25b ‎(2)‎

• Board Meeting Date: 11/18/2007
• Description: IBCC Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

Bill Jerke: We're developing some projects right now like NISP and the Windy Gap
firming. NISP will carry some participants to 2015, others not that long.
Discussion of Basin Wide Water Needs Assessments
Eric Hecox gave an update on the consumptive and non-consumptive work groups, and provided
the group with several handouts. One handout contained an update of the needs assessment work
in each basin. A second pulled together how the IBCC has defined its role in both the Charter
and the "path forward" document. The work groups are geared towards helping Roundtables
complete their needs assessments based on a common technical platform. The consumptive
work group met for the first time on August lyt. The non-consumptive work group met earlier in
the summer, and developed a common process for Roundtables to use if they wish in developing
their needs assessment.
Jim Isgar•: How can we comment on what the working groups develop? Coming up with
a method to quantify non-consumptive flows could become a barrier to developing
further consumptive uses.
Eric Hecox: The substance for the non-consumptive group is in the hands of the
Roundtables. The information developed should stimulate the cooperative agreements
this process was intended to create, and is not intended to be used in a regulatory process.
How can we alleviate these concerns and still move forward?
Eric Kuhn: These issues would arise anyway. The work group process brings discussion
into the open. I think we're going too far to say what people can do with the information.
Chips Barry: We need a process with integrity that doesn't allow anyone to overstate
consumptive or non-consumptive need.
Jim Isgar•: At the beginning, Roundtables were directed to address these uses, and I never
heard demand for a statewide group. Not sure what a common technical platform is all
about. You compare this to a minimum stream flow program, but it sounds like it's about
getting more desirable flows. Is this because of what's going on at the state level?
John Por•tef°: How do you define a common technical platform?
Eric Hecox: I think we're creating a common technical platform by using the same
contractor across the basins, and using a common process. The Roundtables control the
substance, and our challenge is to keep it that way.
Sue Mor•ea (CDM): In the non-consumptive case, it is a fairly new technology. We're
using a statewide process to harness the expertise to develop methodologies to quantify
these flows a common way to quantify across the state. The Roundtables decide
priorities among the attributes they identify, whether they are specific reaches or specific
uses to protect.