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<br />G1J2317 <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Senator Wash Dam <br /> <br />Coming this April, Reclamation personnel out of Denver will install a large number of new <br />observation wells below Senator Wash Dam, The purpose of this project is to determine if Senator <br />Wash Dam can be operated above elevation 240 feet without excessive seepage which could endanger <br />the dam's integrity, Originally designed to operate to elevation 2S 1 feet, operation was limited to <br />between elevations 210 and 240 when it was observed several years ago that there were sand boils and <br />seeps appearing below the Dam when the reservoir surface went above approximately 246 feet Senator <br />Wash serves to regulate sudden changes in water orders at Imperial Dam, <br /> <br />Colorado River Dredging <br /> <br />Dredging above Morelos Dam was curtailed recently because the gears on the dredge were not <br />operating properly, The manufacturer has been given four months to fix the problem, In the meantime, <br />Reclamation is using a different dredge to clean the River channel immediately above Imperial Dam, <br />That area of the Colorado River has not been dredged for the last four or five years, <br /> <br />Basin Statesrrribes Discussion <br /> <br />Basin States Meeting <br /> <br />Since the January Board meeting, a number of meetings and conference calls among the agency <br />managers and their legal counsels have been held to discuss primarily four items: I) completion of the <br />draft of California's Colorado River Water Use Plan, 2) identification of the necessary environmental <br />compliance activities associated with California's Colorado River Water Use Plan and its various <br />components, as well as the associated schedule, 3) the surplus and shortage criteria needed by California <br />to meet its water supply needs during the interim period, and 4) possible actions associated with the <br />60-day notices of intent to sue from various environmental groups related to Reclamation's operation <br />of the Colorado River and the Virgin River delta, <br /> <br />Various sections of California's Colorado River Water Use Plan have been drafted and <br />distributed to the Board members for their review, At the Board meeting, the Board members will be <br />asked to provide input and their initial reaction to the scope and content of the document Since the <br />document is incomplete, no approval for distribution of the document to the public will be sought <br /> <br />The agency managers and their legal counsels have been discussing the needed coordination and <br />schedule for completing all of the necessary environmental compliance for the Plan to be fully <br />implemented, This includes California's Colorado River Water Use Plan, which is a framework <br />document and statutorily exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), as well as <br />the environmental compliance for individual components on the Plan, The discussions have also <br />included the schedule for completing the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program <br />which is to provide the needed environmental compliance for any impacts that may occur along the <br />River corridor associated with implementation of the components of the Plan, Since several of the <br />projects also involve Reclamation, preparation of the environmental documents is being coordinated <br />with Reclamation and its environmental activities under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEP A) <br /> <br />3 <br />