WaterasEcosystemBaseHandoutMelindaKassen101806

• Title: Water As Ecosystem Base 31st Gunnison Water Workshop
• Date: 7/25/2006
• Author: Melinda Kassen
• Interbasin CC - Doc Type: General Resources

. Conservation incentives, if not requirements, along with real enforcement of the bar
against waste;
. Basin of Origin protection;
. Integration of water quality regulation and water allocation;
. Enforceable conjunctive management throughout the region;
. A recognition that all parts of the ecosystem serve important functions, i.e., to protect
ephemeral and intermittent streams from the adverse effects of the discharge of
produced waters;
. Financial and legal incentives to restore and protect streamflows in critical reaches to
the same extent that such incentives exist for traditional water uses.

In Colorado, there are two things in particular that we need. First, we need a map of
those stream reaches that we much protect for their ecological value (and it would
probably make sense to include recreational values too) and then we need to increase the
flexibility of our legal system so that players beyond the Colorado Water Conservation
Board (CWCB) can hold instream flow water rights. Only in this way will we be able to
create a real market that will allow for instream flow protection of streams that need
restoration.

First, the map. There are studies from other large ecosystems (e.g., the Amazon) which
suggest that ecosystem protection requires sustainability of between 25 and 30 percent of
an ecosystem. I believe that that is the target Colorado should shoot for.

Notwithstanding 33 years of the state instream flow program, there is no map that shows
where are the reaches we need to protect. With GOCO funding, the Colorado Water
Trust made a map five years ago, but the CWCB has refused to use the map, calling it
overly subjective (as it was created by state, federal and non-governmental organization
biologists based on best professional judgment). SWSI Phase 2 will attempt to make a
start at this map, but what we really need is for the Basin Roundtables to use some oflast
session's S 179 money to do real nonstructural needs assessments.

Here are the steps that I believe we need to follow to end up with a useable map:

. Break the state's major river basins into sensible ecosystems
. Identify the river reaches within each that have high quality values
. Of those, identify those river reaches that are ah'eady protected, e.g., because of land
use designations.
. Identify those river reaches with greater than an agreed upon percentage of
diversions, such that restoration would be exceedingly difficult. (The Grand Mesa,
Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forest Pathfinder process did this.)

The high quality reaches that are neither too highly diverted nor already protected
become the universe of reaches where water interests will focus their efforts to restore
and protect streams flows, with a goal of protecting enough of these reaches such that,
along with the reaches already protected, they sum to between 25 and 30 percent of river
miles within the ecosystem and compromise an agreed upon ratio of mainstem to