‘Peak #snowpack’ can pack a surprise punch: Mountain snowpack typically peaks in April, but there have been some harrowing, far-from-typical years — News on Tap #ColoradoRiver #SouthPlatteRiver #COriver #aridification

Click the link to read the article on the Denver Water website (Todd Hartman):

April 22, 2024

April is a big month for water watchers. That’s when Colorado’s snowpack typically reaches its highest level before the big melt-out that follows.

The watchers call this moment “peak snowpack.” And it can be a useful measure to predict water supplies for the warm months to come.

Peak moments that fall earlier on the calendar can mean a spring runoff that ends too soon and reservoirs that don’t fill. Conversely, late peaks can mean reservoirs spill and high-water flows that can overtop riverbanks.

Indeed, a closer look at “peak” numbers over the last several decades reveals some big surprises when the timing of the maximum snowpack falls outside the late April norm. Such off-rhythm peaks can lead to watering limits or, in the other extreme, raging runoff that can do damage to land and property.

For Denver Water, this year’s peak snowpack numbers look good.

A mid-to-late April high point appears likely, and a healthy amount of water in the snow supports the utility’s forecast for full reservoirs for the upcoming irrigation season.

In short, it’s what Denver’s water watchers might call “a typical year.”

Join people with a passion for water, at denverwater.org/Careers.

In fact, though, the timing of the peak snowpack and how much frozen water the snow holds at that point is a highly variable condition and can leave water supply managers scrambling. This variability can be easy to forget when most years follow the script, or don’t veer far from it.

“As a water manager, if I only had one piece of data to determine how water supply was looking for a given year, it would be peak snowpack,” said Nathan Elder, who manages the tricky business of water supply for Denver Water.

“Snowpack peaks can be highly variable in quantity and timing, and those factors indicate what the runoff and water supply situation will look like.”

Take a look at the following graphs, which show the wide variability in the amount of water frozen in the snow at the point of “peak snowpack” over the past 45 years. The range in both the Colorado and South Platte river basins where Denver Water collects water can stretch from 10 inches to more than 25 inches of water in the snow.

The amount of water frozen in the snow at the moment of “peak snowpack” over the last 45 years in the Colorado River Basin, where Denver Water collects water. Image credit: Denver Water.

The amount of water frozen in the snow at the moment of “peak snowpack” over the past 45 years for the South Platte River Basin, where Denver Water collects water. Image credit: Denver Water.

Denver Water gets its water from parts of two major river basins — the South Platte and the Colorado. Both tend to hit peak snowpack in late April (the 23rd and the 25th respectively) and hit an average of about 12 and 17 inches of “snow-water equivalent,” or SWE, a fancy way of saying amount of water in the snowpack.

But some years Mother Nature has ignored those averages by frightening margins.

One of the scariest was 2012, when peak snowpack for Denver Water collection areas in both basins came not in mid-to-late April, but early March — March 5 in the South Platte and March 6 in the Colorado.

That was about seven weeks ahead of average and it forced Denver Water to implement outdoor restrictions as reservoirs failed to replenish.

Then there was the infamous spring of 2002, when snow-water totals for Denver Water collection areas at peak were a mere 50% of average in the South Platte Basin and 56% in the Colorado — another example, like 2012, of terrible numbers striking both of Denver Water’s collection basins in the same year.

Learn more about how Denver Water monitors the snowpack.

The spring 2002 peak snowpack contained some of the lowest amount of water in the snow over the last 45 years of records.

My kids and their friends built a small terrain park in front of their house near Sloans Lake after the March 2003 St. Patrick’s Day blizzard.

That early 2000s drought hung on until the following spring in 2003, when it was busted — fantastically and famously — with a late March blizzard that dropped 7 feet of wet snow in the foothills, 3 feet of snow in the city and put an end to 19 months of below-average precipitation in Denver.

“Liquid Gold,” blared the banner headline of the now-closed Rocky Mountain News. Anyone living in Denver more than 20 years remembers the storm.

Peak snowpack has also offered surprises on the opposite end of the spectrum, bringing late peaks and a wealth of water.

In 2015, the peak snowpack date in both basins came a month later than normal, on May 23. That meant a more compressed runoff season and flooding challenges, particularly along the South Platte.

Watch this video about the epic spring runoff of 2015:

In 1997, the South Platte’s peak snowpack hit a stunning 203% of average. In all, that was 24 inches of water in the snow, twice the average level in a basin that fills four major reservoirs for Denver Water.

Another mark experts like to track is date of melt-out — the date when the last of the snow melts at various measuring spots in the high country. In both basins that typically happens in early June. But, like peak snowpack, melt-out dates can surprise too.

Way back in 1981, a terribly dry year, the South Platte basin saw melt-out April 27 — about the time when Denver Water would typically see peak snowpack! Scary stuff.

Alas, in 1995, the South Platte went to different extremes, with the final melt recorded July 4, an entire month later than average.

During the 1983 Colorado River flood, described by some as an example of a “black swan” event, sheets of plywood (visible just above the steel barrier) were installed to prevent Glen Canyon Dam from overflowing. Source: Bureau of Reclamation

In the Colorado River Basin, the latest such melt-out stretched to July 12, in 1983. That year is famous for the swollen river flows all the way to Lake Powell, where Glen Canyon Dam nearly overtopped.

That runoff season was memorialized in the “The Emerald Mile,” a remarkable book that chronicled attempts to take advantage of record river flows to set speed records boating through the Grand Canyon.

All of it is a reminder that average years are just another way nature leaves room for surprises.

So, let’s be satisfied this spring with an “average” peak and a solid water supply for 2024.

The Environmental Protection Agency, South Adams County Water and Sanitation District to break ground on drinking water treatment enhancements for #PFAS chemicals on April 25, 2024

This USGS map shows the number of PFAS detected in tap water samples from select sites across the nation. The findings are based on a USGS study of samples taken between 2016 and 2021 from private and public supplies at 716 locations. The map does not represent the only locations in the U.S. with PFAS. Sources/Usage: Public Domain. Visit Media to see details.

From email from the EPA:

DENVER (April 23, 2024) — On Thursday, April 25, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regional Administrator KC Becker will join U.S. Senator Michael Bennet on a visit to the South Adams County Water and Sanitation District (SACWSD) to break ground on a water treatment system that will allow SACWSD to deliver high-quality drinking water that meets all state and federal regulations, including EPA regulations for to treat PFAS chemical contamination by 2029.

WHO:

·       U.S. Senator Michael Bennet

·       EPA Regional Administrator KC Becker

·       South Adams County Water and Sanitation District Board President Heidi McNeely

·       South Adams County Water and Sanitation District Manager Abel Moreno

Additional representatives from South Adams County Water and Sanitation District will be in attendance, along with other key project partners from:

·       Brown & Caldwell, engineering consultant

·       PCL Construction, construction manager

·       United States Environmental Protection Agency

·       Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

WHAT:

EPA and partners will break ground on the Klein Enhancement Project. The project, a partnership with Brown & Caldwell Engineering and PCL Construction, will construct an ion-exchange water treatment system that will allow SACWSD to deliver high-quality drinking water that meets all state and federal regulations, including EPA regulations required to treat for PFAS chemical contamination. SACWSD was recently awarded nearly $61 million in federal funding to complete the construction. The project is expected to be completed in late 2026.

Tours of existing treatment facilities and the enhancement project site will be available after speakers’ remarks.

WHEN:         2 p.m., Thursday, April 25, 2024

WHERE:       7400 Quebec Street, Commerce City, Colorado

U.S. Bureau of Land Management #conservation rule likely to survive challenges, advocates say — @WyoFile

A Sublette Herd pronghorn sizes up an intruder in its habitat within the confines of Jonah Energy’s Normally Pressured Lance gas field in August 2023. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile)

Click the link to read the article on the WyoFile website (Angus M. Thuermer Jr.):

April 22, 2024

A federal rule to put conservation on par with extractive industries will not be subject to the Congressional Review Act that could allow it to be easily overturned, a U.S. representative from New Mexico said Monday.

The Bureau of Land Management has drawn criticism from Wyoming’s governor, its D.C. delegation, industrial leaders and agricultural interests after finalizing the Public Lands Rule last week. But a coalition of conservationists defended the BLM in a press call Monday organized by the Conservation Lands Foundation and The Wilderness Society.

The rule will allow the BLM to consider “mitigation restoration leasing” equally with other uses like grazing, mining and oil and gas development.

The rule identifies conservation tools to keep natural landscapes intact and restore them where degraded, a move advocates say marks a shift from what the BLM has considered or ignored when setting frameworks for use of its 18.4 million acres in Wyoming.

Although Republican U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, a staunch advocate for the energy industry, has said he would use the Congressional Review Act to block the rule, U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a Democrat from New Mexico, said that’s not going to happen.

The review act, successfully employed by former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney to block another BLM planning effort in 2017, is subject to time limits and deadlines that make its successful use improbable in this instance, Stansbury said. “This rule being finalized now should protect it from a rollback by Congress,” she said. “It should be fine in terms of making it ineligible for Congressional Review Act repeal.”

Wyoming native Jordan Schreiber, a lobbyist for The Wilderness Society, said she was “very confident” about defending the rule. “I’m not losing sleep over it,” she said of congressional discomfort.

A durable measure

To thwart the rule, Barrasso last year introduced a bill that targets the BLM initiative. Nine senators, including U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, another Republican, joined as sponsors. The bill has not advanced.

Industrial users also have challenged the plan, as has Gov. Mark Gordon, who questioned the constitutionality of the BLM action. The Petroleum Association of Wyoming called it “a new, extra-legal, executive branch authority.” That suggests lawsuits will be filed.

BLM supporters said the rule will survive such legal challenges. “We are confident that the rule will prove durable over time and we intend to strongly defend the rule … in the courts,” said Michael Carroll, BLM campaign director with The Wilderness Society.

The Sand Dunes Wilderness Study Area encompasses 27,000 acres of BLM land in the Red Desert. There, people can hike, bird watch and hunt. (Bob Wick/BLM/FlickrCC)

New Mexico’s Stansbury also dismissed misinformation. “This is not a land grab,” she said, blaming Republicans for inaccurate spin.

“This is not an attempt by the federal government to take away activities on public lands,” including utilizing resources “that we use in everyday life,” Stansbury said. “This is really about modernizing the way that we do land management. It’s about putting conservation and cultural uses on par with extractive uses.”

Congress stated that the BLM “should not emphasize the greatest short-term economic element,” when outlining how to manage its 30% of Wyoming’s land and 245 million acres nationwide, said Chris Winter, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School. The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has said that “conservation to protect environmental balance” is one of the uses the BLM must weigh along with oil and gas development, grazing and so on, Winter said.

Lander resident Bailey Brennan, an attorney and farmer, said her 3-year-old daughter has been with her on three pronghorn hunts on public lands, all possible because of intact migration corridors. With the rule, restoration leases will allow the National Wildlife Federation she works for to help fight cheatgrass and restore riparian areas along those routes.

That type of work will ensure daughter Frances could have the same pronghorn hunting experience “when she is a grown-up with her children,” Brennan said.

Water conflict: #ColoradoSprings Utilities, others say #Aurora in violation of 2003 pact — #Colorado Politics #ArkansasRiver

Straight line diagram of the Lower Arkansas Valley ditches via Headwaters Magazine

Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Politics website (Mary Shinn). Here’s an excerpt:

April 22, 2023

Aurora Water is spending $80 million on a ranch of about 5,000 acres near Rocky Ford and its associated water rights. An Aurora presentation showed it estimates it is paying about $9,600 per acre-foot of water. The purchase could yield 18,000 to 22,500 acre-feet every 10 years, Aurora city documentation states…Aurora Water expects to use the water three out of every 10 years to help support its growth and allow the water to irrigate crops during the remaining seven years…

Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District President Bill Long said the purchase breaks an agreement Aurora Water signed with the district. Residents in the district have paid property taxes to support bringing water from the Western Slope to the Arkansas Basin.

“They have purchased water when they agreed not to,” he said.

Colorado Springs Utilities said in an official statement they agree with the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District’s interpretation that the purchase is a violation of the 2003 agreement.

Polluters must pay to clean up areas contaminated with PFOA, PFOS — SourceNM.com #PFAS

EPA Administrator Michael Regan (Photo by Lisa Sorg / NC Policy Watch)

Click the link to read the article on the SourceNM.com website (Lisa Sorg):

April 22, 2024

Industries that discharge toxic PFOA and PFOS compounds into the environment will now be held legally and financially responsible for the contamination, according to a final rule issued by the EPA last week.

The Department of Defense is also subject to the new requirements.

PFOA and PFOS are now classified as hazardous substances under Superfund law, which authorizes the EPA to use its enforcement powers to require polluters pay for and clean up the contamination. The designation also mandates new reporting requirements for facilities that release the compounds into the environment.

These facilities include 3M, DuPont and its spinoff company, Chemours.

“Designating these chemicals under our Superfund authority will allow EPA to address more contaminated sites, take earlier action, and expedite cleanups, all while ensuring polluters pay for the costs to clean up pollution threatening the health of communities,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said.

The EPA announced the new rule a week after setting legally enforceable drinking water standards for five types of the toxic compounds, as well as a mixture. PFOA and PFOS are among those compounds with maximum contamination limits of 4 parts per trillion.

Exposure to PFOA, PFOS and other similar compounds has been linked to multiple health problems, including thyroid and liver disorders, reproductive and fetal development problems, immune system deficiencies, high cholesterol, and kidney, testicular and other cancers.

There are several exemptions to the rule — entities that receive, often unknowingly, these compounds from industrial sources: community water systems and publicly owned treatment works, municipal storm sewer systems, publicly owned/operated municipal solid waste landfills, publicly owned airports and local fire departments, and farms where biosolids are applied to the land.

When Regan announced the new drinking water standards, public utilities clamored for ways to pass the treatment costs to polluters. PFOA and PFOS, as well as other types of the toxic compounds, can’t be removed through traditional treatment methods. The upgrades can run in the tens of millions of dollars. The $1 billion in federal funding to help utilities meet the drinking water standards is not enough, given the widespread contamination.

“Communities across the Southeast and the country have been shouldering the costs of PFAS contamination for far too long,” said Kelly Moser, senior attorney and leader of the Water Program at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “Today’s designations will help put the burden of addressing PFAS pollution back on the polluter. Now states and municipalities must use the tools they have to stop ongoing toxic PFAS pollution before more contaminated Superfund sites are created.”

Under the new rule, entities are required to immediately report releases of PFOA and PFOS that meet or exceed the reportable quantity of one pound within a 24-hour period to the National Response Center, as well as state, tribal and local emergency responders.

“After decades of industry using and disposing PFOA and PFOS, EPA can now accelerate cleanups of the most contaminated sites,” said Earthjustice Legislative Counsel Christine Santillana, in a prepared statement. “It’s highly encouraging to see EPA initiate this designation and gives hope to impacted communities that their health will be better protected.”

The final rule also means that federal entities that transfer or sell their property must provide notice about the storage, release, or disposal of PFOA or PFOS on the property and guarantee that contamination has been cleaned up or, if needed, that additional cleanup will occur in the future. It will also lead the Department of Transportation to list and regulate these substances as hazardous materials, according to the EPA.

Under federal law, hazardous materials can be transported only with a special permit, accompanied by a shipping manifest. Transportation documents for most hazardous substances are public through the EPA’s e-Manifest database; it will now be easier to track the transport of PFOA and PFOS.

This designation of the two chemicals will also ensure that hundreds of Department of Defense installations with PFOA and PFOS contamination are finally cleaned up.

This could affect the Tarheel Army Missile Plant in Burlington, where PFOA and PFOS were found in the groundwater and soil last year. Although the military has already transferred that property to private owners, the Department of Defense is responsible for cleaning up contamination below the ground — now including PFOA and PFOS.

“Nearly 500 military installations are contaminated with PFAS, but the DOD has failed to make PFAS cleanup a priority – and our service members and defense communities are paying the price,” said Jared Hayes, a senior policy analyst at the Environmental Working Group.

The national Sierra Club had submitted public comments last year, asking the EPA to crack down on industrial dischargers.

“We’re grateful that the EPA continues to find ways to fight what can only be described as an uphill battle against PFAS contamination,” said Erin Carey, acting director of the North Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club. “Right now, the regulation of these dangerous chemicals is far too narrow to be fully protective. With more than ten thousand of these compounds in production, we must move toward regulation of PFAS as a class, rather than this ‘whack-a-mole’ method of regulating individual compounds. Broader and more ambitious action will be required of this agency, of industry and of our elected leaders to meaningfully tackle the terrifying and widespread threat of ‘forever chemicals’ in our bodies and our environment.”

NC Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. NC Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Rob Schofield for questions: info@ncnewsline.com. Follow NC Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

Court sides with Forest Service in Purgatory Resort water rights dispute — The #Durango Herald #Hermosa Creek

A view of Hermosa Creek in Hermosa, Colorado. The view is from a bridge on U.S. Highway 550 and shows a Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad trestle. By Jeffrey Beall – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89863900

Click the link to read the article on The Durango Herald website (Reuben M. Schafir). Here’s an excerpt:

April 21, 2024

Purgatory is seeking to access federal land so that it may capture water from Hermosa Creek for snowmaking and other municipal purposes. San Juan Nation Forest has objected to the access on the basis that the diversion could detrimentally impact the native cutthroat trout population. The ruling, issued Monday by Senior Judge William Martinez in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, passed judgment on the application of the Quiet Title Act and found that the statue of limitations had expired years before the lawsuit was filed on Oct. 27, 2022. The decision did not address the substantive questions around the resort’s access to Hermosa Creek water, and it does not put the entire issue to bed, San Juan National Forest Supervisor Dave Neely said.

For over two decades, SJNF officials have expressed concern about Purgatory’s attempts to divert 4.54 cubic feet per second of water from Hermosa Creek via an in-stream diversion and ground wells. A water court decreed two water rights in 1972 and 1982, respectively. The water is to be diverted from the East Fork of Hermosa Creek and its alluvial groundwater on land on the back side of the resort area. In a 1991 agreement, the SJNF made a trade with Purgatory’s corporate predecessors and acquired that land. In exchange, the resort acquired land on the front of the mountain.

The core of the case is whether Purgatory retained a right to an easement on the backside on National Forest land – a necessity to access and divert the water in question – when it conveyed the land in an agreement stating it was “free from all encumbrances.” Purgatory sought a quiet claims action that would have definitively affirmed its rights to the water and an easement or right of way necessary to access it under the federal Quiet Title Act.

Drinking water for 268,000 Coloradans exceeds new limits on “forever chemicals.” How will providers find millions to fix the water? — The #Denver Post #PFAS

Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Noelle Phillips and Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:

April 21, 2024

The 27 water systems identified by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment as exceeding the new standards range in size from Thornton, which serves about 155,000 customers, to Dawn of Hope Ranch, a religious retreat in Teller County that serves 55 people. Some of the larger utilities on the state’s list already are planning to build multimillion-dollar filtration systems, but experts say the smaller water providers will be among the last to fall into compliance. While grant money is available, experts note it’s likely water customers will pay some of the costs via higher rates.

The federal regulations announced 10 days ago require drinking water providers to lower the concentration of forever chemicals below the new limit by 2029. The chemicals — perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, collectively known as PFAS — have been used for decades to make waterproof, nonstick or stain-resistant products and are linked to a wide range of health problems, including cancer and reduced fertility…

In Colorado, state water regulators have a good idea which water systems have PFAS in their drinking water supplies, said Christopher Higgins, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, who is an expert in PFAS contamination. Fifty-six other water providers in the state have found PFAS in their water but in concentrations below the EPA’s limit, including Aurora, Frisco and Gunnison…

The federal government set aside more than $10 billion to help communities test and treat drinking water for PFAS. That money is intended for rural or disproportionately impacted communities. That’s not nearly enough, Zobell said…Unless there is a leap in PFAS-removal technology in the next three years, many providers will have to raise rates or find money elsewhere, Zobell said. Moody, with the American Water Works Association, said the financial burden has been a primary concern among water providers…There are just a handful of companies in the United States that build and install the filtration systems, Moody said. They will go after the larger contracts, leaving the smallest, more rural water companies in the back of the line because those contracts will be less profitable.

