Colorado May 2006 minutes

• Basin Roundtable: Colorado
• Title: Minutes
• Date: 5/22/2006
• Basin Roundtables - Doc Type: Minutes

Jason Crow: County Commissioners will be under tremendous pressure to increase density with
increasing real estate values. Zoning rules are open to change in the future. Ken Ransford: One
solution to maintaining existing density is to encumber lands with conservation easements.

People representing Pitkin County at CRT Meeting:

Rose Ann Sullivan
Phil Overeynder

10. Tree Ring Study - Lurline Underbrink-Curran

From 1300 to the 1500s tree rings showed drought patterns. Look at this when making forecasts
for 30-40 years out. Denver Water is at the forefront of this. They reconstructed the 500-year
flow on Platte River and Colorado River at Kremmling based on tree ring studies. The 1950s
drought was significant, but there have been more significant droughts.

Bill Bates: Good correlation between tree rings and stream gauge information in the last 100
years. The average in dry years correlate well. There is not as good a correlation in wet years,
but this is not as significant because there are fewer wet years. Stream gauges go back about 100
years. This may not be representative of all time.

2006

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r2 (correlation coefficient) between tree ring and stream gauge data is good

1906

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Extend to this period

1500 Decide if 1906 through 2006 is representative of prior 500 years

Mark Pfifer: Problem is that global warming may affect future water availability.

11. Baseline Discussion: Should we prepare a baseline study:

Louis Meyer:

Consumptive
Non-consumptive
Water availability
Education

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Four April subgroups all talked about the
importance of developing baseline data.

There is no GIS map or study that quantifies all of the baseline data. Example: GIS map of
entire Colorado - main stream and tributaries with river flow data of high, medium and low
years, where major diversions are and where major agricultural uses are.

L\CWCB Imaging\Caleb\Minutes\Colorado\2006\Colorado May 2006 minutes.doc

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