RGBRT Minutes of 10-9-06 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

premise. With that premise, he argues t hat the projects for RT, at least initially, should be solutions to sustainability — ex - river rest oration may not be THE most important issue facing our basin today — Ray made a distinction between projects we may want to look at today for funding today fro m HB 179 funds which provides for a separate needs assessment so that in 12 months we may have a w ell - developed analysis of that -- For now — wants to discuss the issue of sustainability as most critical issue facing us today. At meeting on 10 - 5, we looked at that question — see report (attached to minutes) . All were and are welcome to participate! Group is presenting these items to the RT for consideration — may be data gaps, may be questions, but all aspects were considered in the context of sustainability — N eed to have discussion and see if we have consensus on this — may decide that storage is most critical and go after $ for that — not exc luding specific projects but try ing to put them into context — wants input – remember that this is limited funding Ed — agrees t hat sustainability is biggest issue — believes that storage and recharge are secondary to sub - districts and important that must on track as fast as posisble Mel — agrees that sustainability is biggest issue - all other issues are dependent upon how much water we have — should be first focus to work on projects addressing sustainability Ralph — with his “tunnel vision” of last few years, all depends upon fixing the sustainability and supporting sub districts to fast track their implementation - Ray - everyone needs to keep in mind that it’s been 11 years since SLV was “full up” — E lephant Butte spilling, wells flowing, return flows, and compact getting through — no t that long ago — the Valley function s really well when it’s full!!! Only way to “rebuild a bank account is t o live below means for a while! ” How to do so without wrecking entire economy i s a huge challenge — Beauty of our situation is: IT CAN BE FIXED — issues with return flows, compacts, wetlands, stock water, wildlife, are all fixable only by moderation — not about recharge but about reducing consumption Mel — agrees with Ray — and yet another side — also about how much water we can keep and still comply with Compact — involves maximizing storage capacity too Doug S. – thinks next presentation on sub - districts will be help ful Fred B. – additional issue - where new developments going in are all upstream of RG gauge in Del Norte — so a conflict between where new urbanization is and Compact obligations Page 4 of 13 RGBRT Minutes October 9 , 2006