Airborne survey indicates short runoff season — The #Aspen Daily News #RoaringForkRiver #FryingpanRiver #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

Click the link to read the article on The Aspen Daily News website (Austin Corona). Here’s an excerpt:

April 18, 2024

A report from an airborne survey conducted on April 9 shows that snowpack in the upper reaches of both rivers is warmer and smaller than last year. The survey was conducted by Boulder-based Airborne Snow Observatories, a private company operating through contracts with local governments. The survey area includes the headwaters of the Roaring Fork from the Continental Divide to just above Aspen, as well as the Fryingpan River above Ruedi Reservoir, and the headwaters of Snowmass Creek, Maroon Creek, Castle Creek, Hunter Creek and Woody Creek…

Jeff Deems, a Carbondale resident and chief technical officer for hardware at ASO, said the “cold content” of the snow — a measurement of how much energy is required to melt snow — measured on the day of the survey indicates that much of the watershed’s snowpack is already melting or on the verge of melting. According to a report from ASO’s survey, the amount of snow in the basin below freezing, or “unripe,” is roughly 10 percentage points lower than last year around the same time. It currently stands at about 26% of the overall snowpack. The rest of that snow is right at, or approaching, its melting point.

“I think we’re seeing a fairly warm snowpack this year,” Deems said. “I dug a snow pit on April 9, when the plane was in the air, at 11,000 feet on Richmond Ridge. And most of the snowpack was isothermal — so that is at zero degrees Celsius, at the melting point. There was a very minimal layer in the middle that was a few degrees below freezing.”

The total amount of water in this year’s snowpack is smaller than last year. The snow water equivalent, or SWE, in the survey area this year was about 520,000 acre-feet on April 9, a roughly 12% drop from the same number taken at the same time last year (the 2023 survey occurred April 11-12). Deems said the SWE observed in the April 9 flight indicates that this year’s snowpack is smaller than previously thought. Snow telemetry (SNOTEL) sites around the basin show similar snowpack conditions from last year, while the ASO survey shows a clear drop in SWE. Deems said he thinks the disparity is a result of changing snow distribution patterns, which the SNOTEL sites cannot measure with detail because they are tied to a fixed location.

This map shows the snowpack depth of the Maroon Bells in spring 2019. The map was created with information from NASA’s Airborne Snow Observatory, which will help water managers make more accurate streamflow predictions. Jeffrey Deems/ASO, National Snow and Ice Data Center

#Snowpack news April 22, 2024

Utah’s reservoirs and streams in ‘impressive’ shape, state says

by Kyle Dunphey, Utah News Dispatch
April 20, 2024

Utah’s streams and reservoirs are in good shape heading into the spring, with the snowpack likely seeing its peak for the season and runoff expected to bring more water down from the mountains in the coming weeks.

The Utah Division of Water Resources on Thursday reported the state’s reservoirs at about 85% capacity, which officials say is “impressive” for this time of year. The announcement comes on the heels of an above average winter, with Utah seeing about 132% of the normal snow water equivalent — essentially how much water is in the snowpack — at the beginning of April.

March alone brought 150% of normal snow water equivalent, and 156% of normal precipitation.

That brings the water year, which is defined as the 12-month period from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, to about 117% above normal. Across the state, the snowpack appears to have reached a peak of 18.8 inches in early April.

“The timing and magnitude of our snowpack peak plays a crucial role in our water management strategies,” said Candice Hasenyager, director of the Division of Water Resources, in a statement. “We have all this snow still in the mountains, and we need to pay attention to how it melts.”

Reservoirs around the state are currently averaging about 20% above normal capacity for this time of year, with many reservoirs releasing water to make way for spring runoff. Deer Creek reservoir is currently at 96% capacity, with Strawberry at 92%, Echo at 85% and Jordanelle at 81%.

That’s a stark contrast to last year, when the statewide reservoir capacity was around 50%.

“Spring runoff is really where the magic happens for water supply,” Hasenyager said. “Knowing how much water to release and estimating how much water will make its way into the reservoir requires continual monitoring.”

State data also points to 60% of Utah’s streams flowing at normal to above-normal levels. That water is giving a needed boost to the Great Salt Lake, which hit a historic low of 4,191.3 feet in 2021. The division on Thursday reported a 2.5 foot rise in levels since October, bringing the elevation of the lake’s south arm up to 4,194.5 feet as of Friday.

Most of Utah’s water supply — an estimated 95% — comes from the snowpack. Spring runoff will continue to result in above-average, sometimes dangerous, flows near streams and rivers. The state is urging residents to be cautious, with the high volume resulting in “treacherous” conditions, especially for children and pets.

“Rising temperatures, while beneficial for spring runoff, require careful monitoring. A balance must be maintained to avoid both flooding from rapid melting and inadequate water replenishment from slow melting,” reads a press release from the Division of Water Resources.

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com. Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.

Earth Day 2024

Click the link to read “Nine practices from Native American culture that could help the environment” on The Washington Post website (Samuel Gilbert). Here’s an excerpt:

Zuni waffle gardens

Certain ancient practices could mitigate the deleterious effects of global warming. From building seaside gardens to water management in desert terrain, these time-honored practices work with the natural world’s rhythms. Some might even hold the key to a more resilient future and a means of building security for both Indigenous communities and other groups disproportionately impacted by climate change.

Edward S. Curtis photographed the waffle garden design, an example of subsistence farming practiced by the Zuni in the American Southwest, during the 1920s. (Edward S. Curtis/Library of Congress)

[jim] Enote has continued this ancient garden design, creating rows of sunken squares surrounded by adobe walls that catch and hold water like pools of syrup in a massive earthen waffle. The sustainable design protects crops from wind, reduces erosion and conserves water…

UC Davis students, academics and members of the local Native American community take part in a collaborative cultural burn at the Tending and Gathering Garden at the Cache Creek Nature Preserve in Woodland, Calif. Photo: Alysha Beck/UC Davis

‘Good fire’

Before European settlers traveled to the American West, Indigenous people managed the landscape of northern California with “cultural burns” to improve soil quality, spur the growth of particular plants, and create a “healthy and resilient landscape,” according to the National Park Service.

“The Karuk have developed a relationship with fire over the millennia to maintain and steward a balanced ecosystem,” said Bill Tripp, director of natural resources and environmental policy for the Karuk Tribe. “A good portion of the resources that we depend on, in the natural environment, are dependent on fire.”

[…]

Acequia cleaning prior to running the first water of the season

Ancient irrigation

In New Mexico, there are 700 functioning acequias, centuries-old community irrigation systems that have helped the parched state build water resilience. These acequias — a design from North African, Spanish and Indigenous traditions — were established during the 1600s. The name can refer to both the gravity-fed ditches filled with water and the farmers who collectively manage water. Unlike large-scale irrigation systems, water seepage from unlined acequias helps replenish the water table and reduce aridification by adding water to the landscape. The earthen ditches mimic seasonal streams and expand riparian habitats for numerous native species…

Some of the flora in the Giant Tree Forest August 4, 2022.

The original carbon capture technology

U.S. forests are carbon sinks, sequestering up to 10 percent of nationwide CO2 emissions. Indigenous forestry can play a critical role in reducing global warming by restoring biodiversity and health to these ecosystems, including the management of culturally significant plants, animals and fungi that contribute to healthier soil…

Granadian fields, view from La Calahorra castle. Dryland farming in the Granada region of Spain. Jebulon – Own work CC BY-SA 3.0

Dryland farming

The Hopi nation in Arizona receives an average of 10 inches of rain per year — a third of what crop scientists say is necessary to grow corn successfully. Yet Hopi farmers have been cultivating corn and other traditional crops without irrigation for millennia, relying on traditional ecological knowledge rooted in life in the high desert…

Salmon Weir at Quamichan Village on the Cowichan River, Vancouver Island. By Dally, Frederick – Library and Archives Canada. See Category:Images from Library and Archives Canada., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1718515

Restoring salmon runs

In recent decades, an Indigenous-led plan has begun to restore salmon runs on the Klamath River. The salmon began to disappear in 1918 when the first of five dams blocked the path of the Chinook salmon as they made their way upstream to spawn…

Maíz de concho from Almunyah Dos Acequias.Viejo San Acacio, CO Photo by Devon G. Peña

Resilient seeds

Seventy-five percent of global crop diversity has been lost in the past century, further threatening food security as agriculture becomes increasingly vulnerable to climate change…

Stylized cross section of a clam garden like the ones located along northern Hunter Island. Credit: Húy̓at

Swinomish clam gardens

When Swinomish fisherman Joe Williams walked onto the shore of Skagit Bay in Washington to help build the first modern clam garden in the United States, he was overwhelmed with a sense of the past and present colliding. “It was magic, really,” said Williams, who also serves as the community liaison for the Swinomish tribe. “I could feel the presence of my ancestors.”

[…]

Ahwāri mudhif. By Mohamad.bagher.nasery – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22245902

Climate-smart Indigenous design

In the field of architecture, Indigenous knowledge and technologies have long been overlooked. Julia Watson’s book “Lo—TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism,” published in 2019, examines Indigenous land management practices that represent a catalogue of sustainable, adaptable and resilient design, from living bridges able to withstand monsoons in northern India to man-made underground streams, called qanats, in what is now Iran…

How much water remains in southeast #Colorado’s aquifers?: Colorado legislative committee approves many millions for water projects in Colorado — including $250,000 for a study crucial for Baca County — Allen Best (@BigPivots) #OgallalaAquifer #RepublicanRiver #RioGrande

Corn in Baca County. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots

Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):

Unanimous votes in the Colorado Legislature are rare, but they do happen. Consider HB24-1435, the funding for the Colorado Water Conservation Board projects.

The big duffle bag of funding for various projects was approved 13-0 by the Senate Water and Agriculture Resources Committee. It had bipartisan sponsors, including Rep. Marc Catlin, a former water district official from Montrose.

“Colorado has been a leader in water for a long, long time, and this is bill is an opportunity for us to stay in that leadership position,” said Catlin, a Republican and a co-sponsor.

“This is one of my favorite bills,” said Rep. Karen McCormick, a Democrat from Longmont and former veterinarian. She is also a co-sponsor.

This historical photo shows the penstocks of the Shoshone power plant above the Colorado River. A coalition led by the Colorado River District is seeking to purchase the water rights associated with the plant. Credit: Library of Congress photo

The bill has some very big-ticket items, including $20 million for the Shoshone power plant agreement between Western Slope interests and Public Service Co. of Colorado, better known by its parent company, Xcel Energy. Andy Mueller, the general manager of the Glenwood Springs-based Colorado River District, called the effort to keep the water in the river “incredibly important” to those who make a living in the Colorado River Basin.

This map shows the 15-mile reach of the Colorado River near Grand Junction, home to four species of endangered fish. Map credit: CWCB

Mueller also pointed out that keeping water in the river will benefit of four endangered species of fish that inhabit what is called the 15-mile stretch of the Colorado River near Grand Junction.

Another $2 million was appropriated for the turf-replacement program in cities, a program first funded in 2022. Another mid-range item is telemetry for Snotel sites, to keep track of snow depths, the better to predict runoff. It is to get $1.8 million.

Among the smallest items in the budget is a big one for Baca County, in Colorado’s southeast corner. The bill, if adopted, would provide the Colorado Water Conservation Board with $250,000 to be used to evaluate the remaining water in aquifers underlying southeastern Colorado. There, near the communities of Springfield and Walsh, some wells long ago exhausted the Ogallala aquifer and have gone deeper into lower aquifers, in a few cases exhausting those, too. Farmers in other areas continue to pump with only modest declines.

What exactly is the status of the underground water there? How many more decades can the agricultural economy dependent upon water from the aquifers continue? The area is well aside from the Arkansas River or other sources of snowmelt.

A study by the McLaughlin Group in 2002 delivered numbers that are sobering. Wes McKinley, a former state legislator from Walsh, at a meeting in February covered by the Plainsman Herald of Springfield, said the McLaughlin study numbers show that 84% of the water has been extracted. That study suggested 50-some years of water remaining. If correct, that leaves 34 years of water today.

Tim Hume, the area’s representation on the Colorado Groundwater Commission, has emphasized that he believes this new study will be needed to accurately determine how water should be managed.

How soon will this study proceed? asked Rep. Ty Winter, a Republican from Trinidad who represents southeastern Colorado. Tracy Kosloff, the deputy director of the Colorado Division of Water Resources, answered that the technical analysis should begin sometime after July. “I would think it is reasonable to finish it up by the end of 2025, but that is just an educated guess.”

She said the state would work with the Baca County community to come up with a common goal and direction “about how they want to manage their resources.”

Ogallala Aquifer groundwater withdrawal rates (fresh water, all sources) by county in 2000. Source: National Atlas. By Kbh3rd – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6079001

Unlike the Republican River area of northeastern Colorado, where farmers also have been plunging wells into the Ogallala and other aquifers, this area of southeastern Colorado has no native river. In the Republican Basin, Colorado is trying to remove 25,000 acres from irrigation by the end of 2029 in order to leave more water to move into the Republican River. See story. A similar proposition is underway in the San Luis Valley, where farmers have also extensively tapped the underground aquifers that are tributary to the Rio Grande. See story.

The closest to critical questioning of the bill came from Rep. Richard Holtorf, a Republican who represents many of the farming counties of northeastern Colorado. He questioned the $2 million allocated to the Office of the Attorney General.

He was told that $1 million of that constantly replenishing fund is allocated to the Colorado River, $110,000 for the Republican River, $459,000 for the Rio Grande, $35,000 for the Arkansas and $200,000 for the South Platte.

Then there’s the litigation with Nebraska about the proposed ditch that would begin in Colorado near Julesburg but deliver water to Nebraska’s Perkins County. Colorado hotly disputes that plan.

Lauren Ris, the director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, said Colorado is “very confident in our legal strategy.”

Holtorf also noted that the severance tax provides 25% of the funding for the water operations. The severance tax comes from fossil fuel development. As Colorado moves to renewable energy, “what happens to this Colorado water if we kill the goose that lays the golden egg?”

Ris replied said future declines in the severance tax is a conversation underway among many agencies in Colorado state government.

The South Platte Hotel building that sits at the Two Forks site, where the North and South forks of the South Platte River come together. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

Revitalizing a 71-mile regional gem: High Line Canal Conservancy unveils ‘Great Lengths Campaign’ following GOCO award — News on Tap #SouthPlatteRiver

Click the link to read the article on the Denver Water website:

April 13, 2024

Last month, the High Line Canal Conservancy announced its “Great Lengths for the High Line,” a $33 million campaign poised to revitalize one of the region’s most cherished resources.

This investment leverages public funding for a total investment of $100 million in the canal over five years, breathing new life into the 71-mile High Line Canal and ensuring its preservation, protection and enhancement for generations to come.

A sign along the High Line Canal trail in Aurora installed in 2021 provides a map to help trail users navigate the corridor. Photo credit: Denver Water.

In a significant leap toward this goal, the nonprofit on March 15 announced a $7 million contribution from Great Outdoors Colorado, often referred to as GOCO.

The conservancy said the extraordinary award from GOCO adds to the significant philanthropic support from donors across Colorado to date, including $10 million from Denver Water, and leaves the conservancy with a remaining $1 million to raise.

Learn more about the work behind the transformation of the High Line Canal.

Completion of the campaign will ensure that the community vision for the canal is realized through more than 30 prioritized trail projects. The GOCO grant brings the conservancy closer to its goal, but there is still a great deal of work to be done.

“For decades, the future of the historic High Line Canal has been in jeopardy. Today, with tremendous public and private investment, we can immediately begin fulfilling the community’s vision for the canal and, together with our many partners, ensure the High Line Canal will be improved and protected as a centerpiece of our region’s park system,” said Harriet Crittenden LaMair, CEO of the High Line Canal Conservancy.

The High Line Canal is an irrigation ditch built in the 1880s. Denver Water still uses the canal to deliver irrigation water to customers when conditions allow. Photo credit: Denver Water.

Formed in 2014 to revitalize Denver Water’s historic 71-mile irrigation delivery system into one of the nation’s longest continuous urban trails, the High Line Canal Conservancy aims to enhance trail users’ experience and improve the region’s environmental health.

“Denver Water has a century-old canal that has outlived its usefulness as an irrigation canal,” said Alan Salazar, CEO/Manager of Denver Water.

“We wanted to transform the canal into a recreational and environmental crown jewel for the region. And, after years of building partnerships with the help of our governmental partners and the leadership from the High Line Canal Conservancy, today, with GOCO’s investment, we celebrate a giant leap toward this vision. With $32 million in private funds raised by the conservancy and matching funding from local partners and Denver Water, we are thrilled to help make this vision a reality for our region,” Salazar said.

Are you on TAP? Get the free weekly email for water conservation tips, news and stories about the people who deliver the water.

In partnership with local jurisdictions and Denver Water, the Great Lengths campaign will support the conservancy’s work to improve safety, ecological sustainability, community vitality, and equitable access along the High Line Canal, which meanders continuously from Waterton Canyon in Littleton to the high plains near Denver International Airport.

Over the past seven years, the conservancy and its partners have engaged communities across the region to develop a comprehensive plan, “The Plan for the High Line Canal,” to protect and enhance the trail.

Today, as one of the most exciting and largest urban trail projects in the country, the transformation of the canal with enriched landscape, safer crossings, improved access, better signage, and areas for gathering, play and education is becoming a reality.

The High Line Canal Conservancy in March announced its “Great Lengths for the High Line,” a $33 million campaign aimed at reimagining the historic canal as one of the nation’s premier linear parks. Image credit: High Line Canal Conservancy.

“We owe our progress to the more than 10,000 community members across the region — countless volunteers, youth and leaders — that have participated and underscored the importance of safety, connectivity, access and comfort along the Canal,” said LaMair.

“Now we look forward to High Line Canal users joining our Great Lengths for the High Line fundraising campaign, so this great work continues for decades to come.”

Projects along the canal will be implemented in partnership with the local governments, including counties, cities and special districts. No donation is too small and can be made by logging on to highlinecanal.org/great-lengths.

Join people delivering water to their community, at denverwater.org/Careers.

“We are grateful for this much-needed investment and commitment to improving accessibility and quality of life for residents across our region,” says Arapahoe County Board Chair Carrie Warren-Gully.

“The county has long been a leading partner in efforts to enhance the High Line Canal corridor. This new investment reinforces the power of collaboration to ensure future generations can enjoy this treasured resource, especially along a stretch of the canal that has been historically underserved and underfunded. We are ready to roll up our sleeves and get the work done.”

From “Poem: I am not alone” — Greg Hobbs along the High Line Canal. Photo credit: Bobbi Hobbs

Serving more than 1 million trail users annually across 11 jurisdictions, the canal traverses some of the most diverse communities in the state. The 860-acre canal connects 24 schools, hundreds of neighborhoods, and millions of people to more than 8,000 acres of open space.

“Investing in the Great Lengths Campaign is a wonderful way to improve the canal not just in your own community — but across all communities. It’s an opportunity for individuals to leverage their philanthropic dollars in a public-private partnership to create a legacy for generations to come,” said Tom and Margie Gart, co-chairs of the Great Lengths Campaign Committee.

Reclamation awards $1.9M for new water treatment technology

Click the link to read the release on the Bureau of Reclamation website (Chelsea Lair):

Apr 18, 2024

WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Reclamation’s Desalination and Water Purification Research program awarded eight projects funding totaling more than $1.9 million. Reclamation selected the projects from 80 eligible applications all submitting pioneering solutions to desalination and water treatment technologies.

“These awards allow us to tackle the climate crisis by investing in development and application of advanced water treatment technologies that expand access to otherwise unusable water resources,” said Research and Development Program Manager Ken Nowak. “These efforts increase water supply flexibility under the risks of long-term climate change and shorter-term drought.”

The Desalination and Water Purification Research Program provides financial assistance for advanced water treatment research and development, leading to improved technologies for developing water supply from non-traditional waters, including seawater, brackish groundwater, and municipal wastewater, among others. 

Recipients of the project funding have provided an additional $1.4 million of non-federal cost share to further support these research efforts.

