BOARD00125 ‎(2)‎

• Board Meeting Date: 1/24/2007
• Description: ISF Section - Injury with Mitigation - Case No. 1-04CW323, Application of EMJ Squaw Pass, LLC
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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1.0 INTRODUCTION

On September 28, 2005 Resource Engineering, Inc. (RESOURCE) submitted an Instream Flow
Mitigation Plan (Mitigation Plan) to the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) on behalf of
the Echo Mountain Ski and Boarding Park, The purpose of the Plan was to outline potential injury
to CWCB instream flow water rights and to present a mitigation plan designed to offset such
impact. The streams in question include Little Bear Creek and Soda Creek, both of which are
tributary to Clear Creek, near Idaho Springs, Colorado. The Mitigation Plan focused on improving
water quality through the reduction of sediment supply to the two creeks. In order to accomplish
this, the Applicant (Echo Mountain) proposed to pave a portion of the County Road adjacent to
Little Bear Creek.

Subsequent to the submission of the proposed Mitigation Plan, the CWCB staff together with the
Applicant, Division of Wildlife (DOW) and representatives of Trout Unlimited, have participated in
a number of meetings and field visits designed to evaluate the merits of the proposed plan and to
examine other alternatives, Based upon these meetings, the study 'Team" identified an
. alternative plan that would better preserve and/or improve the natural environment of the two
streams., The purpose of this report is to revise the original Mitigation Plan to incorporate the
Team's recommended mitigation strategy,

1.1 BACKGROUND INFORMATION

EMJ Squaw Pass, LLC (Applicant) has recently opened Echo Mountain, a winter skiing and
snowboard park located within the Warren Gulch watershed, tributary to Clear Creek,
approximately 4.0 miles south of Idaho Springs. The ski and boarding park is located at the site
of the historic Squaw Pass Ski Area that was operated from 1963 through 1975. The Applicant
has installed a new ski lift, skier services facilities and a snowmaking system,

Water supplies for Echo Mountain originate from a series of ground water wells and two on-site
ponds totaling 5.5 acre feet (AF) in capacity, The ponds are filled by the wells and the two
sources of supply operate together to provide the necessary snowmaking and domestic water
supply,
In December 2004 the Applicant filed a series of water court applications including a Water Right
Plan for Augmentation in Case Nos, 04CW322, 04CW323 and 04CW324, Water Division No, 1,
. Under the Plan for Augmentation the Applicant proposes to utilize a combination of transbasin

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