NP minutes 03-25-08

• Basin Roundtable: North Platte
• Title: North Platte March 08 Minutes
• Date: 3/25/2008
• Basin Roundtables - Doc Type: Meeting Notices

North Platte Roundtable Meeting Minutes, 03.25.08 2
Upd~ite on Status of Applications for Water Supply Reserve Account Funding:
Carl T: CWCB considered both the New Pioneer Ditch and CNHI' project at their
March meeting. The New Pioneer Ditch project was approved with following
requirements:
The CWCB wants an update on the pilot project/demonstration project idea. How is that
going to be accomplished? The Roundtable needs to thii~lt about how to coordinate with
Silver Spur for tours of the project, etc.
Todd Doherty reported on the CNHI' project:
Todd D: The CWCB staff reconunendation was deiual of the wetlands grant. There
were concerns about the attached CSU administrative fee of approx. $60,000 in the
budget. Out of a 200,000 dollar project, seeing 30% go to administration fees seemed
exorbitant. Prior to the board meeting, they had conversations with CSU, the fees are
negotiable, but the applicant did not get those fees negotiated or updated in time for the
meeting. It is not the CWCB staff's role to negotiate these fees, as with any applicant
that has a contractor; it's the responsibility of the applicant to negotiate their own
contractor fees. The CWCB staff also had concerns about the scope of work, but those
weren't major. CWCB staff was communicating with Denise from CNHI' to tell her to
come to the board meeting and present her case...uiifortunately there was confusion over
this process, no one was present at the board meeting, so the project was deiced. The
board decided to go with the staff's recommendation. But there are other options:
1. Approach the IBCC/CWCB and waive some criteria (namely, the 60 day
requirement, and that the CWCB only evahiates statewide $ in March and Sept) to
fast-track the project. The next IBCC is meeting here in Walden on May 15.
Carl T: CWCB staff is willing to put this project back on the agenda. It's going to take a
request or an approval by the roundtable to get it back to the CWCB before September.
Todd D: the IBCC is always concerned about setting a precedent to waive requirements.
Kent C: It's going to be difficult to ask the IBCC to do this. A lot of projects have come
back, but they have come back within the right cycles and within the set deadlines.
2. Go to CWCB at the May meeting, just use approved basin funds to get the project
going for this field season, and then re-apply in September for statewide funding
3. Work with CWCB staff, work on scope as well as budget, get it ready for CWCB
September meeting, and lose this field season.
Barb V: doing option three makes the project too late because of our non-consumptive
needs assessment timeline (18 months from last December).
Kent C: it would not be deadly, that timeline is not set in stone, and we are still going to
do non-consumptive needs assessments, and we can still do assessments in 2009.
Barb V: money from the basin account could fund this field season possibly. She wants
to do option number one based on the conul7uiucation breakdown between the CWCB
and the CNHI'
Carl T: Denise's email is not clear proof of a breakdown of conunuiucation. Malting an
application for a grant it makes sense that you would want to be at the meeting anyway.
That is the applicant's responsibility, not the CWCB staffs.