ARIZONA

Arizona State University: Funds awarded ($209,708 federal funding, $424,479 total project cost) for Nanobubbles as a Chemical-Free Fouling and Scale Control Strategy for Reverse Osmosis Project. This project proposes a chemical-free solution during water desalination.

COLORADO

Mickley & Associates LLC: Funds awarded ($117,700 federal funding, $235.400 total project cost) for the Updated Survey of U.S. Municipal Desalination Plants Project. This project aims to identify an estimated 50 to 70 facilities and gather detailed information about U.S. municipal desalination facilities that have been built since 2017 and will be built through 2024. The project will also determine that status of facilities included in past surveys as several older facilities are no longer operating.

University of Colorado: Funds awarded ($250,000 federal funding, $339,133 total project cost) for the Advancing Water Reuse Through Improved Diagnostic Tools for Corrosion Control Project. This project will develop a new method for proactively assessing the presence of toxic metal release in water systems and the susceptibility of release due to changing water conditions. Current methods are limited, because they do not link the presence of a toxic metal to the likelihood of release into potable water.

MASSACHUSETTS

Harmony Desalination Corporation: Funds awarded ($390,871 federal funding, $781,742 total project cost) for the Field Pilot Testing a Batch RO Process Using Electrically Conducting Reverse Osmosis Membranes Project. This project proposes extended field testing of a high recovery batch reverse osmosis process using innovative anti-scaling and antifouling electrically conducting membranes in comparison with conventional reverse osmosis membranes.

NEW JERSEY

New Jersey Institute of Technology: Funds awarded ($249,940 federal funding, $396,971 total project cost) for the Enhanced Coagulation for the Removal of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances using Hydrophobic Ion Pairing Approach Project. This project proposes to utilize hydrophobic ion-pairing as a pretreatment to enhance the removal of both short-chain and long-chain per-/polyfluoroalkyl substances during coagulation/flocculation process.

New Jersey Institute of Technology: Funds awarded ($250,000 federal funding, $500,334 total project cost) for the Field-Effect Transistor Nanosensors for Testing Per- and polyfluoroalkyl Substances Impacted Water and Air Project. This project will fabricate novel field-effect transistor sensors, systematically examine the sensing performance, device stability, and reusability when probing per-/polyfluoroalkyl in synthetic water and air samples and conduct a field demonstration of the sensors.

NEW MEXICO

New Mexico State University: Funds awarded ($250,000 federal funding, $312,514 total project cost) for the Brine 2030: Enhanced Water Recovery with Mineral Valorization for Sustainable Cement Production Project. This project seeks to address two seemingly different problems: brine management and greenhouse gas emissions from cement manufacturing.

TEXAS

Texas State University: Funds awarded ($250,000 federal funding, $399,234 total project cost) for the Pilot Photobioreactor Development for Scalant Removal and Enhanced Water Recovery from Brackish Reverse Osmosis Concentrate Project. This project seeks to demonstrate continuous pilot photobioreactor operation using sunlight and reduction of the reactor footprint.

For more information on Reclamation’s Desalination and Water Purification Research Program visit http://www.usbr.gov/research/dwpr.

Every #NewMexico river endangered and vulnerable to contamination, according to national report — SourceNM.com

Water flows through the Rio Grande on April 16, 2024 near the Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park in Doña Ana County. (Photo by Leah Romero fr Source NM)

Click the link to read the article on the SourceNM.com website (Leah Romero):

Reasons include recent rollbacks to Clean Water Act protections and a state water permitting system that is still in the planning phase

There are over 108,000 miles of river in New Mexico, all of which were deemed the most endangered in the country recently by a national report.

American Rivers is a national nonprofit organization concerned with conservation and advocacy on behalf of the country’s rivers. The organization releases an annual report listing the country’s top 10 endangered rivers for the year.

New Mexico waterways have made the list in recent years. This year the organization found enough evidence to show that recent rollbacks in national streams and wetlands protections place up to 95% of the state’s rivers in jeopardy.

“When you have a national report that singles out New Mexico, it should be a very big wake up call,” said Paula Garcia, executive director of the New Mexico Acequia Association. “We should be looking at how we can protect these waters because our state is unique in how dependent our communities are on these very small drain systems.”

The report cites the May 2023 U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the case of Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency.

The case reintroduced the question of what constitutes “waters of the U.S.” which have more protections under the 1972 Clean Water Act.

The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, ultimately decided that these waters were defined as “a relatively permanent body of water connected to traditional interstate navigable waters.”

Wetlands were defined as having “a continuous surface connection with that water, making it difficult to determine where the ‘water’ ends and the ‘wetland’ begins.”

Water experts and conservationists note that the definition of a “relatively permanent” body of water is vague and places several of New Mexico’s rivers – which do not have water for months out of the year – at risk of contamination.

New Mexico’s surface water is at a higher risk due to the state’s arid climate and reliance on dwindling waters for drinking, agriculture and recreation.

Garcia said New Mexico’s smaller streams and acequias, which flow as tributaries to larger rivers, are particularly endangered because they are reliant on open dams, rainfall or snowpack runoff.

New Mexico is one of three states, including New Hampshire and Massachuttes, without a state-based surface water quality permitting program.

State environment department leaders and legislators started the process of implementing such a program before the Supreme Court decision, according to Tricia Snyder, Rivers and Waters program director for New Mexico Wild.

The 2024 state legislature appropriated $7.6 million to the New Mexico Environment Department’s water quality management fund to develop the permitting program. The money was designated through the General Appropriation Act of 2024. However, planning is still in the early stages and it could be several more years before New Mexico has it set up.

Source New Mexico reached out to the New Mexico Environment Department for comment but received no response. We will update if and when we receive that reponse.

Rachel Cann, deputy director at the water conservation organization Amigos Bravos, explained that the lack of a state permitting program was not a major priority in the past since the federal government issued permits.

She added that New Mexico’s smaller waterways and the lack of a permitting program is why the state is “really feeling the brunt” of the federal protection rollbacks.

Matt Rice, southwest regional director for American Rivers, said this recent report is the first time in the organization’s 40 years where an entire state’s rivers were named on the list.

“There wasn’t just one river we could point to that was facing a specific threat,” Rice said. “Because there aren’t that many large rivers in New Mexico, all the rivers I think, have a more urgent importance.”

Rice pointed out that while New Mexico rivers have appeared on the endangered list in recent years, the contributing factors have largely been addressed by state and local governments as well as advocacy organizations.

While the designation of most endangered in the country is striking, Rice said the story is “not a sad one.” The Gila, Pecos and Gallinas rivers have all appeared on the list in recent years for diversion plans, mining proposals and wildfire damage respectively. However, Rice said “tremendous progress” has been made in addressing the dangers to each river.

“(The list) is showing that New Mexico is doing things the right way. They’re proactively working to establish their own program to protect their water, because only New Mexicans know how important their rivers and streams are to them,” Rice said.

New Mexico Lakes, Rivers and Water Resources via Geology.com.

#Colorado Department of Natural Resources Produced Water Consortium Submits First Report: Best Practices for In-field Recycling and Reuse of Produced Water Report

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

(DENVER) -The Colorado Produced Water Consortium, an initiative within the Department of Natural Resources, released its first legislative deliverable, the Initial Guidance Documents and Case Studies to Promote Best Practices for In-field Recycling and Reuse of Produced Water Report.

“I am proud to see the collaborative work of the newly developed Colorado Produced Water Consortium begin to bear fruit with the development of the Initial Guidance Documents and Case Studies to Promote Best Practices for In-Field Recycling and Reuse of Produced Water Report. The engagement, diversity of views, and expertise of the whole of the Consortium was utilized in the development of this report, which will continue to evolve as more technology, case studies, and research are incorporated in the future as we continue to implement HB23-1242 and explore ways to reduce the amount of freshwater used and increase the amount of reuse and recycling of produced water used in oil and gas operations across the state,” said Consortium Chair John Messner.

The Consortium collaboratively developed this synthesis report by identifying and reviewing over 130 research journal articles, best practices, and case studies. Key themes that promote best practices for in-field recycling and reuse of produced water throughout the state emerged from the review and will be used to inform the Consortium’s future recommendations. Given the ongoing and evolving nature of produced water research, the library of references is expected to grow over time.

“I congratulate the Consortium in submitting their first deliverable to the Colorado legislature and for working hard to bring together the expertise of a diverse set of stakeholders,” said Dan Gibbs, Executive Director, Colorado Department of Natural Resources. “This first report builds the expertise of Colorado’s policy makers and the public on produced water. I look forward to the Consortium’s continued work to inform produced water policy.”

The Colorado Produced Water Consortium was established in the Department of Natural Resources by HB23-1242 to help reduce the consumption of freshwater within oil and gas operations. The Consortium’s responsibilities also include making recommendations towards developing an informed path for reuse and recycling of produced water inside and potentially outside of oil and gas operations within the state and identifying measures to address barriers associated with the use of produced water.

The Consortium consists of 31 members representing state and federal agencies, research institutions, environmental groups, industry, local governments, environmental justice groups, and disproportionately impacted communities.

The full report is available online: Initial Guidance Documents and Case Studies to Promote Best Practices for In-field Recycling and Reuse of Produced Water Report.

Are #Colorado’s Northeastern Plains prepared for #ClimateChange? — KUNC #ActOnClimate

The Crossing Trails Wind Farm between Kit Carson and Seibert, about 150 miles east of Denver, has an installed capacity of 104 megawatts, which goes to Tri-State Generation and Transmission. Photo/Allen Best

Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Rae Solomon). Here’s an excerpt:

…the six counties that comprise Colorado’s Northeast Plains – namely, Morgan, Logan, Washington, Yuma, Phillips and Sedgwick Counties – seem to be lagging behind the rest of the state when it comes to mobilizing for climate change preparedness. Those communities do not have any plans for climate action and resiliency and a regional hazard mitigation plan for Northeast Colorado makes no mention of climate change.

“That region is among the lowest in the state,” said Karam Ahmad, director of the climate team at the Colorado Health Institute. “Cities and counties in that region don’t really have climate related plans, or strong commitments to climate adaptation.”

[…]

In a recent statewide survey, The Colorado Health Institute asked Coloradans if their communities were prepared for climate disaster. In all of Colorado, the Northeast Plains stood out for its lack of confidence in local climate change preparedness. More than 60% of respondents in Northeast Colorado reported they did not think their community was prepared for climate change. That’s compared to about 47% statewide.

#Earth’s record hot streak might be a sign of a new #climate era — The Washington Post #ActOnClimate

Colorado statewide annual temperature anomaly (F) with respect to the 1901-2000 average. Graphic credit: Becky Bolinger/Colorado Climate Center

Click the link to read the article on The Washington Post website (Sarah Kaplan). Here’s an excerpt:

April 19, 2024

As soon as the planet entered an El Niño climate pattern — a naturally occurring phenomenon associated with warming in the Pacific Ocean — scientists knew it would start breaking records. El Niños are associated with spikes in Earth’s overall temperature, and this one was unfolding on a planet that has already warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) from preindustrial levels…Yet this El Niño didn’t just break records; it obliterated them. Four consecutive days in July became the hottest days in history. The Northern Hemisphere saw its warmest summer — and then its warmest winter — known to science…

By the end of 2023, Earth’s average temperature was nearly 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the preindustrial average — and about 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than climate modelers predicted it would be, even taking El Niño into account. Researchers have spent the past several months investigating possible explanations for that 0.2 C discrepancy: a volcanic eruption that spewed heat-trapping water vapor into the atmosphere, changes in shipping fuel that affected the formation of clouds that block the sun. So far, those factors can only account for a small fraction of the anomaly, raising fears that scientists’ models may have failed to capture a longer-lasting change in the climate system…

Even if global average temperatures do return to a more predictable trajectory, the effects of warming on people and ecosystems have already entered uncharted territory. Sea ice around Antarctica shrank to its smallest extent ever last year. The mighty Amazon River has reached its lowest level since measurements began. Researchers this week declared a global coral bleaching event — just the fourth in history — and warned that the crisis in the oceans is on track to set a record.

Column: Changing our lives is scary. But the #climatecrisis is way scarier — @Sammy_Roth (The Los Angeles Times) #ActOnClimate

Colstrip Power Plants 1-4 from right to left. By P.primo (talk) – I created this work entirely by myself., Public Domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18292329

Click the link to read the column on The Los Angeles Times website (Sammy Roth). Here’s an excerpt:

April 19, 2024

Yet as I’ve traversed the American West over the last two years with my L.A. Times colleagues, exploring how the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy is reshaping sensitive ecosystems and rural communities, one lesson has risen above the rest: If we don’t embrace change now, while we still have a choice, far worse changes will eviscerate us later. That lesson crystallized for me over the last few months, as I wrote about a Montana coal town struggling to accept that its West Coast customer base no longer wants coal power — you can read my full story here — and as I struggled personally to figure out what kinds of stories I want to tell going forward, after a decade of reporting on challenges facing the energy transition…

Folks in Colstrip [Montana] and similar towns are justifiably worried that if big cities replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, their lives will change for the worse. They’re not totally opposed to wind and solar, but they’re skeptical those technologies will ever fully replace fossil fuels, in terms of the bountiful jobs, tax revenues and other economic benefits that coal, oil and gas have provided.

2024 #COleg: Keeping water rights on the #YampaRiver while utilities figure out future technologies — Allen Best (@BigPivots)

Power distribution lines in the Yampa River Valley October 2020. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots

Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):

April 18, 2024

Bill moving through Colorado Capitol that would allow Xcel Energy and Tri-State G&T to keep water rights for 20 years after last coal plant closes

Colorado’s Yampa River Valley has five coal-burning units that will cease operations from 2025 to 2030. Two are at Hayden and three are at Craig. All require water for cooling.

What will become of that water once the coal plants close?

SB24-197, a bill that is rapidly moving through the Colorado Legislature, would allow Xcel Energy and Tri-State Power and Generation to hold onto their water rights, even if they are not using them, until 2050. That is a precedent-setting exception to Colorado’s famous use-it-or-lose-it provision in water law.

The utilities say they may very likely need the water once they figure out how they will replace the coal generation. Neither utility has announced specific plans, but in response to a question at the bill’s first hearing in a Senate committee last week, Xcel Energy’s Richard Belt identified pumped-storage hydro and hydrogen as leading candidates. The federal government has devoted considerable funding and support for development of both technologies, he said.

“Those are the two leaders,” said Belt. “There aren’t many on the horizon that would fill the niche in that decree.”

Both technologies would provide storage. Xcel and other utilities are on their way to having massive amounts of cheap renewable energy. Still to be solved is how to ensure reliability when winds quiet for long periods. And the sun, of course, always goes down.

Storage will be essential and perhaps some kind of baseload generation. Xcel’s current plans call for an increase in natural gas capacity to ensure reliability even if the natural gas plants are used only infrequently, say 1% or 2% of the time. Xcel Energy is also adding literally tons of four-hour lithium-ion battery storage.

Cabin Creek pumped hydro reservoir. Photo credit: EE Online

The company’s biggest storage device is still its oldest, the 324-megawatt Cabin Creek pumped storage unit. Water from the upper reservoir is released to generate electricity when it is needed most, then pumped back uphill when power is relatively plentiful.

A developer has secured rights from landowners at a site between Hayden and Craig. See story. Another pumped-storage hydro possibility has been identified in the area between Penrose and Colorado Springs.

Hydrogen has less of a track record, at least in Colorado. However, it is part of Colorado’s all-of-the-above approach. See story. Hydrogen can be created from natural gas, but to meet Colorado’s needs it must be created from water. It would then be stored. Like pumped-storage hydro, it would be created when renewables are producing excess electricity, and the hydrogen could then be tapped to create electricity when needed most. That electrical generation would also use water for cooling, Belt said.

The bill, said Belt, proposes to allow Xcel the time for the economic and feasibility details of these emerging technologies to be resolved “instead of forcing a near-term decision driven by the processes of current water law.”

Normally, utilities would be required to demonstrate purpose of water, which can take several years, or risk abandonment. Because they will not have to, some see this as allowing the utilities to speculate. The utilities insist that it’s too soon to know exactly what their future water needs will be. But in addition to owning land in the Yampa Valley and water, they have expensive transmission linked to the rest of Colorado.

State Sen. Cleave Simpson, a Republican from Alamosa — and a former lignite coal-mining engineer, made note of that infrastructure on the floor of the Senate on Monday morning when he spoke in favor.

The bill will allow the utilities to hold onto the water in Western Colorado “so the region can have a true just transition and so hopefully it can continue to be an energy producing

region using existing infrastructure.” Upon advice of the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, the bill was amended by the Senate to specify that the water must remain in the Yampa River Basin.

Coyote Gulch near the confluence of the Little Snake and Yampa Rivers July 2021.

Since Colorado adopted carbon reduction targets in 2019, there have been questions about what might happen to the water in the Yampa Valley. It’s not a huge amount of water, but it can matter in a basin that since 2018 has had several calls on the river after having none for the previous 150 years.

The issue was hashed out by the legislatively-created Drought Task Force in 2023. The task force called attention to the idea of allowing utilities to preserve their water rights until 2050, but the idea failed to get a full endorsement.

Sen. Dylan Roberts, a prime sponsor, explained at the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee meeting that additional work in recent months has produced legislation that has ended objections. Indeed, Western Resource Advocates supported the full bill, as did others.

Jackie Brown, who represented Tri-State on the task force, told the Senate committee members that the measures in SB24-197 “provide Tri-State certainty that our water resources remain intact and available for future dispatchable carbon-free generation as needed and is projected in our electric resource plan. While we continue our planning process, keeping this utility water in the Yampa River helps all water users, creating a win-win situation.”

The Glenwood Springs-based Colorado River District in 2021 conducted a study of what happens to water when released from the Elkhead Reservoir, which is located near Hayden. The study found that 14% of the water was picked up by irrigators, 10% was lost to transit – and the rest of it flowed downstream. That suggests what will become of this water while it is not used.

Downstream lie segments of the Yampa where endangered fish species live. Those stretches have become nearly non-existent during the hot and dry summers of recent years.

Routt County Commissioner Tim Corrigan said his county supports the bill. He said hebelieved that Moffat County did also. He emphasized that the solution will help the environment as well as other users. The energy transition in northwest Colorado, he said “will take place over a very long time.”

The bill also has provisions applicable across Colorado. It allows the owner of a decreed storage water right to loan water to the Colorado Water Conservation Board for a reach of river for which the board does not hold a decreed instream flow water right. It also requires the CWCB to establish an agricultural water protection program in each of the state’s water divisions.

Simpson, on the Senate floor, also explained that the bill would create what he called a much-needed program, crafting a pathway to loan water from water storage for a reservoir to benefit an instream flow program “without going through the whole CWCB process with getting an adjudicated flow.”

Yampa/White/Green/North Platte river basins via the Colorado Geological Survey

This is all just a part of a natural cycle, right? — @KHayhoe #ActOnClimate

All this worry about warming when it’s just a natural cycle. The climate is always changing and today’s no different — right? Global Weirding is produced by KTTZ Texas Tech Public Media and distributed by PBS Digital Studios. New episodes every other Wednesday at 10 am central. Brought to you in part by: Bob and Linda Herscher, Freese and Nichols, Inc, and the Texas Tech Climate Science Center.

Kilometer-scale #GlobalWarming simulations and active sensors reveal changes in tropical deep convection — NOAA #ActOnClimate

Different types of clouds affect climate and weather in different ways. Credit: NOAA

Click the link to read the article on the General Fluid Dynamics Laboratory website

March 28th, 2024

Key Findings

GFDL’s X-SHiELD experimental global storm-resolving model was used to compute the response of cloud ice in simulations of global warming.

The responses of active sensor measurements of cloud ice to interannual variability and next-generation global storm-resolving model simulations to global warming show similar changes for events with the highest column-integrated ice.

Ice loading decreases outside the most active convection but increases at a rate of several percent per Kelvin surface warming in the most active convection.

Changes in ice loading are strongly influenced by changes in convective velocities, suggesting a path toward extracting information about convective velocities from observations.

