sub-district some protection when the bullets start flying.

“We are going to have a situation, I think, where we will have rules and regulations in place. Those rules and regulations are in draft form right now and the rules and regulations will go into effect May 2012,” Cotten said. “If those rules and regulations go into effect we will have sub-districts that are in court but not through the process, so those people in those sub-districts will be stuck … They could be caught in a position where they are going to be shut down and they don’t have any ability to apply for a substitute supply plan.” He said without an augmentation plan, those folks would have to shut their wells off. Cotten explained that the state has had legislation for nearly a decade that provides for temporary or emergency substitute water supply plans to be approved while an official augmentation plan is pending with the courts. “It allows somebody to go forward and do what they are planning on doing, replace their water, as they wait on the court case to get done,” Cotten explained. He said the statute in place right now provides for several different situations but does not specifically mention sub-districts because it was enacted before the Valley began developing water management sub-districts.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.

From the Valley Courier (Ruth Heide):

On order of Chief District/Water Judge O. John Kuenhold, the board of managers for the San Luis Valley’s first water management sub-district of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District (RGWCD) this week established fees that will be assessed sub-district irrigators next year. The sub-district board plans a public meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 5, at 7:30 p.m., with the location to be announced, to review and possibly adjust the fees it set this week.

Although the sub-district’s management plan is still on appeal before the Colorado Supreme Court, fees for the Valley’s first water sub-district will go on the tax rolls next year.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.



From The Pueblo Chieftain (Matt Hildner):

The rules would help govern how the Engineer’s Office regulates the subdistrict, which is made up of groundwater users in the north-central part of the valley who will tax themselves to buy replacement water for pumping that injures senior surface water rights and to fallow ground in an effort to restore aquifer levels. The rules would also apply to groundwater irrigators who are not part of a subdistrict…

The effective date of the rules also will be pushed back to 2012.

The other pending hurdle for the draft rules will come when the advisory committee gets a look at the response functions of the Rio Grande Decision Support System, a computer program designed to model the flow of the valley’s groundwater. That system may be used to help the Engineer’s Office determine where injuries from pumping will occur and from which wells, but the draft rules allow the office to use other means when it’s determined that reliance on the computer model would be inappropriate.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.



It’s been a long time coming but the rules designed to protect senior rights holders in the San Luis Valley from groundwater pumping (along with idling 40,000 acres of irrigated farmland) received Judge O. John Kuenhold’s blessing in a ruling released yesterday. The plan is an alternative to state imposed regulations. Here’s a report from Matt Hildner writing for The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:

Should it make it through an anticipated appeal to the state Supreme Court, the plan for Subdistrict No. 1 would take in roughly 174,000 acres of irrigated farmland and 3,000 irrigation wells. The plan would institute a tax on its members to pay for replacement water to compensate senior surface water users harmed by depletions exceeding 50 acre-feet per year. It also would use those proceeds to retire at least 40,000 acres over a 10-year period to restore the unconfined aquifer, a move the ruling called, “an important and courageous milestone in water development in this state.” The unconfined aquifer is the shallower of the valley’s two main bodies of groundwater and the court has found that both are connected in some degree to the area’s surface streams.

David Robbins, the lead attorney for Subdistrict No. 1, was heartened by the ruling. He pointed specifically to the judge’s decision that replacements wouldn’t go into effect until 2012. The extra year will give the subdistrict time to collect sufficient funds to meet its water replacement obligations…

The objectors gained some consolation when the judge ruled that the subdistrict must replace past depletions from well pumping, which can have an effect on surface streams for up to 20 years after the pumping has taken place. Evidence at the trial pegged the amount of injury from past depletions to amount to 48,993 acre feet through 2028. The court rejected proposals from supporters that compensation for past depletions go back only to 2005, noting that senior surface water users have gone four decades without having their rights fully and fairly protected. “This is not the time for a half-step that would be viewed by many as simply another delay tactic,” the ruling stated…

The plan would rely on the Rio Grande Decision Support System, a computer modeling system, to determine both future and past impacts from pumping. Should water users object to any components of the plan from year to year or of the Engineer Office’s handling of the plan, the court would retain jurisdiction to hear their complaints.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.

From the Valley Courier (Ruth Heide):

When the state shuts off the water to ditch and stream irrigators this fall, groundwater irrigators will have to stop pumping as well. Colorado Division of Water Resources State Engineer Dick Wolfe said he plans to sign an irrigation season policy in a week or two. “All water use for irrigation in the basin will be subject to that irrigation season policy – surface and wells,” he said, “which is something that has not occurred in the past.”

The presumptive irrigation season for the Rio Grande Basin (the San Luis Valley) will be April 1 to November 1, Wolfe explained. He added that the irrigation season policy would outline specific criteria that could be considered to vary from that presumptive season. For example, last fall the water division permitted water diversions past the normal irrigation season for recharge purposes. Wolfe said the irrigation season policy he will sign in the next week or two will solely apply to Division III, the Valley. “We don’t have a specific policy like it anywhere else in the state,” he said. This could become a model for other areas, he added.

