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-25- facilities for a number of lower Arkansas River drainage districts located in Prowers, Bent, Otero and Crowley Counties. All inventory and mapping work has been completed for the the drain systems, and a number of field demonstration the sites have been cleaned using a jet cleaner. Additional jet cleaning and camera work to better document the conditions and demonstrate cleaning results is being completed this fall. A study advisory committee, including a number of landowners, has been meeting and providing study input over the past two years. Their work has included a study tour of awell-established irrigation district in Pasco, Washington, to view its drainage operation, maintenance practices, and record- keeping systems, as well as on-going consideration of possible institutional options for drainage district consolidation. The benefit-cost analysis of drainage system rehabilitation is being completed and the final report writing is underway. Final completion of the study is anticipated this winter. ARKANSAS RIVER COMPACT ADMINISRATION (ARCA): Staff is beginning to prepare for the 2007 ARCA Annual Meeting to be held in Lamar on Tuesday December 11, 2007. ARCA Committees will meet on the afternoon of Dec. 10, also in Lamar. The Board's new Director will need to be fortnally appointed to ARCA by the Governor and will be prepared for the role of lead of Colorado's ARCA representatives at a meeting of our representatives in Pueblo on Nov. 29, 2007. Amain focus for Colorado at this meeting will be to secure Kansas' cooperation in reviewing and approving aParks/DOW proposal to use LAWMA water sources for augmentation of the John Martin Reservoir permanent fishery pool. LOWER ARK SUES OVER AURORA DEAL: A Bureau of Reclamation contract with Aurora is allowing the growing suburban Denver community to take additional water from the Arkansas Valley, one of the poorest areas of the state, against federal laws and policy, a federal lawsuit claims. The Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District filed a lawsuit against Reclamation in Denver federal court saying the federal agency violated the National Environmental Protection Act and ignored its own policies in issuing along-term water storage and exchange contract to Aurora in September. It also challenges Reclamation's authority to issue contracts to water users outside the Arkansas River basin. "We felt compelled to do our job voters asked us to do when the district was formed in 2002 -protect the water in a basin where the water is already 200 percent overappropriated," said John Singletary, chairman of the district. The suit claims Reclamation's 40-year water storage contract of up to 10,000 acre-feet in Lake Pueblo and annual paper trades of 10,000 acre-feet will result in the export of 14,000 more acre-feet of water than would otherwise be possible. The contracts facilitate the dry-up of 7,000 acres in the Lower Arkansas Valley, with an estimated economic impact of about $4.3 million per year, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also makes the point that by exchanging Aurora's native flows for Fryingpan-Arkansas Project water, Reclamation is allowing the project to be used to export water outside project boundaries and the basin, contrary to the 1962 Fry-Ark act. Aurora will use the contract to move water gleaned from rights it bought in the 1980s and '90s in Crowley and Otero counties. The city also intends to lease and move agricultural water in future years through the Otero Pumping Station, which diverts from Twin Lakes, a Reclamation reservoir. The Lower Ark district also claims water-leasing programs it envisions within the basin will be harmed, that Reclamation does not have congressional approval for the contract, that a full environmental impact Flood Protection • Water Project Planning and Finance • Stream and Lake Protection Water Supply Protection • Conservation Plarming