Maximilien Bolot, Lucas M. Harris, Kai-Yuan Cheng, Timothy M. Merlis, Peter N. Blossey, Christopher S. Bretherton, Spencer K. Clark, Alex Kaltenbaugh, Linjiong Zhou and Stephan Fueglistaler. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. DOI: 10.1038/s41612-023-00525-w

Under global warming, changes in the location and structure of the deep convection in the tropics have profound consequences for tropical climate. The tropics are characterized by the ubiquitous presence of high ice clouds formed by detrainment from precipitating deep convection. The bulk of these clouds are so-called anvil clouds in extensive formations that shield the convective centers. These can persist for several hours after the decay of active convection and they carry low to moderate ice loads.

The centers of active convection, on the other hand, correspond to a small fraction of the cloudy region and are typically of kilometric scale. Ice loads in the convective centers are very high, reaching tens of kilograms of ice per square meter, and can only be maintained by the strong convective velocities existing at these locations. Changes in ice loading in active convection thus have the potential to shed light on changes of convective velocities with warming.

Tropical deep convection is one of the leading sources of uncertainty in future projections of the Earth’s temperature. In particular, there remain major uncertainties in the radiative response of convective clouds, which can have negative or positive radiative effects depending on their optical depth, and on the response of convective velocities with warming. This response, the focus of this paper, is particularly difficult to quantify due to the small scales involved.

The authors used GFDL’s X-SHiELD experimental global storm-resolving model to compute the response of cloud ice in simulations of global warming. This kilometer-scale model explicitly represents convection worldwide instead of relying on a deep convective parameterization. In comparing the response in the model with the response of active sensor measurements to interannual variability, they found similar changes for events with the highest column-integrated ice. The changes reveal that the ice loading decreases outside the most active convection but increases at a rate of several percent per Kelvin surface warming in the most active convection.

Conducting an additional simulation where the response of vertical velocities is muted, the authors were able to prove that the changes in ice loading are modulated by changes in convective velocities and are not simply set by conditions at the surface. Namely, the ice signal is strongly modulated by structural changes of the vertical wind field towards an intensification of strong convective updrafts with warming.

This study shows the potential of kilometer-scale climate models to interpret high-resolution observations such as those provided by the CloudSat radar measurements. The results indicate that deep convective ice clouds will experience changes at the kilometer-scale and mesoscale, and that these changes are manifest in the presently available high-resolution radar measurements. The fact that changes in the distribution of vertical velocities will be registered in the ice field suggests a path toward extracting information about convective velocities from observations.

Change in the frequencies of ice water path (IWP; the vertically integrated ice mass per unit area) in the global warming GSRM experiment and with interannual temperature variations in the CloudSat observations. (a) Simulations in present-day climate (control) and in the warmer future climate (global warming). (b) Interannual anomalies of tropical-mean surface temperature TS in the ERA5 reanalysis. (c) Interannual anomalies of IWP frequency from July 2006 to December 2010 in CloudSat observations (2B-CWC-RO). (d) Fractional change of IWP frequency with TS in the simulation and with interannual temperature variations in CloudSat observations. The red line is for observations from 2006 to 2010 (2B-CWC-RO) and the yellow line is for observations from 2006 to 2017 (DARDAR). The error bars indicate the standard errors of regression of the IWP interannual frequency anomalies on the TS interannual anomalies.

No sign of greenhouse gases increases slowing in 2023 — NOAA #ActOnClimate

Greenhouse-gas monitoring equipment. Credit: Lauren Lipuma

Click the link to read the article on the NOAA website (Theo Stein):

Levels of the three most important human-caused greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane and nitrous oxide – continued their steady climb during 2023, according to NOAA scientists.

While the rise in the three heat-trapping gases recorded in the air samples collected by NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML) in 2023 was not quite as high as the record jumps observed in recent years, they were in line with the steep increases observed during the past decade.

“NOAA’s long-term air sampling program is essential for tracking causes of climate change and for supporting the U.S. efforts to establish an integrated national greenhouse gas measuring, monitoring and information system,” said GML Director Vanda Grubišić. “As these numbers show, we still have a lot of work to do to make meaningful progress in reducing the amount of greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere.”

The global surface concentration of CO₂, averaged across all 12 months of 2023, was 419.3 parts per million (ppm), an increase of 2.8 ppm during the year. This was the 12th consecutive year CO₂ increased by more than 2 ppm, extending the highest sustained rate of CO₂ increases during the 65-year monitoring record. Three consecutive years of CO₂growth of 2 ppm or more had not been seen in NOAA’s monitoring records prior to 2014. Atmospheric CO₂ is now more than 50% higher than pre-industrial levels.

This graph shows the globally averaged monthly mean carbon dioxide abundance measured at the Global Monitoring Laboratory’s global network of air sampling sites since 1980. Data are still preliminary, pending recalibrations of reference gases and other quality control checks. Credit: NOAA GML

“The 2023 increase is the third-largest in the past decade, likely a result of an ongoing increase of fossil fuel CO₂ emissions, coupled with increased fire emissions possibly as a result of the transition from La Nina to El Nino,” said Xin Lan, a CIRES scientist who leads GML’s effort to synthesize data from the NOAA Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network for tracking global greenhouse gas trends.

Atmospheric methane, less abundant than CO₂but more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere, rose to an average of 1922.6 parts per billion (ppb). The 2023 methane increase over 2022 was 10.9 ppb, lower than the record growth rates seen in 2020 (15.2 ppb), 2021(18 ppb) and 2022 (13.2 ppb), but still the 5th highest since renewed methane growth started in 2007. Methane levels in the atmosphere are now more than 160% higher than their pre-industrial level.

This graph shows globally-averaged, monthly mean atmospheric methane abundance determined from marine surface sites for the full NOAA time-series starting in 1983. Values for the last year are preliminary, pending recalibrations of standard gases and other quality control steps. Credit: NOAA GM

In 2023, levels of nitrous oxide, the third-most significant human-caused greenhouse gas, climbed by 1 ppb to 336.7 ppb. The two years of highest growth since 2000 occurred in 2020 (1.3 ppb) and 2021 (1.3 ppb). Increases in atmospheric nitrous oxide during recent decades are mainly from use of nitrogen fertilizer and manure from the expansion and intensification of agriculture. Nitrous oxide concentrations are 25% higher than the pre-industrial level of 270 ppb.

Taking the pulse of the planet one sample at a time
NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory collected more than 15,000 air samples from monitoring stations around the world in 2023 and analyzed them in its state-of-the-art laboratory in Boulder,

Colorado. Each spring, NOAA scientists release preliminary calculations of the global average levels of these three primary long-lived greenhouse gases observed during the previous year to track their abundance, determine emissions and sinks, and understand carbon cycle feedbacks.

Measurements are obtained from air samples collected from sites in NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, which includes about 53 cooperative sampling sites around the world, 20 tall tower sites, and routine aircraft operation sites from North America.

Carbon dioxide emissions remain the biggest problem

By far the most important contributor to climate change is CO₂, which is primarily emitted by burning of fossil fuels. Human-caused CO₂ pollution increased from 10.9 billion tons per year in the 1960s – which is when the measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii began – to about 36.8 billion tons per year in 2023. This sets a new record, according to the Global Carbon Project, which uses NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network measurements to define the net impact of global carbon emissions and sinks.

This graph shows annual mean growth rates of carbon dioxide based on globally averaged marine surface data. Decadal averages of the growth rate are plotted as horizontal lines. Credit: NOAA GML

The amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere today is comparable to where it was around 4.3 million years ago during the mid-Pliocene epoch, when sea level was about 75 feet higher than today, the average temperature was 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in pre-industrial times, and large forests occupied areas of the Arctic that are now tundra.

About half of the CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels to date have been absorbed at the Earth’s surface, divided roughly equally between oceans and land ecosystems, including grasslands and forests. The CO₂ absorbed by the world’s oceans contributes to ocean acidification, which is causing a fundamental change in the chemistry of the ocean, with impacts to marine life and the people who depend on them. The oceans have also absorbed an estimated 90% of the excess heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases.

Research continues to point to microbial sources for rising methane

NOAA’s measurements show that atmospheric methane increased rapidly during the 1980s, nearly stabilized in the late-1990s and early 2000s, then resumed a rapid rise in 2007.

A 2022 study by NOAA and NASA scientists and additional NOAA research in 2023 suggests that more than 85% of the increase from 2006 to 2021 was due to increased microbial emissions generated by livestock, agriculture, human and agricultural waste, wetlands and other aquatic sources. The rest of the increase was attributed to increased fossil fuel emissions.

“In addition to the record high methane growth in 2020-2022, we also observed sharp changes in the isotope composition of the methane that indicates an even more dominant role of microbial emission increase,” said Lan. The exact causes of the recent increase in methane are not yet fully known.

NOAA scientists are investigating the possibility that climate change is causing wetlands to give off increasing methane emissions in a feedback loop.

To learn more about the Global Monitoring Laboratory’s greenhouse gas monitoring, visit: https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/.

Media Contact: Theo Stein, theo.stein@noaa.gov, 303-819-7409

#GunnisonRiver Basin ends winter season at about average #snowpack: Almost half the basin is dry or in moderate #drought — The #CrestedButte News

Click the link to read the article on The Crested Butte News website (Katherine Nettles). Here’s an excerpt:

April 17, 2024

As winter transitions to spring in the high country, the Upper Gunnison Basin might be heading into a warm and dry spell and holds at about average for the year on snowpack. A three-month forecast is predicting spring might be (mostly) here to stay, with warmer and drier weather to come. Spring runoff may be kicking into high gear in the next few weeks as the layers of dust within the snowpack from two recent wind events could lead to a faster melt off period as well…According to Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District (UGRWCD) senior program manager Beverly Richards, soil saturation and weather could make a difference for spring runoff season.

“The soil moisture at this time is a little dryer than this time last year so the combination may have an effect on runoff amounts and timing,” she said.

Drought conditions around the basin range from absent to moderate. As of April 2, 53% of Gunnison County was experiencing no drought conditions, and 47% of the county was experiencing abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions. In the 129-year record, this winter (January to February) was the 56^th wettest year and February was the 64^th driest, Richards said…

As of April 8, precipitation has ranged from 50% to 150% of normal in the county over the past 30 days, and a small portion in the southeastern corner of the county measured up to 200% of normal during the same period.

According to the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) the Upper Gunnison Basin snow water equivalent (SWE) as of April 7 has been measured as 116% of normal overall. Specific locations measured as follows: 125% of normal at the Upper Taylor River location; 122% of normal at the Butte location; 107% of normal at Schofield; 126% of normal at Park Cone; 127% of normal at Porphyry Creek; and 92% of normal at Slumgullion.

Blue Mesa Reservoir is projected to fill to about 85% this spring. Reservoir storage for the entire Gunnison Basin is at 63% of average, and 65% for the Upper Gunnison Basin. The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) has projected that Blue Mesa will fill to 85% in 2024. The National Park Service reported that Elk Creek boat ramp at Blue Mesa opened on April 11, and the reservoir was at 7,485 feet elevation as of April 10. This is about 34 feet (10 meters) below full pool at 7,519 feet (2291 meters). The BOR has reported that among reservoirs in the Upper Colorado River Basin, the Flaming Gorge is 86% full; Fontenelle is 33% full; Morrow Point is 94% full, Blue Mesa is 66% full, Navajo is 65% full, Lake Powell is 33% full and total storage across the basin is at 63%.

Colorado River Basin Plumbing. Credit: Lester Doré/Mary Moran via Dustin Mulvaney and Twitter

2024 #COleg: Bill would protect #YampaRiver Valley #coal plants’ water from abandonment: Water would stay in river after plants close in 2028 — @AspenJournalism #GreenRiver #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

The coal-fired Tri-State Generation and Transmission plant in Craig is scheduled to close in 2028. Senate bill SB24-197 would allow the water rights associated with the plant to be protected from abandonment until 2050. Photo credit: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

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

April 17, 2024

State lawmakers are considering a bill that would let two energy companies with coal-fired power plants in northwest Colorado hang on to their water rights even after the plants’ planned closures in 2028.

Senate Bill SB24-197 says that industrial water rights held by Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association Inc. will be protected from abandonment through 2050. Under Colorado law, a water right that is not being used could end up on an abandonment list, which is compiled every 10 years.

Abandonment is the official term for one of Colorado’s best-known water adages: Use it or lose it. It means that the right to use the water is essentially canceled and ceases to exist. The water goes back into the stream where another water user can claim it.

Supporters of the bill say this protection from abandonment would give the companies a grace period to transition to clean-energy sources and eventually use the water again in new methods of energy production. In the meantime, the water will remain in the stream for the benefit of the environment, recreation and downstream irrigators.

State Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, is one of the bill’s sponsors, and represents Clear Creek, Eagle, Garfield, Gilpin, Grand, Jackson, Moffat, Rio Blanco, Routt and Summit counties.

“The idea is if we can find a way to ensure that the water rights of the power companies are protected over the next couple of decades, this will give them a stronger incentive to find a new way to produce energy in the region,” Roberts said.

Tri-State plans to shut down its coal-fired power plant in Craig in 2028, the same year that Xcel Energy plans to close the Hayden Generating Station, which has prompted questions about what will happen to the water currently being used by the facilities.

Jackie Brown is a senior water and natural resource advisor at Tri-State. She said the bill preserves future opportunities for economic development by energy utilities in Moffat and Routt counties.

“The measures in this bill provide Tri-State with certainty that our water resources remain intact and available for future dispatchable, carbon-free generation as needed and projected in our Electric Resource Plan,” Brown said in a statement. “While we continue our planning process, keeping the utility water in the Yampa River helps all water users, creating a win-win situation.”

According to Brown, the water used from the Yampa River by both energy companies is estimated to be about 44 cubic feet per second of flow. But, if the bill passes, engineers will officially quantify by 2030 the amount of water that the industries have historically used, and that is the amount that will be protected from abandonment. Any portion of the water rights that the energy companies lease to a third party would not be protected from abandonment.

The Yampa River begins in the Flat Tops Wilderness, flows through the city of Steamboat Springs and west through Routt and Moffat counties to Dinosaur National Monument, and eventually joins with the Green River. The Yampa River basin was one of the last to be developed in the state and in recent years has begun experiencing some of the issues long present in other areas such as shortages, calls, an overappropriation designation and stricter enforcement of state measurement rules.

In 2018, irrigators placed the first call on the river, triggering cutbacks from junior water users. When an irrigator is not receiving the entire amount of water to which they are legally entitled, they can place a call, which requires water-rights holders with younger water rights to stop irrigating so the senior water user can get their share. The Colorado River Water Conservation District, the Colorado Water Trust and others have made releases out of Elkhead Reservoir to get extra water to these senior downstream irrigators and keep the call off the river.

The Lefevre family prepares to put their rafts in at Pebble Beach for a float down the Yampa River to Loudy Simpson Park in Craig in June 2021. When the coal-fired power plants shut down in 2028, the water they currently use will be left in the water to the benefit of the environment, recreation and downstream irrigators. From left, Marcie Lefevre, Nathan Lefevre, Travis Lefevre and Sue Eschen.
CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

Support from environmental groups

SB 197 has gained support from environmental groups, including Conservation Colorado, The Nature Conservancy and Western Resource Advocates. Josh Kuhn, senior water campaign manager with Conservation Colorado, said leaving the water in the river will have environmental benefits such as lowering the often-too-high temperature of the Yampa, boost flows for recreation and the environment, and prevent calls on the river.

But the benefit to the river and water users from SB 197 may only be temporary. The energy companies will still own the water rights and may begin using them again whenever they want.

“It has been made clear that there’s no assurances that the water will be there on a permanent basis because Tri-State wants the ability to use that water to generate additional renewable clean-energy supplies in the future,” Kuhn said. “So there is a shared understanding that this is being done on a temporary basis.”

With the impending closure of the coal mines and power plants that by one estimate will result in 800 lost jobs, some see the Yampa River as an underutilized amenity that could supply recreation jobs and enhance quality of life. Supporters of the bill say keeping the energy companies’ water in the river and protected from abandonment will ensure that the water is not diverted out of the basin.

“The Yampa is already a river that suffers the impacts of climate-driven drought,” Kuhn said. “And so, in order to help protect that river and the economy that’s dependent upon it, they were looking for solutions to make sure that none of that water was exported to another basin.”

The protection of the energy companies’ water rights is just one facet of SB 197, which would also implement recommendations from last year’s Colorado River Drought Task Force. These include expanding the state’s instream-flow temporary loan program to let owners of water stored in reservoirs to loan it for the benefit of the environment in stream reaches where the state does not hold an instream-flow water right; expanding the state’s agricultural water rights protection program; and waiving the matching funds requirement for water project grants to the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribal nations.

Roberts was the sponsor of 2023’s SB 295, which created the drought task force. Although the 17-member task force did not advance protections for industrial water rights from abandonment as an official recommendation (it failed on a 9-7 vote), it was included in the narrative section of the report that it provided to lawmakers.

“I’ve been working on this for months with the energy companies, with the state, with environmental groups and with local stakeholders in Routt and Moffat counties,” Roberts said. “And we narrowed the proposal significantly, and now almost everybody who was opposed on the task force is supportive of this idea moving forward.”

SB 197 passed unanimously in the Senate on Wednesday [April 17, 2024] and will now be up for approval by the House.

Native American voices are finally factoring into energy projects – a hydropower ruling is a victory for environmental justice on tribal lands — The Conversation #ActOnClimate

Emily Benton Hite, Saint Louis University and Denielle Perry, Northern Arizona University

The U.S. has a long record of extracting resources on Native lands and ignoring tribal opposition, but a decision by federal energy regulators to deny permits for seven proposed hydropower projects suggests that tide may be turning.

As the U.S. shifts from fossil fuels to clean energy, developers are looking for sites to generate electricity from renewable sources. But in an unexpected move, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission denied permits on Feb. 15, 2024, for seven proposed hydropower projects in Arizona and New Mexico.

The reason: These projects were located within the Navajo Nation and were proposed without first consulting with the tribe. FERC said it was “establishing a new policy that the Commission will not issue preliminary permits for projects proposing to use Tribal lands if the Tribe on whose lands the project is to be located opposes the permit.”

We are a cultural anthropologist and a water resource geographer who have studied tensions between Indigenous rights, climate governance and water management in the U.S. and globally for over 20 years. In our view, the commission’s decision could mark a historic turning point for government-to-government relations between the U.S. government and tribal nations.

How might this new approach shape future energy development on tribal lands throughout the U.S.? Given the federal government’s long history of exploiting Native American resources without tribal consent, we’re following FERC’s actions for further evidence before assuming that a new era has begun.

Extraction on tribal lands

Around the world, many Indigenous communities argue that their lands have been treated as sacrifice zones for development. This includes the U.S., where the federal government holds 56.2 million acres in trust for various tribes and individuals, mostly in western states.

The trust responsibility requires the U.S. government to protect Indigenous lands, resources and rights and to respect tribal sovereignty. Consulting with tribes about decisions that affect them is fundamental to this relationship.

Energy resources on U.S. Native lands include coal, oil, uranium, solar, wind and hydropower. There is a long history of coal and uranium mining in Navajo territory in the Southwest, and tribal lands now are targets for renewable energy projects. Large fractions of known reserves of critical minerals for clean energy, like copper and cobalt, are on or near Native lands.

Signs on a wire fence read 'Danger,' 'Abandoned Uranium Mine' and 'Restricted Area' — Signs at an abandoned uranium mine near the Navajo community of Red Water Pond Road, New Mexico. Washington Post via Getty Images

Many past energy projects have left scars. Navajo lands are studded with abandoned uranium mining sites that threaten residents’ health. Over 1.1 million acres of tribal lands have been flooded by hundreds of dams built for hydropower and irrigation. Fossil fuel pipelines like Dakota Access in North Dakota and Line 5 in Wisconsin and Michigan carry oil across Native lands, threatening water supplies in the event of leaks or spills.

Hydropower project impacts

The seven permits FERC denied in February 2024 were requested by private companies seeking to build pumped hydropower storage projects. These systems pump water uphill to a reservoir for storage. When power is needed, water is released to flow downhill through turbines, generating electricity as it returns to a lower reservoir or river.

