09d

• Board Meeting Date: 3/18/2008
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

Environmentalists, the outfitting industry and local communities have put a higher premium on "in-stream
flows" in waterways that are sometimes depleted by the demands of agriculture and other uses.
TAMARISK CONTROL UPDATE -Work has begun on four small control projects in the
Colorado, McElmo, Purgtoire and Arkansas watersheds in part funded by CWCB "mini-grants" of $5000
each from this year's allocation of severance tax funds. The Tamarisk Coalition is providing planning
and monitoring services to local watershed groups with the $60,000 balance of those funds. We have
initiated new planning efforts with groups representing the S. Platte and Republican watersheds at the
request of the South Platte Basin Round Table. The MOU between the seven Colorado River Basin
States to use best efforts to promote tamarisk control activities and which the Board authorized the
Director to sign at the January 2008 meeting has been reviewed and cleared by our Attorney General and
is ready for signature as soon as the other states complete similar reviews. We are also prepared to enter
into Amendment 1 to fund specific planning activities in the basin in which Colorado will receive credit
as in-kind services for the planning work we have already funded in the basin.
ARKANSAS RIVER BASIN
CANON CITY WHITEWATER PARK -Canon City and the CWCB staff have completed an
agreement whereby the CWCB will be providing financial support for the design and construction of a
whitewater park by Canon City. Canon City has agreed to not file for an RICD water right, or
alternatively, Canon City would apply for a water right that would not exceed the flows already protected
currently by the Chaffee County RICD water right, Canon City and Chaffee County may sign a
Memorandum of Agreement to work together to support recreational flows throughout this area.
CITY, DISTRICT DIFFERS ON PIPELINE PATH -With the release of a draft environmental
impact statement on the Southern Delivery System expected by the end of the month, Colorado Springs
officials gave an update on the water project Wednesday.
The district has been wrestling with Colorado Springs over the project since early 2005, when it began
negotiating with potential partners in the Preferred Storage Options Plan. After about one year, those
negotiations tapered into intense one-on-one bargaining that helped push Colorado Springs to form a
stormwater utility and led to a cooperative effort on Fountain Creek.
Lower Ark's point man in those negotiations, Chairman John Singletary, said it has been hard to come to
the table in recent months without knowing what the final project will look like. He said an alternative in
the Bureau of Reclamation's environmental study that calls for a river intake east of the Fountain Creek
confluence would be the most valuable for the Lower Ark district.
Reclamation is studying seven alternatives, including the proposed action. Two of the alternatives look at
a pipeline through Fremont County, while the other five mainly affect Pueblo County.
Colorado Springs is appealing a ruling by Pueblo Chief District Judge Dennis Maes that the project is
subject to Pueblo County's 1041 regulations.
If it gains the needed permits, Colorado Springs could have the pipeline built by 2012.
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