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Water Supply Reserve Account – Grant and Loan Program <br />Water Activity Summary Sheet <br /> <br /> <br />Applicant: <br />Rio Grande Headwater Land Trust <br />Water Activity Name: <br /> Rio Grande Initiative <br />Amount Requested: <br /> $1,300,000 (Statewide Account) <br /> <br /> $200,000 (Basin Account) <br />Water Activity Purpose: <br /> Structural and/or nonstructural project or activity <br />County: <br /> Mineral, Rio Grande, Alamosa and Conejos <br />Drainage Basin: <br /> Rio Grande River <br />Water Source: <br /> Rio Grande River <br />Matching Funds <br />: <br />Federal: $1,000,000 <br />State: $75,000 <br />Local: $30,000 <br />Private: $367,500 <br />GOCO: $7,384,885 (Awarded Dec-2007) <br /> <br />Water Activity Summary: <br /> <br />The Rio Grande Initiativeis a collaborative, community-based effort to protect as much of the key private <br />lands and their senior surface water rights as possible, along the Rio Grande corridor in Colorado, through <br />voluntary, incentive based means. Conserving the historic water use patterns along the river through this <br />project is a key element of the Rio Grande Basin Round Table’s commitment to creating water sustainability <br />for their basin. <br /> <br />This application requests funding from the Water Supply Reserve Account (WSRA) Statewide and Rio <br />Grande Basin Accounts towards the purchase (through a willing-seller/willing-buyer process) of permanent <br />conservation easements on land and the associated senior surface water rights on the Rio Grande. In <br />preparation for this and other funding applications, the applicant is currently in negotiation with landowners <br />for parcels with highly important water rights that are critical to the long term viability of the SLV’s <br />agriculture, healthy wildlife habitat (including endangered species), functioning flood plain, and overall <br />water sustainability. <br /> <br />Prioritization Factors <br />The acquisition of development rights is prioritized at the parcel level according to five key conservation <br />criteria including: <br />? <br /> <br />Important and substantial senior water rights, <br />? <br /> <br />wildlife habitat, <br />? <br /> <br />adjacency to already protected lands, <br />? <br /> <br />agricultural productivity, <br />? <br /> <br />level of threat, and <br />? <br /> <br />landowner readiness. <br /> 1 <br />