Currently there are over 60 pumped storage proposals pending across the U.S. Pumped storage typically requires constructing massive concrete-lined tunnels, powerhouses, pipelines and transmission systems that can damage surrounding lands.

Withdrawing water for hydropower could disrupt rivers and sacred sites that are culturally and spiritually important for many tribes. These projects also threaten water security – a critical issue in arid western states.

Colorado River water is already over-allocated among western states, which hold legal rights to withdraw more water than is in the river. As a result, many pumped storage projects would require groundwater to fill their reservoirs. The proposed Big Canyon project in Arizona, for example, would require up to 19 billion gallons of groundwater, taken from aquifers that support local springs and streams.

Infographic showing a pumped storage system — Pumped storage hydropower transfers water between two reservoirs to generate electricity. It requires a local water source to fill the reservoirs. Joan Carstensen, Grand Canyon Trust, CC BY-ND

FERC’s trust responsibility

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is an independent agency that licenses and oversees interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas and oil; natural gas pipelines and terminals; and hydropower projects. Under a 1986 law, the agency is required to consider factors including environmental quality, biodiversity, recreational activities and tribal input in making licensing decisions.

However, the U.S. government has a long record of carrying out projects despite Native opposition. For example, under the Pick-Sloan Plan, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built five dams on the Missouri River in the late 1950s and early 1960s that flooded over 350,000 acres of tribal lands. Tribes were not consulted, and communities were forcibly relocated from their ancestral homelands.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 13175, directing federal agencies to engage in “regular and meaningful consultation and collaboration with tribal officials” in developing federal policies that affect tribes. Each agency interprets how to do this.

In his first week in office in 2021, President Joe Biden reaffirmed this responsibility and nominated U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior – the first Native American to head the agency that administers the U.S. trust responsibility to Native Americans and Alaska Natives.

FERC’s new direction

Tribes have called FERC’s record of consultation with Native Americans “abysmal.” Recently, however, the agency has started to make its operations more inclusive.

In 2021, it created a new Office of Public Participation, a step its then-chair, Richard Glick, called “long overdue.” And in 2022, the agency released its Equity Action Plan, designed to help underserved groups participate in decisions.

In canceling the projects in February, FERC cited concerns raised by the Navajo Nation, including negative impacts on water, cultural and natural resources and biological diversity. It also stated that “To avoid permit denials, potential applicants should work closely with Tribal stakeholders prior to filing applications to ensure that Tribes are fully informed about proposed projects on their lands and to determine whether they are willing to consider the project development.”

Aligning clean energy and environmental justice

Many more energy projects are proposed or envisioned on or near tribal lands, including a dozen pumped storage hydropower projects on the Colorado Plateau. All 12 are opposed by tribes based on lack of consultation and because tribes are still fighting to secure their own legal access to water in this contested basin under the 1922 Colorado River Compact.

We recently analyzed FERC’s handling of the Big Canyon pumped hydropower storage project, which would be located on Navajo land in Arizona, and concluded that the agency had not adequately consulted with the tribe in its preliminary permitting. In the wake of its February ruling, the agency reopened the public comment period on Big Canyon for an additional 30 days, with a decision likely later in 2024.

The Biden administration has set ambitious targets for halting climate change and accelerating the shift to clean energy while promoting environmental justice. In our view, meeting those goals will require the federal government to more earnestly and consistently live up to its trust responsibilities.

Emily Benton Hite, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Saint Louis University and Denielle Perry, Associate Professor, School of Earth and Sustainability, Northern Arizona University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Biden-Harris Administration Finalizes Strategy to Guide Balanced Management, Conservation of Public Lands

Tracts of unbroken sagebrush in the Green River basin, pictured, are part of the core of the biome. Restoration efforts have gone relatively smoothly in areas like Sublette County where non-native species haven’t gained major ground. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile)

Click the link to read the article on the U.S. Department of Interior website:

April 18, 2024

Public Lands Rule will help conserve wildlife habitat, restore places impacted by wildfire and drought, expand outdoor recreation, and guide thoughtful development

WASHINGTON — The Department of the Interior today announced a final rule to help guide the balanced management of America’s public lands. The final Public Lands Rule provides tools for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to help improve the health and resilience of public lands in the face of a changing climate; conserve important wildlife habitat and intact landscapes; facilitate responsible development; and better recognize unique cultural and natural resources on public lands.

The Public Lands Rule builds on historic investments in public lands, waters and clean energy deployment provided by President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, which recognizes the critical value of our public lands to all Americans. It also complements the President’s America the Beautiful initiative, a 10-year, locally led and nationally scaled effort to protect, conserve, connect and restore the lands, waters and wildlife upon which we all depend.

Building on decades of land management experience and emphasizing the use of science and data, including Indigenous Knowledge, to guide balanced decision-making, the rule applies the existing fundamentals of land health across BLM programs, establishes restoration and mitigation leases, and clarifies practices to designate and protect Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs). The rule will help to ensure the BLM continues to protect land health while managing other uses of the public lands, such as clean energy development and outdoor recreation.

“As stewards of America’s public lands, the Interior Department takes seriously our role in helping bolster landscape resilience in the face of worsening climate impacts. Today’s final rule helps restore balance to our public lands as we continue using the best-available science to restore habitats, guide strategic and responsible development, and sustain our public lands for generations to come,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “Complemented with historic investments from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, we are implementing enduring changes that will benefit wildlife, communities and habitats.”

“America’s public lands are our national treasures and need to be managed and made resilient for future generations of Americans,” said John Podesta, Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy. “Today’s final rule from the Department of the Interior is a huge win for ensuring balance on our public lands, helping them withstand the challenges of climate change and environmental threats like invasive species, and making sure they continue to provide services to the American people for decades to come.”

“The Interior Department is ensuring our public lands are managed with an eye to future generations, complementing President Biden’s ambitious conservation agenda,” said White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory. “From the most rugged backcountry spots to popular close-to-home recreation areas, these reforms will help deliver cleaner water, healthier lands, abundant wildlife, and more recreation opportunities for all of us.”

The final rule comes amid growing pressures and historic challenges facing land managers. The impacts of climate change—including prolonged drought, increasing wildfires, and an influx of invasive species—pose increasing risks to communities, wildlife and ecosystems. The Public Lands Rule will help the BLM navigate changing conditions on the ground, while helping public lands continue to serve as economic drivers across the West.

“The BLM received and considered over 200,000 comments on the proposed rule from individuals, state, Tribal and local governments, industry groups and advocacy organizations, which led to important improvements in this final rule,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Dr. Steve Feldgus. “Continued broad collaboration with this diverse group of partners will be key to our implementation of this rule to ensure that our public lands are being managed for all Americans.”

“Our public lands provide wildlife habitat and clean water, the energy that lights our homes, the wood we build with, and the places where we make family memories,” said BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning. “This rule honors our obligation to current and future generations to help ensure our public lands and waters remain healthy amid growing pressures and change.”

The final rule clarifies and refines concepts first proposed in April 2023. The BLM provided a 90-day comment period on this rule, holding five public meetings and receiving over 200,000 comments, the vast majority of which supported the effort. In response to the substantive comments received, the BLM clarified and refined concepts laid out in the proposed rule.

The final rule:

Directs BLM to manage for landscape health. Successful public land management that delivers natural resources, wildlife habitat and clean water requires a thorough understanding of the health and condition of the landscape, especially as conditions shift on the ground due to climate change. To help sustain the health of our lands and waters, the rule directs the BLM to manage public land uses in accordance with the fundamentals of land health, which will help watersheds support soils, plants, and water; ecosystems provide healthy populations and communities of plants and animals; and wildlife habitats on public lands protect threatened and endangered species consistent with the multiple use and sustained yield framework.

Provides a mechanism for restoring and protecting our public lands through restoration and mitigation leases. Restoration leases provide greater clarity for the BLM to work with appropriate partners to restore degraded lands. Mitigation leases will provide a clear and consistent mechanism for developers to offset their impacts by investing in land health elsewhere on public lands, like they currently can on state and private lands. The final rule clarifies who can obtain a restoration or mitigation lease, limiting potential lessees to qualified individuals, businesses, non-governmental organizations, Tribal governments, conservation districts, or state fish and wildlife agencies. Restoration and mitigation leases will not be issued if they would conflict with existing authorized uses.

Clarifies the designation and management of ACECs. The final rule provides greater detail about how the BLM will continue to follow the direction in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act to prioritize the designation and protection of ACECs. Following public comments, the final rule clarifies how BLM consideration of new ACEC nominations and temporary management options does not interfere with the BLM’s discretion to continue advancing pending project applications.

The Public Lands Rule complements the BLM’s recently announced final Renewable Energy Rule, providing consistent direction and new tools for mitigation, helping advance the efficient and environmentally responsible development of renewable energy on BLM-managed public lands, providing greater clarity and consistency in permitting, and allowing for the continued acceleration of project reviews and approvals, while managing public lands under the principles of multiple use and sustained yield.

The final rule will publish in the Federal Register in the coming days.

R.I.P. Dickey Betts: “And when it’s time for leavin’, I hope you’ll understand, that I was born a ramblin’ man”

Betts at the Pistoia Blues Festival, Pistoia, Italy, July 2008. By SImone berna – https://www.flickr.com/photos/simone13/2667705298/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8733539

Click the link to read the obit from The New York Times (Alex Williams). Here’s an excerpt:

Dickey Betts, a honky-tonk hell raiser who, as a guitarist for the Allman Brothers Band, traded fiery licks with Duane Allman in the band’s early-1970s heyday, and who went on to write some of the band’s most indelible songs, including its biggest hit, “Ramblin’ Man,” died on Thursday morning at his home in Osprey, Fla. He was 80…

Despite not being an actual Allman brother…Mr. Betts was a guiding force in the group for decades and central to a sound that, along with the music of Lynyrd Skynyrd, came to define Southern rock. Although pigeonholed by some fans in the band’s early days as its “other” guitarist, Mr. Betts, whose solos on his Gibson Les Paul guitar seemed at times to scorch the fret board, proved a worthy sparring partner to Duane Allman, serving as a co-lead guitarist more than a sidekick…

With his chiseled facial features, Wild West mustache and gunfighter demeanor, Mr. Betts certainly looked the part of the star. And he played like one.

#Drought news April 18, 2024: The southern High Plains are in the grips of rapidly drying conditions, leading to degradations across #KS, with conditions bleeding into E. #Colorado and S. #NE. W. #Kansas has not seen precipitation in over two weeks

Click on a thumbnail graphic to view a gallery of drought data from the US Drought Monitor website.

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

This Week’s Drought Summary

Heavy precipitation fell across much of the central and eastern parts of the country, bringing improvements along the Mississippi River and Great Lakes regions. There were also isolated areas of improvement in Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Extreme drought conditions were introduced in the mountainous region along the Idaho and Montana border due to concerns about low snow amounts and possible early snowmelt. Across the country in the Southeast, areas in North Carolina and southern Florida are seeing drying conditions due to low precipitation over the past few weeks. Western and southern Texas, which largely missed this week’s precipitation, saw an expansion of abnormal dryness, moderate and severe drought conditions. Flash drought conditions are appearing in Oklahoma, and Kansas, with some spillovers in eastern Colorado and western Missouri. Weeks with little precipitation, warming temperatures, dry soils and low streamflow levels are leading to rapid degradations. degradation…

High Plains

The southern High Plains are in the grips of rapidly drying conditions, leading to degradations across Kansas, with conditions bleeding into eastern Colorado and southern Nebraska. Western Kansas has not seen precipitation in over two weeks, providing no relief to the rapidly drying soils and low streamflows. Conditions in Kansas into Oklahoma are seeing rapid deterioration and short-term dryness indicating flash drought conditions…

Colorado Drought Monitor one week change map ending April 16, 2024.

West

The West saw conditions remain mostly the same, with areas in the Northwest seeing some improvements. Regions along the Pacific coast received some precipitation but not in areas needing moisture. There was some improvement in southern Oregon where precipitation did fall. Southern Idaho also saw improvement with the precipitation and decent snowpack. Northern Idaho into Montana did see some degradation, with mountainous areas seeing snow at extremely low levels. Western Montana experienced improvements in the east-central part of the state…

South

Heavy precipitation fell across eastern Texas, Louisiana, southern Arkansas and west-central Mississippi. This brought improvements in northeast Mississippi, leaving the state drought-free with only some lingering abnormally dry conditions. While less precipitation fell in Tennessee, the western part of the state also saw improvements. Conversely, southern Texas and Oklahoma are seeing conditions worsen as conditions continue to quickly deteriorate. Conditions in Oklahoma into Kansas are seeing rapid degradation and short-term dryness indicating flash drought conditions…

Looking Ahead

Over the next 5 days (April 19-23), more heavy precipitation is expected in the Plains and Midwest. Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota could see upwards of 2.5 inches of precipitation. Northeast Texas, southeastern Oklahoma, and western Arkansas could see 1.5 to 2 inches of precipitation. Areas of higher elevation in the Rockies of Colorado and Wyoming are also expected to see between 1-2 inches.

The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center’s 6 to10-day outlook (Valid April 22) favors above-normal precipitation for southern parts of the U.S., particularly along the eastern Gulf Coast from Texas and Louisiana into parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma. Florida is also favoring above-normal precipitation. The Northwest and Northeast are leaning towards below-normal precipitation. From the middle of Pennsylvania northward, below-normal precipitation is likely to occur. Hawaii is also leaning towards below-normal precipitation and Alaska is leaning towards above-normal precipitation. In terms of the temperature outlook, above-normal temperatures are expected from the West into the High Plains, as well as along the Gulf Coast and Florida. Utah, Nevada, northern Arizona, northern New Mexico and western Colorado are showing a 70-80% likelihood of above-normal temperatures. Eastern Alaska is also leaning towards above-normal temperatures. The Mid-Atlantic region and the eastern Midwest are leaning toward below-normal temperatures. Hawaii and western Alaska are favoring below-normal temperatures.

US Drought Monitor one week change map ending April 16, 2024.

#Wyoming Lawmakers OK $2 million for cloud seeding program — Wyoming Public Radio

Cloud-seeding graphic via Science Matters

Click the link to read the article on the Wyoming Public Radio website (David Dudley). Here’s an excerpt:

April 15, 2024

During the final days of the budget session, lawmakers gave $2 million to the Wyoming Water Development Office to fund its cloud seeding program. They hope it will help mitigate the impacts of ongoing drought in the Western U.S. Rep. Jon Conrad (R-Mountain View) advocated for the program during the budget session. He urged his peers to do whatever they can to ensure that the state has enough water as upper and lower basin states clash over their use of the Colorado River. As the conflict intensifies, he said, the program is an asset.

“We know that cloud seeding has a positive impact upon snowpack, precipitation and streamflow,” said Conrad. “With the challenges that exist with our current climate, meteorological conditions and the loss of needed precipitation to sustain agriculture, etc., cloud seeding is a viable tool that continues to improve.”

[…]

Dr. Bryan Shuman is a professor with the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Wyoming. His research expertise is in how climate change has impacted drought and water resources, and ecological processes throughout Wyoming. He said since the 1950s, Wyoming has seen a significant drop in snowfall and snowpack…

he funds will support the program through 2026.

The latest seasonal outlooks through July 31, 2024 are hot off the presses from the #Climate Prediction Center

New #ColoradoRiver proposals put environmental needs front and center in deciding river’s future — Fresh Water News #COriver #aridification

Colorado River. Photo credit: Abby Burk via Audubon Rockies

Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Shannon Mullane):

April 17, 2024

Environmental groups and water experts say the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation should give nature a say in how it manages the Colorado River for years to come.

In March, seven states, including Colorado, released two competing proposals for how to manage two enormous reservoirs in the Colorado River Basin and make painful decisions about cutting back on water use once current operating rules expire in 2026.

But they’re not the only ones throwing out ideas: Water experts and environmental advocates have submitted two proposals of their own. They want to make sure endangered fish, Grand Canyon ecosystems, and more aren’t left out of the conversation.

The experts hope their proposals, which highlight changing climate data and environmentally focused reservoir releases, help inform the Bureau of Reclamation’s final report for how the river should be managed after 2026. A draft of that report is expected in December.

“If you don’t care about the environment, then the whole system crashes,” said John Berggren, a regional policy manager with Western Resource Advocates. “That’s not to say the environment takes priority over water supply and other issues, but rather they can be integrated.”

The current operating rules, established in 2007, focus on how water is stored in Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border, released to Lake Mead on the Nevada-Arizona border, and then released to millions of water users in the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada.

Together, lakes Powell and Mead make up about 92% of storage capacity, about 58.48 million acre-feet, in the Colorado River Basin. Both are about one-third full.

One acre-foot roughly equals the annual water use of two to three households.

High-stakes negotiations stalled early this year with states at loggerheads over how to share water cuts. The four Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — only included cuts to the Lower Basin’s water use, although the states promised to pursue voluntary conservation programs. The three Lower Basin states called on all seven states to make cuts when the amount of available water falls below 38% of the total capacity in seven federal reservoirs.

Several tribal nations submitted their own proposal to advocate for tribal water rights in the federal process.

These proposals have the potential to impact water users across the basin, which provides water to 40 million people, more than 5 million acres of farmland, two states in Mexico, and cities including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Denver.

One perspective all of the proposals have in common: The status quo operations aren’t going to work in the future.

“We need to use less water, and there’s going to be shortages for the Colorado River going forward,” Berggren said. “We wanted ours to focus more on how to integrate environmental considerations regardless of who’s taking shortages.”

Giving nature a seat at the table

Neither proposal from the basin states places a heavy emphasis on incorporating environmental concerns into how lakes Powell and Mead are managed, and there are plenty of environmental hotspots in the basin.

The Grand Canyon sits below Lake Powell, and its ecosystems and landscape can be helped or hurt by the reservoir’s releases. In 2011, water officials released an 11 million-acre-foot surge of water into the canyon — the right amount of water according to the current rules — that was too big and ended up eroding sandbars where people camp and view the national park. That sand is hard to replace since most of the Colorado River’s sediment is trapped in Lake Powell.

The Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program is trying to boost endangered fish populations in the face of growing numbers of predatory, invasive fish. The Salton Sea in California is shrinking, exposing dry shorelines with toxic dust particles to the wind. The once-vibrant ecosystem in the Colorado River Delta, where the river meets the Gulf of California, is now diminished.

With these areas in mind, one environmental proposal advocates for linking environmental priorities to how the reservoirs operate. It also suggests using updated climate data, in addition to reservoir storage, to determine releases from lakes Mead and Powell.

This proposal was put forward by Western Resource Advocates, Audubon, American Rivers, Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

Since 2007 under the current guidelines, when the water in lakes Mead and Powell dropped to pre-decided water levels, officials knew to release a predetermined amount of water.

Another environmental proposal suggests a more flexible approach: On an annual basis, the secretary of the Interior would decide how much water to release from Lake Powell based on the environmental, recreational, water supply and hydropower goals for that year — rather than using a fixed rule for years to come.

This adaptive-management proposal was submitted by well-recognized Colorado River experts Jack Schmidt, former chief of the federal Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center; Eric Kuhn, former Colorado River District general manager and author of “Science be Dammed”; and Kuhn’s co-author John Fleck, a journalist-turned academic at the Utton Transboundary Resources Center at the University of New Mexico School of Law.

“What I have learned in a 40-year career in the Grand Canyon is that scientific understanding evolves, changes and improves,” said Schmidt, currently the director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University. “Going forward, we’re making a mistake to define hard and fast rules for what the releases from Lake Powell to Lake Mead would be.”

Big ideas and key questions

Environment and water experts say they are mainly trying to elevate their concerns and the role of nature in the federal process. When it comes to the nitty-gritty, however, each of the proposals raises some key questions for other Colorado water experts.

The joint environmental proposal, which Berggren helped with, identifies several environmental hotspots, like the Grand Canyon, Salton Sea and endangered fish programs, and proposes incorporating them into how lakes Mead and Powell are managed in the future.

For example, the post-2026 operating rules could include minimum flows from Powell into the Grand Canyon of 4.34 million acre-feet per year to ensure that ecosystems, from the lower canyon’s Sonoran Desert to the North Rim’s coniferous forest, stay healthy.

