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From: Ragged Mountain Water Users Association 21250 F Rd. . Delta, Colorado 81416 To: Casey Shpall, Hearing Officer Colorado Attorney General's Office 1525 Sherman Street, 5th Floor Denver, CO 80203 Date: September 5, 2006 Regarding: Water Div. 4 Instream flow appropriations on Anthracite and Coal Creeks, tributaries to the North Fork of the Gunnison First of all, Ragged Mountain Water Users would like to gratefully acknowledge the cooperation ofCWCB in regard to the filings on the North Fork of the Gunnison. We thank them for dropping the Muddy and Williams Creek from the list of intended filings and for postponing these additional segments until this year. At this time, we would like to express our concern regarding the instream flow filings on the Anthracite and Coal Cfeeks. We feel these filing should be dropped for the following reasons. . 1. Hydrological evidence is inadequate 2. Biological evidence is inadequate 3. Water availabiUty study makes questionable assumptions 1. The instream flow recommendation for the Anthracite is based on three data collection efforts: August 1980, October 1985 and October 1998. The recommendation for the Coal Creek segment is based on data from 1977-1981. Ragged Mountain Water Users feels this is inadequate data on which to make this recommendation. 2. The biological data for the Anthracite reports it is a river supporting self-sustaining brown and rainbow trout fishery. It also support populations of mottled sculpins, dace and bluehead suckers. This is based on two studies. The 1977 study may not reflect the fishery today. Although there was a study that appears to have been done in 1996, there was not an adequate sample gathered. . 3. "The recommended instream flow rights will increase annual future demand shortages by around 12 percent, mostly by limiting exchange potential with the Paonia and Blue Mesa Reservoir." ("Water Availability in the North Fork of the Gunnison Basin", Feb. 22,2006, p. 17, Table 10) This statement alone should be reason enough to question this appropriation. This study shows that the average annual future demand shortage (assuming future demand is junior to recommended instream flows) will be 370,10 for the Anthracite and 270,/0 for Coal Creek (p. 4, Table 2). On p. 13 of the same document in describing the approach taken to perform water supply analyses for the Anthracite and the Coal Creek subbasins, it states in #5, "Future demand was given an operating rule to augment out-of-priority depletions with releases from Paonia Reservoir during the irrigation season. Another reference is made to augmentation from the Paonia Reservoir on p. 14 Table 6. It indicates that average augmentation required from the Paonia Reservoir would total 226 Ac ft annually. There is no augumentation water in the Paonia Reservoir; Itis...d~ignated by the Bureau of Reclamation for irrigation. To assume