BOARD00151 ‎(3)‎

• Board Meeting Date: 3/12/2007
• Description: WSP Section - Animas-La Plata Project Updates - Intergovernmental Agreement Establishing the ALP Operations and Maintenance Association and Proposed Concept Paper
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

1. Wherever possible, water use befo e and after the installation of the non-turf landscape will
be examined to determine changes in outdoor usage patterns and the irrigation application .
rate.
2. Alternatively, a comparable neighooring traditional turf landscaped property will be
identified as a control. Water billi~g data and area information will also be obtained for this
site and the irrigation application rkte between the treatment and control groups will be made.

The goal will be to identify 500 landscabes across Colorado with significant non-turf landscapes.
The project will leverage existing bille'd water consumption databases. Landscape designers,
installers, auditors, and others will be qUe+ed to assist in identifying potential participants.

Water Planning Relationship: This I project would seek to support and validate the water
conservation measures findings, as laid out in the matrix of measures, developed by the
Conservation & Efficiency Technical Rdundtable established in Phase 2 of the Statewide Water
Supply Initiative, coordinated out of thelCWCB's Intrastate Water Management & Development
Section.

Recommendation: Staff gives a high re,commendation to the funding of this project because of its
impact on water conservation and drought planning as well as its contribution to attaining the goals
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ofSWSI.
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Flood Protection Program

1. NRCS SNOTEL Site Installations

Beneficiary/Grantee/Contractor:
Amount of Request:

Natutal Resources Conservation Service, Various
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$25,qOO Ranking:

High

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Product Produced: Each proposed location would increase the data coverage for a particular basin
to improve water supply forecasting duting the runoff season. These new sites would either
automate an existing manually measured show course or provide new data in previously unmeasured
basins. Where existing snow courses are! automated, these new SNOTEL sites will provide daily
snowpack readings, whereas the previous manually measured snow course was only read four times
per winter. When new sites are installed in previously unmeasured locations, thi's new data is
extremely valuable in helping to calibr~te basin forecasts and assessments of snowpack and
streamflow. New data measurement sites can help explain previously unknown hydrologic
,
variability within the basin. Since 2004, the CWCB has used Severance Tax funding to provide
$5,000 grants per site to convert manually imeasured sites to automated SNOTEL sites at: Greyback
site near Del Norte, Cochetopa Pass between the Saguache and Gunnison Basins, Bear River near
Steamboat Springs. Equipment has been pbrchased and agreements are in place to install SNOTEL
sites in the summer of 2007 at: St. Elmo site along Chalk Creek a tributary to the Arkansas River,
,
Hayden Pass site near the crest of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Fryingpan River headwaters site,
and Cache La Poudre River headwaters sit~.
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The proposed new SNOTEL site installations are dependent on local water users utilizing the $5,000
in Severance Tax funding to match $11 ,odo in their own funding for a total project cost per site of
about $16,000. Once installed the NRCS 9perates and maintains the sties. Letters of interest have
been received by:

. Aurora Water Department, Colc?rado Springs Utilities, Saguache County, and the Cache
la Poudre Water Users Association.

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