“You incorporate environmental considerations, and suddenly you have a more healthy, flowing Colorado River, which allows the basin states to have a more reliable water supply,” Berggren said.

But incorporating so many different environmental concerns in one document was a big “red flag” for Jennifer Gimbel, a senior water policy scholar at the Colorado Water Center and former deputy commissioner for the Bureau of Reclamation.

How officials manage each of these environments is tied to years of work by programs, rulemaking documents, legislation and more. Reservoir releases that aim to help the environment are often wrapped into established rules that govern how each reservoir operates.

“That is one scary document if we’re looking at how to manage everything on the river,” Gimbel said. “I’m not sure how practical they are with trying to move that forward.”

The environmental groups’ joint proposal also suggested that officials look at both total reservoir storage and updated climate data to guide operations at lakes Mead and Powell.

The climate data would come from a federal three-year climate model that factors in temperature, precipitation, snow and more to guide operations at lakes Mead and Powell. The total reservoir storage would be based on the amount of water stored in seven reservoirs, including federal reservoirs in the Upper Basin such as Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa and Navajo reservoirs. That’s similar to the Lower Basin states’ proposal.

Considering both factors together would help avoid unreliable forecasting and adjust to changing conditions, according to the proposal. Upper Basin reservoirs would help with calculations but would not be used to move water from one reservoir to another, Berggren emphasized.

But including Upper Basin reservoirs in how lakes Mead and Powell operate is a flashpoint in the Colorado River negotiations.

Officials like Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s top Colorado River negotiator, have been fighting attempts to include these reservoirs in the operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Flaming Gorge and Blue Mesa, Colorado’s largest reservoir, had to release water to boost Lake Powell’s historically low water levels in 2021, and then Flaming Gorge released more in 2022.

“These reservoirs are not intended to protect Lake Mead or provide for additional Lower Basin supply, but are for Upper Basin uses and environmental flows, among other purposes,” Mitchell said in a written statement, adding that her team was still analyzing the proposal. “They are also essential to the success of the recreational and tourist economies in the region.”

Considering both factors together would help avoid unreliable forecasting and adjust to changing conditions, according to the proposal. Upper Basin reservoirs would help with calculations but would not be used to move water from one reservoir to another, Berggren emphasized.

But including Upper Basin reservoirs in how lakes Mead and Powell operate is a flashpoint in the Colorado River negotiations.

Officials like Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s top Colorado River negotiator, have been fighting attempts to include these reservoirs in the operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Flaming Gorge and Blue Mesa, Colorado’s largest reservoir, had to release water to boost Lake Powell’s historically low water levels in 2021, and then Flaming Gorge released more in 2022.

“These reservoirs are not intended to protect Lake Mead or provide for additional Lower Basin supply, but are for Upper Basin uses and environmental flows, among other purposes,” Mitchell said in a written statement, adding that her team was still analyzing the proposal. “They are also essential to the success of the recreational and tourist economies in the region.”

The three water experts’ proposal says the post-2026 rules should include instructions on how to reduce water use when available water is unusually low. But the rules should not include prescriptive annual releases from Lake Powell.

“Because the science on which those rules were developed is going to change in the next 20 years, and then you’re going to have to renegotiate the whole damn thing again,” Schmidt said.

Instead, the annual releases from Powell can fluctuate, as long as they comply with water law. For example, instead of releasing too much water from Powell because the rules say so — and harming the Grand Canyon’s landscape in the process — the Secretary of the Interior could have more flexibility to decide how much water to release.

Deciding releases annually, instead of setting up fixed rules, has caused other water officials to balk, according to Schmidt.

“I have already had behind-the-scenes, off-the-record conversations with some state people, and they basically said, ‘you’re out of your mind. We need certainty,’” he said.

But if water managers do not create rules that are flexible enough to adapt to changing conditions in the river basin, they will continue to run into problems, Schmidt said.

“How do you incorporate flexibility in a water supply negotiation that seeks certainty?” he said. “That is the fundamental problem.”

Removing PFAS from public water will cost billions and take time – here are ways to filter out some harmful ‘forever chemicals’ at home

PFAS are showing up in water systems across the U.S. Jacek Dylag/Unsplash, CC BY

Kyle Doudrick, University of Notre Dame

Chemists invented PFAS in the 1930s to make life easier: Nonstick pans, waterproof clothing, grease-resistant food packaging and stain-resistant carpet were all made possible by PFAS. But in recent years, the growing number of health risks found to be connected to these chemicals has become increasingly alarming.

PFAS – perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances – are now either suspected or known to contribute to thyroid disease, elevated cholesterol, liver damage and cancer, among other health issues.

They can be found in the blood of most Americans and in many drinking water systems, which is why the Environmental Protection Agency in April 2024 finalized the first enforceable federal limits for six types of PFAS in drinking water systems. The limits – between 4 and 10 parts per trillion for PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS, PFNA and GenX – are less than a drop of water in a thousand Olympic-sized swimming pools, which speaks to the chemicals’ toxicity. The sixth type, PFBS, is regulated as a mixture using what’s known as a hazard index.

Meeting these new limits won’t be easy or cheap. And there’s another problem: While PFAS can be filtered out of water, these “forever chemicals” are hard to destroy.

My team at the University of Notre Dame works on solving problems involving contaminants in water systems, including PFAS. We explore new technologies to remove PFAS from drinking water and to handle the PFAS waste. Here’s a glimpse of the magnitude of the challenge and ways you can reduce PFAS in your own drinking water:

Removing PFAS will cost billions per year

Every five years, the EPA is required to choose 30 unregulated contaminants to monitor in public drinking water systems. Right now, 29 of those 30 contaminants are PFAS. The tests provide a sense of just how widespread PFAS are in water systems and where.

The EPA has taken over 22,500 samples from about 3,800 of the 154,000 public drinking water systems in the U.S. In 22% of those water systems, its testing found at least one of the six newly regulated PFAS, and about 16% of the systems exceeded the new standards. East Coast states had the largest percentage of systems with PFAS levels exceeding the new standards in EPA tests conducted so far.

Is it cheaper to refuel your EV battery or gas tank? We did the math in all 50 states — The Washington Post #ActOnClimate

First road charge for Coyote Gulch’s Leaf in Kremmling May 19, 2023. Note the Colorado Energy Office’s logo below the connectors on the unused charger.

Click the link to read the article (and peruse the graphics) on The Washington Post website (Michael J. Coren). Here’s an excerpt:

August 14, 2023

…I asked researchers at the nonpartisan Energy Innovation, a policy think tank aimed at decarbonizing the energy sector, to help me nail down the true cost of refueling in all 50 states by drawing on data sets from federal agencies, AAA and others. You can dive into their helpful tool here. I used the data to embark on two hypothetical road trips across America, delivering a verdict on whether it costs more to refill or recharge during the summer of 2023. The results surprised me (and they might really surprise my neighbor)…The bottom line? In all 50 states, it’s cheaper for the everyday American to fill up with electrons — and much cheaper in some regions such as the Pacific Northwest, with low electricity rates and high gas prices…In Washington state, with prices around $4.98 per gallon of gas, it costs about $115 to fill up an F-150 which delivers 483 miles of range. By contrast, recharging the electric F-150 Lightning (or Rivian R1T) to cover an equivalent distance costs about $34 — an $80 savings. This assumes, as the Energy Department estimates, drivers recharge at home 80 percent of the time, along with other methodological assumptions at the end of this article. But what about the other extreme? In the Southeast, which has low gas prices and electricity rates, savings are lower but still significant. In Mississippi, for example, a conventional pickup costs about $30 more to refuel than its electric counterpart. For smaller, more efficient SUVs and sedans, EVs save roughly $20 to $25 per fill-up to cover the same number of miles…

An American driving the average 14,000 miles per year would see annual savings of roughly $700 for an electric SUV or sedan up to $1,000 for a pickup, according to Energy Innovation…

On the emissions front, EVs pulled well ahead. EVs emit less than a third of the emissions per mile than their gasoline counterparts — and they’re getting cleaner every year. America’s electricity mix emits justunder a pound of carbon emissions for every kWh generated, according to the Energy Information Administration. By 2035, the White House hopes to drive that closer to zero. This meant the conventional F-150 spewed five times more greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere than the Lightning. The Tesla Model Y represented 63 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions on the trip compared to more than 300 pounds from all the conventional vehicles…Ultimately, we may never agree on what it costs to refuel an electric vehicle. That may not matter. For the everyday driver in the United States, it’s already cheaper to refuel an EV most of the time, and it’s expected to get cheaper as renewable capacity expands and vehicle efficiency improves.

What Happens if there is no Agreement on Post-2026 #ColoradoRiver Operations? — Eric Kuhn (InkStain.net) #COriver #aridification

“New plot using the nClimGrid data, which is a better source than PRISM for long-term trends. Of course, the combined reservoir contents increase from last year, but the increase is less than 2011 and looks puny compared to the ‘hole’ in the reservoirs. The blue Loess lines subtly change. Last year those lines ended pointing downwards. This year they end flat-ish. 2023 temps were still above the 20th century average, although close. Another interesting aspect is that the 20C Mean and 21C Mean lines on the individual plots really don’t change much. Finally, the 2023 Natural Flows are almost exactly equal to 2019. (17.678 maf vs 17.672 maf). For all the hoopla about how this was record-setting year, the fact is that this year was significantly less than 2011 (20.159 maf) and no different than 2019” — Brad Udall

Click the link to read the article on the InkStain.net website (Eric Kuhn):

April 15, 2023

Given how far apart the competing proposals from the Colorado River Upper and Lower Division States are, a legitimate question is – “what happens if we get to the summer of 2026 and there is still no agreement on the post-2026 operational guidelines?” Well, believe it or not, that is a question upon which the seven basin states and the Secretary of the Interior already agree. The Upper Division States made the following comment in their proposal:

The language quoted by the Upper Division States letter comes from the Record of Decision (RoD) for 2007 Interim Guidelines (Section 8. C.). This termination language was included with the consent of the states. So, the obvious questions are – if the operating criteria are to revert to the LROC, what are the LROC, and what specifically do they mean for the operation of Lakes Mead and Powell?

WHAT IS THE LROC?

The long-range coordinated operating criteria or “LROC” are a requirement of the 1968 Colorado River Basin Project Act, the federal legislation that, among many other things, authorized the Central Arizona Project (CAP). Prior to the creation of the 2007 Interim Guidelines for the coordinated operation of Glen Canyon and Hoover dams, the LROC created the framework for determining how much water to release from Lake Powell to Lake Mead each year.

The 60s were a turbulent decade for the Colorado River Basin. In 1962 Flaming Gorge and Navajo Reservoirs began filling, then in 1963, Lake Powell began filling. To manage the filling of over 30 million acre-feet of vacant space (25 maf in Lake Powell), in 1962 the Secretary issued filling criteria. And, as luck would have it, the 1960s were relatively dry. The filling criteria were controversial in both basins. A significant concern was power generation. The Upper Basin wanted to fill the reservoirs as fast as possible so the Upper Basin fund would begin accruing revenues that would be used to subsidize irrigation projects under the 1956 Colorado Storage Project Act. The Lower Basin was concerned with the impact of power generation at Hoover Dam – the revenues from which were being used to repay the federal treasury for Hoover Dam and other projects on the lower river.

The Upper Division States became concerned that the Lower Division States would continually interfere with the storage of water in the Upper Basin Reservoirs using Article III(e) of the Colorado River Compact, which states:

The Upper Division States (via the UCRC) decided they needed to use the federal legislation then pending before Congress to authorize the CAP to clarify the rules under which water would be stored and released from Lake Powell and the other CRSP storage reservoirs. A critical question that needed to be answered was how much holdover storage the Upper Division States would need to meet their compact obligations under Articles III(c) and III(d) of the compact. This was a difficult question to answer given that the two basins had very different interpretations of these provisions, especially the obligation off the Upper Division States to Mexico under the 1944 Treaty. Today the two basins still have very different interpretations of these provisions.

The specific language of Section 6 of the 1968 Act was negotiated by the states with input from Reclamation. With Congressman Aspinall (the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee Chair from Western Colorado) insisting that operating language be included in any legislation, the UCRC had the better hand. Colorado’s Felix Sparks (its CWCB Director and UCRC Commissioner) said “we wrote every word of Section 6.”

The requirement for the LROC is included in Section 602(a):

Section 602(b) required that the Secretary submit draft criteria to the states by January 1, 1970, and, after receipt of comments, adopt criteria by July 1, 1970.

The language of the first two priorities for releases from Glen Canyon Dam appears straight forward, but there are still implementation questions. The first priority is to release water to meet the obligation of the Upper Division States to Mexico, if any. Today, the Upper Division States believe they have no obligation to Mexico, but the Lower Division States believe it’s at least 750,000 af per year. Thus, lacking either an agreement among the states or an interpretation of Article III(c) by the Supreme Court, this priority is unquantified. The second priority is to meet the Upper Division State’s 75 maf every ten years non-depletion obligation under III(d). It’s an average of 7.5 maf per year, but the language does not require a specific flow amount in any one year. To add uncertainty, the Upper Division States believe that if climate change, not Upper Basin depletions, is a cause of ten-year flows falling below 75 maf, there is no violation of Article III(d).

The third priority is more complicated (perhaps convoluted). It’s designed to address the question of how much holdover storage the Upper Basin can keep in the Lake Powell and the other CRSP reservoirs. Although the language may be confusing, the intent is simpler. The Upper Basin may keep as much storage as the Secretary determines necessary to allow the States of the Upper Division to meet their compact obligations during the most critical drought of record. If there is more than that amount in storage, then they must share the extra water with the Lower Basin, but only to the extent necessary to equalize active storage in Lakes Mead and Powell. Thus, was borne the term “equalization.”

A deck of punched cards comprising a computer program. The red diagonal line is a visual aid to keep the deck sorted. By ArnoldReinhold – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16041053

After the 1968 Act passed, the Department of the Interior immediately began an effort to prepare a draft LROC. The effort involved a federal-state task force. It also involved the first comprehensive use of a computer to simulate numerous different reservoir operational scenarios (I wonder how many of us still remember the days of computer punch-card decks?). Interior officials quickly realized that the effort was going to be complicated and contentious. For Interior’s version of the events, see Chapter VII of the 1978 version of the Hoover Dam Documents. The contentious issues were the annual release amount from Glen Danyon Dam and how to calculate the amount of allowable holdover storage (now commonly referred to as “602(a) storage”). Colorado’s Felix Sparks put it this way: “Everything we do at Glen Canyon Dam is ultimately about the Colorado River Compact.”

After numerous meetings and conferences, on June 9, 1970, Secretary Walter Hickel formally approved the first LROC. Much of the language parroted the 1968 Act provisions for the CRSP reservoirs and for Lake Mead, the language of the 1964 decree implementing the 1963 decision in Arizona v. California. For the Upper Division States, however, the Secretary made three decisions that they strongly opposed. First, the LROC included a provision for an annual “minimum objective release” from Glen Canyon Dam of 8.23 maf. The problem was that this number was derived as 7.5 maf plus 750 kaf (the LB’s interpretation of the UB’s Mexican Treaty obligation) less 20 kaf (the mean flow of the Paria River). The Secretary accepted recommendations from the UCRC for language clarifying that the minimum objective release was an “objective” not a “requirement” and that the Secretary was not interpreting the Compact. The second problem was that the Secretary rejected their recommendation that a probability rule curve be used to set the 602(a) level. Instead, the Secretary determined that the 602 (a) level would be set on an annual basis. Finally, with the adoption of the LROC, the UCRC recommended that the lake Powell filling criteria be terminated. The problem with the filling criteria from the Upper Division States perspective was that it required revenues from power generation at the CRSP units be used to keep the Lower Basin whole for the impact of filling Lake Powell on power generation at Hoover Dam. The Secretary rejected this recommendation and the filling criteria stayed in effect through 1980.

The rejection of its important recommendations left the UCRC members bitter. New Mexico State Engineer and UCRC Commissioner, Steve Reynolds, put in his plain-spoken language – “they crammed it down our throats” (expletive deleted).

SO WHAT HAPPENS IF WE CONTINUE TO USE THE LROC?

So, the big question is – if there is no agreement on post-2026 operating guidelines between the basins and the Secretary determines that the annual operation of Lakes Mead and Powell for Water Year 2027 (and perhaps beyond) will be guided by the LROC, what does this mean for the reservoirs? For Lake Powell, the answer may be not much. It means an annual release of 8.23 maf (or perhaps 8.1 maf -taking into account the river inflows immediately below the dam). Depending on the runoff in 2025 and 2026, there’s a reasonable chance that this would be the amount released under a continuation of the 2007 Interim Guidelines. The differences are that there would be no balancing of the storage levels in Lakes Mead and Powell as is allowed by the three balancing tiers of the 2007 Interim Guidelines and if the next two years are dry, there could be some debate over whether the Secretary has the authority to reduce releases below 8.23 maf – something that might be needed given the need to protect elevations below 3,500 feet at Lake Powell because of concerns about use of its outlet works.. I believe the answer to this question is clearly yes. In a June 2, 2005, letter, Secretary Norton wrote “the Department retains the authority pursuant to applicable law and the Operating Criteria to adjust releases from Glen Canyon Dam to amounts less than 8.23 million acre-feet per year. Specifically, the Department transmitted the following statement to the Governors of each of the Colorado River Basin States on June 9, 1970: “…(T)he operating Criteria imposes no firm or fixed obligation the 8.23 million acre-feet be released each year from lake Powell. That quantity is stated as an “objective” ….”

As for releases greater than 8.23 maf, under the authority referenced in the June 2, 2005, letter the Secretary might also have the authority to increase releases. The LROC, however, anticipated that the occasional releases greater than 8.23 maf would be made as equalization releases under the Section 602(a)(iii) third priority. The LROC provides that the Secretary determines the equalization or 602(a) storage level annually, but it appears that in the near to mid-term future, there is very little risk that the storage level in Lake Powell will be anywhere near a level that would require a large equalization release (as happened in 2011). Based on the table in the 2007 Interim Guidelines, the end of water year elevation of Lake Powell would have to exceed 3666’ (100’+ higher, or 10+ maf more than the current level). Further, I would argue that the 3666’ level is no longer current. It assumed that 1954-65 was the critical drought. The recent 2000-2022 drought is every bit as dry and twice as long as the 1954-65 drought, therefore, a better estimate of today’s 602(a) level is “all of the available CRSP storage plus a lot more.” The Upper Division State’s proposal, in fact, does not even include an equalization provision. Furthermore, in separate studies in 1969 and 2004, Reclamation concluded that in the future, the 602(a) level would exceed the available CRSP storage capacity. This is one of the reasons that in 1970, the Secretary rejected the rule curve. Reclamation modelling concluded that with future Upper Basin development, the result of applying the UCRC’s proposed rule curve (98.4%) meant that all available CRSP storage was needed to protect the Upper Basin. For more information on “602(a),” see Reclamation’s 2004 Environmental Assessment on this subject. The Upper Basin depletions have not achieved the level of development anticipated in either 1969 or 2004, but natural flows have been far less. From Lake Powell’s perspective there is no difference between upstream depletions and climate change caused reductions in natural flow.

For Lake Mead, operating under the LROC may be more complicated. The “70R” criteria is a flood control strategy for Lake Mead. Given the current reservoir levels, the chances of encroaching on the flood control space in Lake Mead is very small. The most pressing problem would be that after the termination of the 2007 Interim Guidelines, there would be no “current” guidance on the specifics of when and how much for the shortage levels that would still need to be imposed on Lower Basin mainstem users in 2027 and beyond. Under the 1964 Decree, however, the Secretary has the clear authority, if not a mandate, to set shortages. I think it’s likely that the Secretary and three Lower Division States would agree on Lake Mead deliveries. A more difficult question may be the level of the annual deliveries to Mexico. If there is no internal U.S. agreement on the post-2026 guidelines, will Mexico be interested in extending Minute 323?

