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'-", ;~.~ "y. ~s~ F-~; l u '.' ".~" I '1 May 18, 2004 Glenn Porzak Attorney at Law 929 Pearl Street Ste. 300 Boulder, Colorado, 80302 RE: Steamboat Springs Boating Park; Response to comments by Richard E. McLaughlin in a letter to Ted Kowalski, Esq. dated April 27, 2004, and comments by Tom Browning in a letter to Susan Schneider dated April 26, 2004. This report is written in response to statements made by Richard McLaughlin in his April 27, 2004 letter report to Mr. Kowalski with regard to the appropriate flows and appropriate stream reach for the Steamboat Springs Boating Park (hereafter known as "Boating Park"), and to comments made by Tom Browning in a letter to Susan Schneider dated April 26, 2004, concerning the purported flood impacts of the diversion structures on the Boating Park. The basic contention in these reports is that the structures will impact the flood plain; are located in an inappropriate reach of the Yampa River; and that they do not divert and control the claimed flow amounts to serve the City of Steamboat Springs' intended purposes. I disagree with these conclusions. Executive Summary Executive summary of the points made in more detail in the body of this report: . The Yampa River channel where the structures at issue were built meets all of the CWCB's recommended physical dimensions for an RICD in terms of drop and the "power index" criteria adopted by the CWCB, and is thus an appropriate reach under the CWCB's own policy. . The Charlie's Hole and D-Hole RICD structures at issue do not negatively impact the flood plain, and may be a benefit to the flood carrying capacity of the river. The HEC-RAS model on which Mr. Browning and Mr. McLaughlin rely as the basis for their conclusion was not calibrated to theses RICD.structures, inappropriately focuses on pre-existing fish structures, and is based on inaccurate assumptions. The cross-sections on which the Browning analysis is based do not $-25 ~{? (1 J\\~ \6)~ 1