South Platte - Clear Creek County Water Banking & High Altitude Storage Study_Application

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Form Revised October 2006 ~ Water Sllllppliy Reserve Account - Grant Appliicatioll1l FlOrm 3. Please provide an overview of water project or activity to be funded including - type of activity, statement of what the activity is intended to accomplish, the need for the activity, the problems and opportunities to be addressed, expectations of the participants, why the activity is important, the service area or geographic location, and any relevant issues etc. Please include any relevant Tabor issues. Please refer to Part 2 of criteria and guidance document for additional detail on information to include. Attach additional sheets as needed. Clear Creek County has conditional water rights decreed and pending for 9 reservoir sites located throughout the County that will be used in the County's Basinwide Plan for Augmentation which is currently pending in Case No. 05CW302. The purpose of the conditional water rights is to secure priorities for water storage that can cover both future and existing water uses in accordance with State water law and satisfy increasing demands for water to support economic growth. j I I ' I To date, Clear Creek County has met the standards for initiating conditional water rights and the next step is I to refine the evaluation process and prioritize the conditional water rights for development with the most cost-effective alternatives to move forward. Technical and legal data will be developed to sort and prioritize these storage sites in order of maximum beneficial use, maximum need in the basin, ease of development, and optimum time schedule. All storage projects are located in the County and could be considered high altitude storage. An area map showing the County's location within the basin is included with this application. These reservoirs would be available to all water users in the County on a cooperative basis. Development of these high altitude water storage sites will provide opportunities to store senior water rights and to preserve the ability of the State of Colorado to capture its snowmelt under junior water rights and hold it for demands in the mountains. Water storage under the junior water rights will develop additional water supplies that benefit the South Platte Basin as a whole through retiming of return flows. The County is also in negotiations with municipalities located in the lower Clear Creek basin to utilize its pending Basinwide Augmentation Plan to improve water quality throughout the basin. Water stored in these reservoirs can be utilized to provide augmentation water within the County and terms are being negotiated to address the lower basin water quality concerns. The proposed work will also allow the Clear Creek County Water Bank to provide wet water for its augmentation plan, and allow the State of Colorado to administer the Upper Clear Creek drainage in a more orderly manner that maximizes beneficial use and reduce contentious water rights and water quality issues. This project will benefit from a cooperative agreement in a stipulation concerning the City of Golden's decree for its Recreational In Channel Diversion (RICD). That stipulation allowed Clear Creek County to prepare initial analyses and file for conditional water rights that can be administered under terms and conditions that allow water storage, with minimal impacts to the RICD. The project was presented before the South Platte Basin Roundtable on February 13, 2007 to request a grant in the amount of$52,000. The Roundtable unanimously agreed to approve this water project and recommend it for a Water Supply Reserve Account grant. A letter of support signed by the Basin Roundtable chair, Bill Jerke, is attached. n:\04143 clear creek county ball placer reservoir\cwcb water supply reserve account grant\2006-2007 grant application fOlm, 3.12.07 .doc 4