Operating under the LROC might be manageable

The bottom line is that if there is no agreement among the Basin States for consensus post-2026 operating guidelines, it may not be the ideal outcome the states want but given the broad authority and flexibility the Secretary has under the 1970 LROC, the situation would be manageable. In fact, operating Lake Mead and Lake Powell under the flexibility provided by the 1922 Compact, Section 602 of the 1968 Act, and the 1970 LROC might provide opportunities for a more flexible management approach that can be designed to address a broader range of issues, including balancing recreation resources, and addressing environmental conditions in the Grand Canyon.

‘Water is more valuable than oil’: the corporation cashing in on America’s #drought — The Guardian

2000 by E Clampus Vitus Southern Alliance, Billy Holcomb 1069, John P Squibob 1853, Lost Dutchman 5917 – 4 and La Paz County Parks. Photo credit: The Historical Marker Database

Click the link to read the article on The Guardian website (Maanvi Singh). Here’s an excerpt:

Tucked into the bends of the lower Colorado River, Cibola, Arizona, is a community of about 200 people. Maybe 300, if you count the weekenders who come to boat and hunt. Dusty shrublands run into sleepy residential streets, which run into neat fields of cotton and alfalfa. Nearly a decade ago, Greenstone Resource Partners LLC, a private company backed by global investors, bought almost 500 acres of agricultural land here in Cibola. In a first-of-its-kind deal, the company recently sold the water rights tied to the land to the town of Queen Creek, a suburb of Phoenix, for a $14m gross profit. More than 2,000 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River that was once used to irrigate farmland is now flowing, through a canal system, to the taps of homes more than 200 miles away. A Guardian investigation into the unprecedented water transfer, and how it took shape, reveals that Greenstone strategically purchased land and influence to advance the deal. The company was able to do so by exploiting the arcane water policies governing the Colorado River…

In February, a federal judge ruled that the Cibola-Queen Creek transfer was done without proper environmental review, ordering the federal Bureau of Reclamation to complete a more thorough evaluation. The US Department of Justice, which is representing the bureau in the legal proceeding, declined to comment on whether the bureau would be appealing the decision.

Meanwhile, Greenstone – which appears to be the first water brokerage firm to sell rights to the Colorado River – could help chart the course of how the resource can be bought and sold in the west… in 2018, the company sold the water tied to that farmland to Queen Creek, a fast-growing sprawl of gated communities on the outskirts of Arizona’s capital. The city’s government agreed to pay the company $24m for the annual entitlement to 2,033 acre-feet of Colorado River water. In July of last year, amid continuing legal challenges and national scrutiny, that water was finally diverted. The alfalfa and cotton fields were fallowed – reduced to dry brush and cracked earth…

On its website, Greenstone describes itself as “a water company” and as “a developer and owner of reliable, sustainable water supplies”. Its CEO, Mike Schlehuber, previously worked for Vidler Water Company – another firm that essentially brokers water supply – as well as Summit Global Management, a company that invests in water suppliers and water rights. Greenstone’s managing director and vice-president, Mike Malano – a former realtor based in Phoenix who remains “active in the Arizona development community”, per his company bio – got himself elected to the board of the Cibola valley irrigation and drainage district, a quasi-governmental organization that oversees the distribution of water for agriculture in the region.

[Holly] Irwin was horrified. She felt that a company with ties to big banks and real estate developers, posing as a farm, had infiltrated her small town and sold off its most precious resource. The deal won’t have an immediate impact on Cibola’s residents. It doesn’t affect the municipal water supply. But she worries that the transfer will be the first of many. And if more and more farms are fallowed to feed water to cities, what will become of rural towns along the river?

Mrs. Gulch’s landscape April 16, 2024

Mrs. Gulch’s landscape April 16, 2024.

America’s Most Endangered Rivers of 2024 — @AmericanRivers

Ten rivers. Ten solutions. Ten opportunities to protect the rivers on which all life depends. America’s Most Endangered Rivers® of 2024 shines a spotlight on threats to clean water, and how pollution impacts to our health and our communities.

#1: Rivers of New Mexico New Mexico is the state hardest hit by a recent Supreme Court ruling that slashed protections for streams, threatening drinking water sources and livelihoods across the state.

#2: Big Sunflower and Yazoo Rivers A massive pumping project would impact thousands of acres of wetlands vital to wildlife and the Mississippi Delta ecosystem.

#3: Duck River The drinking water source for 250,000 people and one of the richest rivers for biodiversity is threatened by excessive water withdrawals.

#4: Santa Cruz River This symbol of restoration and resilience is threatened by climate change and water scarcity.

#5: Little Pee Dee River A major highway project is putting clean water and wildlife habitat at risk.

#6: Farmington River A hydropower dam is threatening fisheries and harming water quality in this important drinking water source.

#7: Trinity River This important tributary to the Klamath River is at risk from excessive water withdrawals, threatening both salmon and people.

#8: Kobuk River Road development and mining threaten clean water, wildlife, and Iñupiat culture.

#9: Tijuana River Pollution is choking the river, causing sickness, forcing beach closures, and endangering local economies.

#10: Blackwater River A proposed highway project would be a disaster for water quality and fish and wildlife habitat.

Problems with #GlenCanyon Dam could jeopardize water flowing to Western states — The #Utah News-Dispatch

November 2012 High Flow Experiment via Protect the Flows

Click the link to read the article on the Utah News-Dispatch website (Kyle Dunphey):

April 12, 2024

A new memo from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is raising concern about the infrastructure at the Glen Canyon Dam and its ability to deliver water downstream should levels at Lake Powell continue to decline.

Environmental groups are calling it “the most urgent water problem” for the Colorado River and the 40 million people who rely on it.

Water stored at Lake Powell, the country’s second largest reservoir, typically moves through the Glen Canyon Dam hydropower turbines — the Glen Canyon Power Plant produces about 5 billion kilowatt hours of power each year, distributed to Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Nebraska, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.

Below the turbines are the dam’s river outlet works, a separate set of steel pipes originally designed to release excess water. If Lake Powell were to drop below the elevation of 3,490 feet, the outlet works would be the only way to convey water through the dam and downstream to the 30 million people and billion-plus dollar industries that rely on the lower Colorado River basin.

In February 2023, lake levels reached an all-time low of 3,521.95 feet, nearly 30 feet away from forcing the bureau to use the outlet works.

The back of Glen Canyon Dam circa 1964, not long after the reservoir had begun filling up. Here the water level is above dead pool, meaning water can be released via the river outlets, but it is below minimum power pool, so water cannot yet enter the penstocks to generate electricity. Bureau of Reclamation photo. Annotations: Jonathan P. Thompson

But a March 26 memo from the Bureau of Reclamation suggests those outlet works aren’t as reliable as previously thought.

“There are concerns with relying on the river outlet works as the sole means of sustained water releases from Glen Canyon Dam,” the memo reads, noting that the bureau should “not rely” on the outlet works to release water downstream.

Without upgrades to the dam’s infrastructure, the bureau’s ability to get water downstream to the lower Colorado River basin as required by the Colorado River Compact could be in jeopardy. Even after record-breaking snowfall in 2023 and an above average 2024 winter, Lake Powell remains at about 32% full, according to data from the bureau. And scientists estimate flows in the river have decreased by roughly 20% over the last century, with warming temperatures resulting in a 10% decrease in runoff.

“We call this the biggest problem in the Colorado River basin,” said Zach Frankel, executive director of the Utah Rivers Council. “What is the chance Lake Powell drops below the hydropower turbine level in the next 10 years? If you ask me, I would say it’s almost guaranteed. We just had the biggest runoff in 40 years in the Colorado River basin a year ago. It’s only been a year since the biggest runoff in almost four decades and Lake Powell is still only at 32% capacity.”

The Colorado River is pictured near Moab on Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

The Bureau of Reclamation’s findings come after officials recently used the outlet works to deliver more water downstream, an effort to boost ecosystems and study the ecology and hydrology of the Colorado River. The outlet works experienced cavitation, which according to the bureau, is a result of bubbles forming in high velocity flows that can damage or erode coatings, concrete and steel. Repairs could include adding a new epoxy lining to the outlet works, which the bureau has scheduled for later this year. Or even a river-level bypass system, which the Utah Rivers Council has advocated for, allowing water to flow around the dam.

“If we drop everything to solve it, the solution will still take 10 years to implement — so why are we procrastinating?” said Eric Balken, the executive director of Glen Canyon Institute.

The cavitation means the outlet works currently can’t sustain the volume of water required to pass through the dam and deliver the roughly 9 million acre-feet of water allocated to California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico, should Lake Powell drop below 3,490 feet.

And if the lower basin doesn’t get its water, it could unravel an already tense situation in the drought-plagued region. Frankel said it could lead to litigation among states, the lower basin demanding the upper basin make substantial cuts, or a depletion of reservoirs in Utah and other upper basin states. The economic impact of not delivering water to the lower basin could have far-reaching ripple effects, possibly reducing agricultural production, impacting urban growth and damaging recreation.

“This is a big problem that 1 in 8 Americans needs to have resolved,” Frankel said.

Water managers from Colorado River basin states are currently working on new management plans ahead of 2026, when current guidelines are set to expire. The states have yet to reach an agreement, but Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, said the issues identified at the Glen Canyon Dam should be a part of the planning process.

“The Bureau has procrastinated solving Glen Canyon Dam’s plumbing problems long enough. This urgent problem needs to be solved ASAP, during the current Interim Guideline process,” Roerink said in a statement.

Navajo Unit Coordination Meeting April 23, 2024 — Reclamation

#Colorado U.S. Senator Bennet Announces Nearly $130 Million for #Colorado Projects in First Round of Senate Appropriations Bills

Western State Colorado University Gunnison

Click the link to read the release on Senator Bennet’s website:

March 8, 2024

Bennet Secured Nearly $91.5 Million for 78 Colorado Projects

Washington, D.C. — Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet announced that he secured nearly $91.5 million for 78 Colorado projects through the congressionally directed spending (CDS) in the first round of Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) Senate appropriations bills. In total, the six bills included nearly $130 million in funding for projects across Colorado. The Senate is currently working to pass another six FY24 appropriations bills which could include additional funding for Colorado projects.

“Throughout this process, I’ve sat down with municipalities, nonprofits, and leaders across the state to hear directly about the challenges their communities face and how Washington can be a better partner,” said Bennet. “I’m glad we were able to support nearly eighty projects across thirty Colorado counties in this round of funding. From funding water infrastructure in Lamar to a business park in Craig and a housing affordability project in Fort Collins, these investments will help Coloradans meet the changing needs of their communities.”

Colorado projects secured by Bennet in FY24 Senate appropriations bills:

PROJECT TITLE RECIPIENT FUNDING AMOUNT LOCATION ALSO REQUESTED BY
211 Colorado Upgrade Mile High United Way $500,000 Denver Hickenlooper, Crow
3rd and Knox Affordable Housing Project Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver, Inc. $750,000 Denver Hickenlooper, DeGette
Auraria Early Learning Center and Mixed-Use Development Auraria Higher Education Center $2,000,000 Denver Hickenlooper
Breakthrough Program Expansion Breakthrough $353,000 Denver Hickenlooper
Central Corridor RTD $850,000 Denver Hickenlooper, DeGette
Central Public Library—Renovation City of Aurora, CO $3,000,000 Aurora Hickenlooper, Crow
Chambers Avenue Widening Colorado Department of Transportation $4,116,279 Commerce City Hickenlooper, Caraveo
City of Aurora for Pressure Regulating Valve Relocation City of Aurora $900,000 Aurora Hickenlooper, Crow
City of Aurora for Water System Improvements City of Aurora $2,000,000 Aurora Hickenlooper
City of Evans for Waterline Replacement Project City of Evans $677,000 Evans Hickenlooper, Caraveo
City of Gunnison for Water Treatment Plant Project City of Gunnison $1,750,000 Gunnison Hickenlooper, Boebert
City of Lamar for Wastewater Treatment Plant Improvements City of Lamar $1,800,000 Lamar Hickenlooper
City of Longmont Micro Transit System City of Longmont $1,000,000 Longmont Hickenlooper, Neguse
City of Westminster for New Water Treatment Facility City of Westminster $959,752 Westminster Hickenlooper, Pettersen
Clear Creek Schools Foundation Childcare Center Clear Creek Schools Foundation $1,616,279 Idaho Springs Neguse
Colorado Rural Impact Programs County Sheriffs of Colorado $917,000 Statewide
Colorado State University Multiuse UAS Airfield Project Colorado State University $500,000 Fort Collins Hickenlooper, Neguse
Compactor/Roller Attachments for Road Safety Colorado Department of Transportation $396,000 Golden Hickenlooper
Cottonwood Pass Blue Hill Project Colorado Department of Transportation $1,500,000 Eagle County Hickenlooper, Boebert
Deer Creek Water District for Water Meter Upgrades Deer Creek Water District $80,000 Parker Hickenlooper
Denver Fire Station 40 City and County of Denver $850,000 Denver Hickenlooper, DeGette
Denver International Airport Electrification Plan City and County of Denver – Mayor’s office $300,000 Denver Hickenlooper, DeGette
DigitalBridge Colorado – Phase 2 WRC – Connected Communities $270,000 Grand County
Douglas County for Wildfire Mitigation Douglas County $800,000 Douglas County
Eagle County Regional Airport Federal Inspection Station Eagle County Regional Airport $500,000 Gypsum Hickenlooper, Neguse
Ecological Prediction Lab: Airborne Coverage to Inform Water and Forest Health Management Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) $975,000 Crested Butte Hickenlooper
Food Bank Distribution Center Renovations Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado $800,000 Colorado Springs Hickenlooper
Former DPS Bus Barn Remediation City and County of Denver $500,000 Denver Hickenlooper, DeGette
Fort Collins Affordable Housing Preservation Neighbor to Neighbor $1,000,000 Fort Collins Hickenlooper
Gateway Domestic Violence Services Aurora Arapahoe Battered Women’s Shelter, DBA Gateway Domestic Violence Services $1,616,279 Aurora Crow
Greeley Neighborhood Safety Program Colorado Department of Transportation $500,000 Greeley Hickenlooper
Greeley Teen Center Boys & Girls Clubs of Weld County $850,000 Greeley Hickenlooper, Caraveo
High Plains Boulevard I–25 Arterial Road Colorado Department of Transportation $1,000,000 Weld County Hickenlooper, Caraveo
High-Temperature Fuel Cells Colorado School of Mines $3,000,000 Golden Hickenlooper
History Colorado for Fort Garland Geothermal & Weatherization Project History Colorado $164,000 Fort Garland Hickenlooper
Holyoke Community Childcare Initiative Holyoke Community Childcare Inititative $1,000,000 Holyoke Hickenlooper
Hope Center Facility Rehabilitation Hope Center, Inc. $2,000,000 Denver
Huerfano County for Wastewater System Improvements Huerfano County $500,000 Gardner Hickenlooper
I-70 Interchange at 29 Road Colorado Department of Transportation $2,000,000 Grand Junction Hickenlooper, Boebert
Idledale Water and Sanitation District for Water Infrastructure Upgrades Idledale Water and Sanitation District $959,752 Idledale Hickenlooper, Pettersen
Jane’s Place Multi-family Affordable Housing Solar Arrays Chaffee County Government $300,000 Salida Hickenlooper, Pettersen
Jefferson County for Forest Health Youth Corps Jefferson County Open Space $80,000 Jefferson County Hickenlooper
KidsPak Capital Improvements & Equipment KidsPak $118,000 Loveland Hickenlooper
Kiowa County Hospital Replacement Facility: Phase 1 Kiowa County Hospital District $1,917,000 Eads Hickenlooper
Lake County Community Housing Leadville Lake County Regional Housing Authority (LLCRHA) $850,000 Leadville Hickenlooper, Pettersen
Lookout Mountain Water District for Waterline Replacement Lookout Mountain Water District $959,752 Golden Hickenlooper, Pettersen
Maple Street Bridge Replacement Colorado Department of Transportation $1,750,000 Fruita Hickenlooper
Mobile Facilities for Homelessness and Eviction Assistance The Community Firm (DBA Community Economic Defense Project) $840,000 Statewide Crow
Moguan Aftercare Housing Facility Ute Mountain Ute Tribe $2,000,000 Towaoc Hickenlooper
Nine Mile Pedestrian/Bicycle Bridge over SH–83 Colorado Department of Transportation $850,000 Aurora Hickenlooper, Crow
Open Soil Water Sensor Colorado State University $1,450,000 Fort Collins Hickenlooper
Park Avenue Inn Colorado Coalition for the Homeless $4,116,279 Denver Hickenlooper, DeGette
Quebec Street — 136th Avenue to north of 138th Avenue Widening Design Colorado Department of Transportation $850,000 Thornton Hickenlooper, Caraveo
Regional Workforce Center for Career and Technical Training Build Pagosa $1,000,000 Pagosa Springs Hickenlooper
Residences on Acoma Second Chance Center $1,500,000 Denver Hickenlooper
Riverside Educational Center Renovation Riverside Educational Center $168,000 Grand Junction Hickenlooper
Rock Creek Affordable Housing & Associated Infrastructure Southern Ute Indian Tribe $3,000,000 Ignacio Hickenlooper
Rural eConsult Expansion University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus $402,785 Aurora Hickenlooper, Crow
San Luis Valley Health Workforce Housing Project Lutheran Hospital Association of the San Luis Valley dba San Luis Valley Health $2,000,000 Alamosa Hickenlooper
Securing Southwest Colorado Police and Emergency Communications Montezuma County $50,000 Montezuma County Hickenlooper
Social Fabric (Community Center) Colorado Asian Culture and Education Network (CACEN) $500,000 Aurora Hickenlooper, Crow
South Adams County Water and Sanitation District for PFAS Drinking Water Treatment Plant Project South Adams County Water & Sanitation District $959,752 Commerce City Hickenlooper, Caraveo
Steamboat Springs WorkforceHousing Pedestrian and Bicycle Connection Project City of Steamboat Springs $1,000,000 Steamboat Springs Hickenlooper, Neguse
Teller County Water & Sanitation District 1 for Radium Mitigation Teller County Water & Sanitation Special District #1 $959,752 Woodland Park Hickenlooper, Pettersen
The Commons Phase Two – Supportive Housing Homeward Pikes Peak $3,000,000 Colorado Springs
The Craig Business and Industrial Park City of Craig $2,500,000 Craig Hickenlooper
Thornton Community Center Reconstruction Project City of Thornton $1,000,000 Thornton Hickenlooper, Caraveo
Three Lakes Water and Sanitation District Septic System Upgrades Three Lakes Water & Sanitation District $1,000,000 Grand Lake Hickenlooper
Timberline Fire Protection District Fire Station Timberline Fire Protection District $908,279 Black Hawk Hickenlooper, Neguse
Town of Dolores for Water Distribution System Replacement Phase 2 Town of Dolores $750,000 Dolores Hickenlooper
Town of Gypsum for Wastewater Infrastructure Project Town of Gypsum $959,752 Gypsum Hickenlooper, Neguse
Town of Silt for Water Plant Renovations Town of Silt $2,053,000 Silt Hickenlooper, Boebert
Training and Technical Assistance to Combat Human Trafficking The Exodus Road $750,000 Statewide
U.S. Highway 160/East Bayfield Parkway New Signalized Intersection Colorado Department of Transportation $1,547,000 Bayfield Hickenlooper, Boebert
Urban Agriculture and Education in Westwood Re:Vision $800,000 Denver DeGette
Vail Valley Affordable Home Ownership Development Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley $1,500,000 Eagle County Hickenlooper
Westwood Community Recreation Center City and County of Denver Mayor’s office $1,000,000 Denver Hickenlooper, DeGette
Workforce Training and Education Space Community College of Aurora $850,000 Aurora Hickenlooper, Crow

Proposed ballot measure directs more money to water projects — The #GrandJunction Daily Sentinel

The Grand River Diversion Dam, also known as the “Roller Dam”, was built in 1913 to divert water from the Colorado River to the Government Highline Canal, which farmers use to irrigate their lands in the Grand Valley. Photo credit: Bethany Blitz/Aspen Journalism

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

April 13, 2024

HB24-1436, introduced by a bipartisan group of four Western Slope lawmakers, would increase the $29 million cap that voters approved when they legalized sports betting in the state, money to be used entirely for water projects. That happened in 2019 when voters narrowly approved Proposition DD, which legalized sports betting in Colorado and imposed a 10% tax on proceeds. Under the bill, which was introduced by House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, and Rep. Marc Catlin, R-Montrose, the state would be able to retain an additional $15.2 million over the next three years…

Tax money from sports betting goes into the Colorado Water Plan Implementation Fund, which is administered by the Colorado Water Conservation Board. That panel doles out the money in the form of grants for projects already identified under the Colorado Water Plan. That plan, implemented in 2015, identified about $20 billion worth of water projects that would be needed to offset dwindling supplies and a handle a growing population.

