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Rep. Kathleen Curry commented that she views the state as a critical player, and expressed <br />concern about differences between the way the State Engineer’s Office deals with administration <br />on other river basins where Colorado has compacts with adjacent states, and the way that options <br />on the Colorado River have been presented. Eric Hecox said that his office would continue to <br />foster venues for Roundtables to engage in di alogue with each other. Chips B a rry expressed <br />interest in hearing from Eric about appropriate timing of a meeting between the Metro <br />Roundtable and any west slope Roundtable. Eric added that the South Platte has already <br />requested a joint meeting with the Yampa/White, and more may be in the works. <br /> <br />Water Supply Reserve Account – IBCC/CW CB Joint Work Group <br /> <br />Rick Brown reported that applications for funding from the Water Suppl y Reserve Account have <br />improved as the process has matured and people have become more familiar with the <br />requirements. He expressed thanks to IBCC members for their efforts to brief applicants on the <br />criteria and guidelines. Rick presented a packet that outlines some suggested changes to the <br />criteria and guidelines which will be revi ewed later this year by the Joint Work Group, and asked <br />for input. <br /> <br />Rick raised two issues for discussion – the rates used to calculate project budgets, especially for <br />grant requests, and the Roundtable’s role in filtering projects before sending them to t he CWCB. <br />He expressed concern that when asking for grant funds, applicants are not doing due diligence to <br />ensure that the rates used to estimate costs are reasonable and comparable with rates charged by <br />other providers of similar services – in some cases the rates are high, and the overhead higher <br />may be much higher than necessary. Rick also asked if Roundtable members are having <br />difficulty refusing to fund grants that may be submitted by neighbors, and may be quietly hoping <br />Rick will filter and make deci sions on which projects are funded. He wanted to clarify that <br />deciding what does and does not get funded is not his role. <br /> <br />With less money allocated to the Water Supply Reserve Account in the last legislative session <br />than had originally been anticipated, one of the roles of the Joint Work Group will be to provide <br />guidance on how the funds should be divided between basin accounts and the statewide account. <br />To date, Roundtables have used $744,000 in basin funds. Rick raised interpretation of threshold <br />crit eria number two, which echoes the water rights protection clause of HB 05 - 1177, as another <br />issue for work group and possible IBCC and CWCB discussion. He also asked for the group to <br />review and confirm membership in the working group. <br /> <br />Discussion with the IBCC: <br /> <br />Jenny Russell: I feel like I am often one of the only ones on our Roundtable that may <br />question applications openly – I know that others have questions, but they do not feel <br />able to express them openly. I am often concerned about projects that spen d a large <br />amount of money to benefit a small number of people. It is one of the dynamics of this <br />type of grassroots, consensus process – neighbors have difficulty rejecting the application <br />of another neighbor. If requirements included in the criteria and guidelines filtered out <br />weak proposals, it would be helpful. <br /> <br /> 13 <br />