He said the policy is required under legislation specific to this basin and will be incorporated into the groundwater rules he is developing with the assistance of a 55-member advisory committee. A sub-committee of the larger group worked specifically on the irrigation season policy. The well rules advisory committee meets again April 28, and Wolfe anticipates one more meeting in May before submitting a final draft of the rules to the water court. “The process has been good,” Wolfe said. “I have been amazed we have sustained 50-plus members at every one of these meetings. That’s remarkable. That just shows the dedication of the people of this Valley.”[…]

Wolfe explained that the goals of the groundwater rules include: develop plans of water management to address sustainability of the aquifers; set an irrigation season; address the impacts to senior surface water users within the basin; and protect the state’s ability to meet its Rio Grande Compact obligation to downstream states.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here.

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Matt Hildner):

Attorneys argued for four hours in a packed courtroom over which sources of water the subdistrict could use to replace injuries to senior surface users, how proposed computer modeling could accurately monitor them and to what extent past injury to seniors should be compensated. Attorney William Paddock, who represents the Rio Grande Water Users Association, argued that compensating for past depletions from the Rio Grande that project to cause injury into the future would be unfair to well users who were operating legally in the past. Judge O. John Kuenhold, who questioned each of the six attorneys who presented arguments, asked if not doing so would be fair to the senior surface water users, who’ve born the demands of delivering water downstream under the Rio Grande Compact since the 1960s while wells went unregulated. “Is it fair to wait 40 years for something?” he asked, while clarifying later in the proceedings that attorneys should not take his questioning as an indication of how he would rule.

The plan, which would take in roughly 174,000 acres of irrigated land and 3,000 irrigation wells, are an alternative to the rules and regulations currently being formulated by the Office of the State Engineer. Either of those two plans, should they go in effect, would represent the first regulation of the valley’s wells.

Tim Buchanan, an attorney representing 11 objectors, criticized the computer model that would be used to project depletions, noting that there were more than 200,000 acre-feet in groundwater depletions that resulted in only a 3-percent depletion to the Rio Grande. “Is it math or is it voodoo,” he asked. Buchanan and Erich Schwiesow, an attorney for one other objector, also questioned the subdistrict’s plans to attribute the recharge decrees of ditch companies in the subdistrict toward replacement water. Buchanan argued that the subdistrict didn’t have the authority to utilize the property rights of ditch shareholders in that manner. Paddock countered, noting that the decrees for two of the larger ditches in question, allowed water to be reallocated should they come under new regulation from the state.

Meanwhile, not content to wait for Judge Kuenhold’s ruling, the Rio Grande Water Conservation District board voted this week to move ahead with implementing assessments for the management of the groundwater sub-district. Here’s a report from Ruth Heide writing for the Valley Courier. From the article:

Well owners within the geographic area of the sub-district will pay fees to operate and manage the sub-district. The Rio Grande Water Conservation District (RGWCD) has been footing the bills for developing its sub-district to this point. The water management sub-district is designed to reduce well pumping in order to alleviate injuries to senior surface water rights, replenish the underground aquifer and ensure the basin complies with the Rio Grande Compact. The water court approved the sub-district, but the sub-district’s management plan is currently under dispute and judicial review…

RGWCD District Engineer Allen Davey asked the board on Tuesday if Sub-district #1 should prepare to submit the administrative fee documentation to the Rio Grande County treasurer. He said the process of preparing the documentation will cost some money, and the district would be risking the loss of those funds if the sub-district plan is denied by the courts. RGWCD Board President Ray Wright said the illness at the conclusion of the trial delayed closing arguments to the end of October, and the judge would undoubtedly take time to render a thorough decision after that time. He said it is a judgment call at this point whether the judge’s ruling will be made in time to begin assessments in 2010. Davey added that even if the judge makes a favorable ruling, an appeal could be filed that could last another year or more.

RGWCD Attorney Ingrid Barrier said, “I am fairly confident if we get such a ruling, we will have an appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court.” She said Kuenhold is well aware of the district’s time constraints regarding the fee collections, but there is also no question the judge will be determined to fashion a comprehensive decision taking into account the proposals of all the parties involved. “I think it is wise for us to move forward as if we are able to collect this fee … because if we do not do that, that’s another year off.” She said the administrative fees could be placed in an escrow account so in the event the Supreme Court denied the sub-district plan, the fees could be given back. Barrier said that completing the process to begin collecting fees would make it easier in the future to repeat the process. Several other sub-districts are in the works throughout the San Luis Valley…

Barrier also reviewed the major arguments from the principal attorney for the opponents, Tim Buchanan who represents a group of senior surface water owners. Barrier said the opposing arguments include: sub-district not entitled to use any water from the Closed Basin Project to replenish depletions; likewise with recharge water; the plan is not specific enough in how it will protect senior water rights; the plan is invalid because no rules/regulations are in place regarding contracts with well users outside the sub-district area; and the time period to begin replacing injurious depletions is in dispute. The sub-district board proposes to replace depletions in January of the year following the plan’s approval, while opponents believe the depletions should be retroactive.

More San Luis Valley groundwater coverage here and here.