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<br />Martin Reservoir. Kansas even voiced strong support of a tamarisk-control project being spearheaded by <br />the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />"If we had a process like this in place earlier, we might have avoided the pain and anguish of the past <br />decade," said Rod Kuharich, executive director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board and chairman <br />of Colorado's delegation on the compact. <br /> <br />"Agency folks from both states have searched for areas of agreement," said David Pope, chief water <br />engineer for Kansas and head of his state's delegation. "Both states have had to compromise in an effort <br />to manage the water." <br /> <br />The board administers the compact, signed in 1949, but issues on how the states share water from the <br />river go back more than a century. In 1986, Kansas filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court claiming <br />Colorado violated the compact. In 1995, the court found Colorado well-pumping violated the compact, <br />after ruling earlier against Kansas claims on Trinidad Reservoir and the winter water storage program. <br /> <br />During the past year, Colorado paid an additional $1.1 million to Kansas, on top of the $34.6 million <br />settlement in 2005. The money was less than the $10 million Kansas had requested for expert witness fees <br />and other costs associated with the Supreme Court case. <br /> <br />The two states are at the end of the first 10-year period to calculate how much water is owed Kansas, or <br />credited to Colorado. Each year after this, a rolling 10-year average will be used. <br /> <br />Because of a 1997 diversion, the two states are about 10,000 acre-feet apart in the calculation of state-line <br />flow. One of the decisions in the final decree will decide the issue, as well as how future flows will be <br />calculated. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />The administration voted to continue a special engineering committee that resolved four issues of how <br />water is stored at John Martin Reservoir. Those issues are: <br />How the evaporation rate on the permanent pool will be established. <br />How storage accounts for winter water storage are charged. <br />How transfers are made to certain storage accounts. <br />How spills from John Martin will be accounted for between the two states. <br />The compact also heard reports about major water activities in Colorado that could affect river flows. <br /> <br />Dawn Wiedmeier of the Bureau of Reclamation reported on progress with the Arkansas Valley Conduit, <br />Southern Delivery System, Preferred Storage Operations Plan and a 10-year review of the Purgatoire <br />Irrigation District under Trinidad Reservoir. Wiedmeier also discussed efforts by Reclamation to remove <br />tamarisk using imported beetles and grinding machines. <br /> <br />Kuharich noted the CWCB has approved a loan of $60.6 million toward the conduit, which made some <br />progress in Congress as well last year. The $330 million conduit would provide drinking water for 42 <br />communities from St. Charles Mesa to Lamar. <br /> <br />Wiedmeier said SDS has been delayed at least a year because Colorado Springs is reviewing a no-action <br />alternative in the environmental impact study. PSOP, which would study enlarging Lake Pueblo and <br />Turquoise Reservoir, remains stalled in Congress. <br /> <br />Susan Shamine of the Army Corps of Engineers explained projects in Colorado are moving slowly <br />because federal funding is concentrated on dealing with the damage from Hurricane Katrina. Among the <br />major projects are tamarisk removal and sediment sampling at John Martin, as well as a study of the <br />. Fountain Creek drainage. <br /> <br />21 <br />