27 ‎(2)‎

• Board Meeting Date: 1/23/2008
• Description: Director's Report - CWCB Director
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

A bill for the Fry-Ark Project enlargements is still possible, but is not ready at this point.
FRY-ARK MANAGER READY TO STEP DOWN: Tom Musgrove, the Bureau of
Reclamation's facilities manager for the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, is retiring this month. The
Southeastern Colorado Water Consen~ation District board honored Musgrove with a resolution
recognizing his years of service to the project.
Musgrove's successor will be Roy `'aughn, who has spent the past two years training for the task.
FARM EFFICIENCY RULES DRAFTED: New rules that would limit agricultural diversions
under improvements made after 1999 are being proposed by the Colorado Division of Water Resources.
The rules are aimed at preventing water shortages in deliveries of the Arkansas River to Kansas under the
1949 Arkansas River Compact. The state is close to settling a 21-year fight in the U.S. Supreme Court
over the river, but has concerns that agricultural practices such as sprinklers, drip irrigation and canal
lining could lead to a new round of fights.
Draft rules are now available from the Division 2 office and public meetings to discuss the rules will
begin in January.
Efficiency in agriculture could reduce labor costs and could have water quality benefits, but the state is
most concerned about the reduction of return flows.
The rules would apply only to physical changes in water systems, not other methods like altered cropping
patterns, irrigation scheduling, cultivation or maintenance. The rules would not apply to wells, which are
already regulated by rules to augment flows in the river. The rules also would only apply to the Arkansas
River basin.
While furrow irrigation uses about 50 percent of the water applied to land, sprinklers are 75 percent
efficient and drip systems close to 100 percent. As that efficiency increases, the amount of water that runs
back to the river is less, leaving less water for downstream users, whether they are in Colorado or Kansas,
Witte said.
The rules would go back to 1999, because a thorough assessment of irrigation patterns was made then in
relation to the Supreme Court case.
WATER BOARD OKs PACT WITH AURORA: An agreement that formalizes the operation of
the Busk-Ivanhoe system has been reached between the Pueblo Board of Water Works and Aurora.
Pueblo purchased half of the Busk-Ivanhoe system from the High Line Canal in 1971, while Aurora
bought most of the remaining shares in 1988. The system collects water from three ditches, bringing it
into Ivanhoe Lake, located at 11,500 feet elevation on the Western Slope.
The system provides an average of more than 5,000 acre-feet annually (roughly 2,500 acre-feet to each
partner) and costs about $130,000 to operate, mostly to pay caretakers who live at Ivanhoe Lake from
April to October to maintain the system. Another $1 million in improvements are planned in the next
three years to improve living quarters, make some dam repairs and build a shop.
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