‘Forever chemicals’ found in Sleepy Bear well water system: City water shows undetectable amount of PFAS — Steamboat Pilot & Today

Click the link to read the article on the Steamboat Pilot & Today website (Suzie Romig). Here’s an excerpt:

April 14, 2024

Children age five and younger, and women who are pregnant, planning to become pregnant or breastfeeding, are more susceptible to health impacts from commonly called “forever chemicals,” which have been found so far in unhealthy levels in one neighborhood water system in Routt County…Sleepy Bear mobile home park, located along U.S. Highway 40 on the western edge of Steamboat Springs, has recorded PFAS levels in the neighborhood water system that are higher than health advisory and national drinking water standards. The mobile home park is not part of the city water system and uses a well water system, according to the local park manager…

“Most people living in the United States have some amount of these chemicals in their blood,” according to the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment. “People in communities that have been contaminated by PFAS — through water or other sources — are more likely to have health impacts.”

[…]

Consumer drinking water testing for Sleepy Bear showed 9.2 parts per trillion of PFOA, which is more than double the newly released legally enforceable standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA limits PFOA and PFOS drinking water standards to four parts per trillion. The CDPHE, which issues water system permits in the state, advised Sleepy Bear residents to “consider taking action to reduce your exposure.” Since the EPA previously issued a health advisory in June 2022, Sleepy Bear voluntarily participated in a proactive testing program for PFAS water sampling in June 2023. Sleepy Bear contracted water operator Ron Krueger, owner of Crystal Clear Water Treatment in Lakewood, said Thursday he is awaiting direction from the CDPHE for next steps…

Mount Werner Water & Sanitation District General Manager Frank Alfone said the district has been conducting voluntary PFAS testing that will continue throughout 2025. The most recent testing in February showed no detectable levels of PFAS in the city drinking water supply.

#Colorado State University scientist leads half of USDA update to methods for measuring greenhouse gas #ActOnClimate

Wheat on Arnsch Farms. (Lance Cheung/USDA/Public Domain Mark 1.0)

Click the link to read the release on the Colorado State University website (Jayme DeLoss)

April 2024

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released updated methods to help farmers, ranchers and forest landowners estimate greenhouse gas emissions on their land. Three of the federal report’s six chapters were authored by Colorado State University scientist Stephen Ogle, one of the world’s top experts in greenhouse gas inventories.

The report provides the best available science-based methods for estimating greenhouse gas emissions from land management decisions, updating a 2014 USDA report. Methods outlined in the report will be used to evaluate government conservation and climate-smart agriculture programs that encourage practices such as soil carbon sequestration.

“We, as a group of authors, pulled the latest science and best information that’s available into these methods so that farmers will have a good tool for estimation and to know the benefit of what they’re doing on their farms,” said Ogle, lead technical compiler for the national greenhouse gas inventory and professor of ecosystem science and sustainability in the Warner College of Natural Resources.

Landowners can use these methods to gauge potential benefits from land management changes. The methods are incorporated into COMET-Farm, an online tool developed by CSU and USDA that farmers and ranchers can use to estimate soil carbon changes and greenhouse gas emissions on their land based on various management practices.

“With growing importance of reducing emissions in agriculture through the new climate-smart agriculture program that’s been funded through the Inflation Reduction Act, this tool is likely going to be very important for farmers to estimate the benefit and for reporting,” Ogle said. “The $19.5 billion climate-smart ag program is a significant investment by the U.S. government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in agricultural systems, and these methods are pivotal in that policy.”

Ogle added that the new report includes details on how to implement quantification methods that haven’t been released in previous reports.

Ogle served as lead author for the croplands and grazing land systems, managed wetland systems and land-use change chapters and co-authored a fourth chapter, uncertainty quantification, with CSU Professor Emeritus Jay Breidt, who is now at the University of Chicago. Shawn Archibeque, professor of animal sciences, and Crystal Toureene, an agronomist and researcher in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, co-authored the animal production systems chapter.

The 2024 update is the result of four years of work by a team of more than 60 authors, including USDA scientists, university researchers and experts from non-governmental organizations and research institutions, who have developed consistent metrics for estimating changes in greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration for farm, ranch and forest operations. The updates to the report were reviewed by more than two dozen scientists, other federal agencies, the public and a panel of interdisciplinary experts.

“USDA’s updated greenhouse gas methods report represents a critical scientific consensus which ensures confidence in the benefits from climate-smart agriculture and forestry,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a USDA press release. “This report will help guide conservation efforts, improve our greenhouse gas estimation on U.S. farms, and support markets for carbon and climate-smart products nationwide.”

Read the report, Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Agriculture and Forestry: Methods for Entity Scale Inventory.

This epic slice of Arizona feeds their [Navajo Nation] souls but lacks a basic necessity: Water — The Los Angeles Times #SanJuanRiver #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

Native America in the Colorado River Basin. Credit: USBR

Click the link to read the article on The Los Angeles Times website (Tyrone Beason). Here’s an excerpt:

April 7, 2024

The Navajos live in the same 1,400-mile-long Colorado River Basin that brings fresh water to millions in Southern California, yet about 30% of homes on the reservation were built without indoor plumbing. With the absence of pipes connecting homes in this isolated corner of the reservation to a water source, many Navajos must spend hours each week driving to a community center in the tribal settlement of Dennehotso to refill portable tanks. While California wrangles with other Western states over the Colorado River’s drought-stricken water supply, Navajo water rights advocates estimate that the 175,000 members who live on the reservation subsist on average on just 5 to 10 gallons a day per person. Compare that to the 76 to 100 gallons of water the Environmental Protection Agency says most Californians use daily…

Some see hope in a proposed landmark agreement that would settle all outstanding water rights disputes between the Navajo, Hopi and San Juan Southern Paiute tribes and the state of Arizona. If the final terms of the agreement are approved by the tribal government, the Navajos will ask Congress for $5 billion in federal funding to expand the reservation’s water delivery infrastructure, says Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley.

“In the past, we’ve tried to get all of the parties to the table to secure water rights, which since time immemorial we’ve had to fight for,” Curley says…

The failure to extend water service to all Indigenous Americans is especially galling given their traditional role as nature’s caretakers, says Heather Whiteman Runs Him, associate clinical professor and director of the Tribal Justice Clinic at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

“We respect water in ways that many other Americans don’t,” says Whiteman Runs Him, a Crow tribal member from Montana. “The vast majority of Americans take water access for granted. You pay a water bill but don’t think about what you’re paying for.”

[…]

The disparity in water access between Navajo tribal members and other Americans was dramatized in a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Brushing aside a host of treaties and legal precedents dating to the formation of the reservation on a fraction of Navajo ancestral territory in 1868, the court determined that the federal government is not obligated to help the tribe get more access to water from natural sources such as the Colorado River basin.

Navajo Reservation map via NavajoApparel.com

2024 #COleg: #Colorado Wetlands: Lawmakers clash as they seek state protections — Colorado Politics

Colorado River headwaters tributary in Rocky Mountain National Park photo via Greg Hobbs.

Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Politics website (Marianne Goodland). Here’s an excerpt:

April 13, 2024

This month, lawmakers looked at the dueling approaches contained in two measures seeking to implement a way for the state to manage “dredge and fill discharge” permits tied to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision [Sackett vs. EPA] that redefined how a body of water can be protected under the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Waters of the United States” rule…Supporters of the first bill, which gives the task to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, insist it’s the proper venue because it already experience dealing with permitting and water quality issues. Supporters of the second measure, which hands the responsibility to the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, maintain that the Department of Natural Resources is better equipped, since it already deals with related disciplines, such as water resource management, water rights law and land management.

In any case, policymakers agree that Colorado residents, industries and the wetlands needs certainty…Alex Funk with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership told a legislative committee last August that almost 90% of fish and wildlife in Colorado rely on the state’s wetlands at some point during their lifecycle. House Speaker McCluskie told the House agriculture committee on April 8 that since Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency held that only permanent streams and rivers are protected under the federal Clean Water Act, those with a continuous surface connection to another permanent water body. That puts Colorado waters at risk, she said. Pitkin County Commissioner Greg Poschman also noted that the state’s headwaters are made up of small streams that do not have year-round flow because they are under snowpack half the year — suggesting Sackett would put those waters at risk.

The Loss of El Vado Dam — John Fleck (InkStain.net) #RioGrande

El Vado Dam and Reservoir. Photo credit: USBR

Click the link to read the article on the InkStain website (John Fleck):

April 10, 2024

The Bureau of Reclamation’s announcement at Monday’s meeting of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District that it is halting work on El Vado Dam repairs raises hugely consequential questions about water management in New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande Valley.

The short explanation for the halt is that the current approach to repairing the 1930s-era dam wasn’t working. (The meeting audio is here, though at “press time” for this blog post this week’s is not yet up.) I’ll leave it to others to suss out the technical and bureaucratic details of the repair project, and the endless finger-pointing that’s sure to ensue. My interest here is to begin to sketch out the implications here in the Middle Valley of an indefinite period – a decade or more? – without El Vado.

The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District built El Vado (with substantial federal subsidy) in the 1930s to provide irrigation supplies by storing high spring runoff for use in summer and fall. But while its purpose was irrigation, it completely changed the Middle Valley hydrograph in ways that all the other water uses have adapted to, both human and ecosystem.

Without El Vado (or some interim replacement – see below), we should expect the Rio Grande to routinely go functionally dry in late summer unless propped up by monsoon rains, which are sporadic and unpredictable.

I see impacts in three areas, only one of which is related to El Vado’s initial purpose.

Ristras of varying pod types and ripeness. By Christopher Holden from Albuquerque, United States – Ristras, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=95944700

1: IRRIGATION

This is the obvious one. Until El Vado is repaired or some sort of replacement schemed out, irrigators should expect a high risk of low or no supply in late summer and fall. Alfalfa will remain a reliable if modest crop (it can hunker down and wait out the dry), but the few commercial operators who need a more reliable supply for their crops – think pecans and chile – will have to depend on groundwater, with all the problems that entails.

The Albuquerque, New Mexico International Balloon fiesta. (October 2007). By Danae Hurst from Albuquerque, United States – Ballooning Over Albuquerque, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6791765

2: MUNICIPAL SUPPLIES

Albuquerque’s use of its imported San Juan-Chama water in summer indirectly depends on El Vado. Without MRGCD water, released from El Vado, as “carriage water”, the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility has to leave its imported San Juan-Chama water parked in Abiquiu Reservoir, switching to groundwater. This is what we have done over the last few years, and our much-vaunted aquifer recovery has, as a result, stalled.

This poses a huge challenge for the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority.

3: ENVIRONMENTAL FLOWS

The idea of an agricultural irrigation dam providing the water for environmental flows seems super weird. But that’s basically the way it’s worked for years here in the Middle Valley. Releases from El Vado, sent downstream to irrigators, provide environmental benefits along the way. For the last couple of years, without El Vado water to supplement flows in late summer, the Rio Grande has operated on a knife’s edge between flowing and dry through Albuquerque.

This poses a huge challenge for efforts to nurse the Rio Grande silvery minnow back from extinction.

Abiquiu Dam, impounding Abiquiu Lake on the Rio Chama in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, USA. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed the dam in 1963 for flood control, water storage, and recreation. By U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, photographer not specified or unknown – U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Digital Visual LibraryImage pageImage description pageDigital Visual Library home page, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2044112

STORAGE ALTERNATIVES

First and foremost, there is a fast-moving and scrambling discussion about storage alternatives.

Abiquiu Reservoir, a flood control facility on the Rio Chama built, owned, and managed by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, is an obvious replacement. The part in italics yields knowing nods, or perhaps grimaces, from folks who work in Middle Valley water management, because the Corps is well known for an exceedingly cautious interpretation of its statutory mandates. “Filling in as a water storage facility to replace El Vado” is only sorta barely at the edge of that mandate. Getting the Corps on board to help with this fix will be key.

Heron Lake, part of the San Juan-Chama Project, in northern New Mexico, looking east from the Rio Chama. In the far distance is Brazos Peak (left) and the Brazos Cliffs (right), while at the bottom is the north wall of the Rio Chama Gorge. By G. Thomas at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1598784

Heron Reservoir, on a Rio Chama tributary, stores San Juan-Chama water imported through tunnels beneath the continental divide. It physically can’t replace El Vado because it’s in the wrong place. But discussions have already touched on the idea of doing it on paper via accounting swaps – hold back San Juan-Chama water, let SJC customers use native Rio Grande water via an accounting swap, then deliver Heron water as if it had been El Vado water.

Downstream of Elephant Butte Dam (back in the day), water issues get even trickier. By Unknown author – http://www.usbr.gov/power/data/sites/elephant/elephant.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1267389

Elephant Butte? Again, it’s in the wrong place, but accounting swaps here are also on the table.

INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

The most important subtext is the institutional framework behind all of this. The loss of El Vado is not solely an MRGCD/Bureau of Reclamation problem. It implicates all the Middle Valley’s water stakeholders – especially Albuquerque’s Water Utility Authority, but also the Corps of Engineers, the Fish and Wildlife Service (because of ESA issues), the state water agencies, the communities on the valley floor that have avoided responsibility for any of this by depending on the state’s obscenely permissive domestic well statute.

Navajo Dam operations update: Bumping releases down to 350 cfs April 16, 2024 #SanJuanRiver #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

The outflow at the bottom of Navajo Dam in New Mexico. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

From email from Reclamation (Susan Novak Behery):

April 15, 2024

In response to increasing flows in the critical habitat reach, the Bureau of Reclamation has scheduled a decrease in the release from Navajo Dam from 500 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 350 cfs for tomorrow, April 16th, at 4:00 AM.

Releases are made for the authorized purposes of the Navajo Unit, and to attempt to maintain a target base flow through the endangered fish critical habitat reach of the San Juan River (Farmington to Lake Powell). The San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program recommends a target base flow of between 500 cfs and 1,000 cfs through the critical habitat area. The target base flow is calculated as the weekly average of gaged flows throughout the critical habitat area from Farmington to Lake Powell.

#Snowpack news April 15, 2024

Colorado snowpack basin-filled map April 15, 2024 via the NRCS.

Westwide SNOTEL basin-filled map April 15, 2024 via the NRCS.

Wet March 2024 boosts #snowpack, streamflow forecasts: #Runoff still depends on temperature, dust on snow — @AspenJournalism

Boaters cruise the Colorado River near Two Rivers Parks in Glenwood Springs as temperatures warmed on Friday. Colorado River headwaters streamflow is forecast at 105% of median and streamflows in the Roaring Fork basin are forecast to be 104% of median this runoff season. Photo credit: Laurine Lasalle/Apen Journalism

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

April 12, 2023

The month of March in Colorado was wet, with several storms bumping snowpack and spring runoff forecasts to above average across nearly all of the state.

That is the main take-away from the April 2024 Water Supply Outlook Report from the National Resources Conservation Service and good news for those who depend on water from the drought-plagued Colorado River basin.

All major river basins around the state received above-average precipitation for March, boosting snowpack to above median. March precipitation ranged from 138% of median in the northwest corner of the state to 186% of median in the Arkansas River basin.

“The March 13 through 15 storm cycle brought an even greater increase in precipitation across the state, with some areas of the Front Range and southern mountains receiving three to five feet of snowfall,” the report reads.

Snow water equivalent — a measure of how much water is contained in the snowpack — ranged from 121% of median in the South Platte basin to 104% of median in the San Miguel/Dolores/Animas/San Juan basin in the southwest corner of the state as of April 1. The Colorado River headwaters stood at 108% of median and the Roaring Fork River basin was at about 112% of median.

Since most of the West’s water supply is snowpack-driven, a snowpack snapshot at the end of the season can be a predictor of runoff volume. But there are other factors that could affect how much water ultimately ends up in rivers and eventually in the nation’s second largest reservoir, Lake Powell.

Higher-than-normal temperatures and windstorms that drop dust on the snowpack can both cause runoff to happen earlier and faster, and hot temperatures can also reduce streamflow amounts in other ways.

“What really influences our water supply is yet to come and that’s temperature, it’s dust, it’s weather,” said Dave Kanzer, director of science and interstate matters with the Colorado River Water Conservation District. “It’s not only the weather for the next 8 to 14 days, but 30 to 60 days that can quickly turn a good thing bad or a bad thing good. We are right at the fulcrum of our water supply.”

Streamflow forecast volumes across the state are at 103% of median. For the Colorado River headwaters streamflow is forecast at 105% of median; the Yampa/White/Little Snake is at 120% of median and the Gunnison River basin is at 104% of median. The southwest corner of the state is lagging behind, with a forecast of just 82% of median streamflow. Locally, streamflows in the Roaring Fork basin are forecast to be 104% of median.

The wave at Glenwood Whitewater Park has become a destination for kayaking and paddling enthusiasts. It’s also a nice spot for families looking to spend time on a sunny afternoon. Streamflow on the Colorado River near the park on April 12, 2023 was at 2,040 cubic feet per second. CREDIT: LAURINE LASSALLE/ASPEN JOURNALISM

High temperatures and dust on snow

Higher-than-normal temperatures can rob rivers of their flow. Studies have shown that Colorado River flows have declined nearly 20% from the 20th century average and that about one-third of that can be attributed to higher temperatures driven by climate change. Higher temperatures mean both a thirstier atmosphere and thirstier plants, which can suck up snowmelt before it makes it to rivers.

According to temperature data from snow telemetry (SNOTEL) sites, the months of October through February were all above average in the Colorado River headwaters. March temperatures, which set record highs worldwide according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, were 100% of median in the Colorado River headwaters.

“We’ve had some cold snaps, but overall this warm winter doesn’t do us any favors in preserving the snowpack,” Kanzer said.

Like Kanzer mentioned, dust on snow can also cause rapid melting. White snow reflects the sun’s rays, but when the snowpack is coated with a darker layer of dust, it absorbs solar radiation, causing earlier and faster-than-normal melt out.

According to Jeff Derry, executive director of the Silverton-based Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies, Colorado’s mountains have experienced four storms that dropped reddish-brown dust from the desert southwest onto the snowpack, including a severe wind event March 1-3.

“That was a walloper, that was a biggie. It was pretty dirty,” Derry said. “Once that dirt layer is at the surface, it’s going to really kick things into gear.”

Oil and gas development, grazing, off-road vehicles and anything else that disturbs soil makes that soil susceptible to being carried by prevailing winds to the Colorado mountains. Derry said Colorado averages about eight or nine dust-on-snow events a year, some of which are probably yet to come.

“We get the most dust events in March, April and May,” he said. “So we are maybe just halfway through the dust season.”

Even though conditions are above average in the Colorado River headwaters, Lake Mead and Lake Powell still hover just above crisis level, a result of more than two decades of drought, increasing temperatures and overuse. In its mid-March 24-Month Study, which is the most recent available, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation put the most probable spring runoff inflow forecast for Lake Powell at 78% of average. Lake Powell is currently about 33% full, at elevation 3,558 feet.

“From a water supply planning perspective, things are good short term and locally,” Kanzer said. “The long term, regional picture rapidly declines when you get to Lake Powell and below Lake Powell. Those chronic or persistent water supply concerns remain.”

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A durable measure

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‘Good fire’

Ancient irrigation

The original carbon capture technology

Dryland farming

Restoring salmon runs

Resilient seeds

Swinomish clam gardens

Climate-smart Indigenous design

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Key Findings

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Support from environmental groups

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Extraction on tribal lands

Hydropower project impacts

FERC’s trust responsibility

FERC’s new direction

Aligning clean energy and environmental justice

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This Week’s Drought Summary

Looking Ahead

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