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Ranch recharge ponds is accounted for in Task 56, along with evaporation from other water <br />bodies in the South Platte Basin. <br />Colorado State Park Service <br />Colorado State Parks operates several areas in the South Platte Basin. Chatfield State Park is the <br />only park that has diversion rights associated with it. A well was constructed in 2004 to pump <br />water through constructed wetlands (Chatfield Wetlands) on the south end of Chatfield <br />Reservoir. State Parks plans to estimate South Platte River depletions due to evapotranspiration <br />using free water evaporation from Chatfield Reservoir. At this time, however, State Parks has <br />not secured an augmentation source and there have not been recent diversions. <br />United States Fish and Wildlife Service <br />The USFWS manages a few wildlife refuges in the SPDSS study area. These are the Rocky Flats <br />Refuge, The Rocky Mountain Arsenal Refuge, the Black-Footed Ferret Refuge, and the Two <br />Ponds Refuge in Lakewood. These facilities do not manage their water resources for creation or <br />maintenance of wetlands of wildlife habitat. <br />National Park Service <br />The eastern extent of Rocky Mountain National Park is the only national park within the SPDSS <br />study area. The park does not divert for any wildlife or wetland purposes. <br />United States Department of Agriculture <br />The USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (MRCS) maintains the Wetlands Reserve <br />Program, by which landowners are subsidized by the government to retire their land from <br />agriculture and restore wetland areas. The program began in 1995 and took hold in the South <br />Platte River Basin in 1998. Under this program, farmers and landowners remain in ownership of <br />their diversion rights, but voluntarily retire their land from agricultural production with either a <br />30-year or a permanent conservation easement. The landowner verifies the change individually <br />with the State Engineer's Office (SEO). Approximately 75% of the lands that are under this <br />program are riparian and do not actively divert water. Of the 25% that do, the SEO requires that <br />the water pass through the property within 36 hours. According to the MRCS, the SEO does not <br />charge the landowner for additional evaporation that occurs from shallow flooded fields. <br />Therefore there are no augmentation plans in effect as a result of this program. <br />The Wetland Reserve Program website (http://www.co.nres.usda.gov/programs/wrp/wrp.htm) <br />lists 23 sites in the South Platte River Basin that are managed under this program, with a total <br />area of 6,700 acres. These numbers are out of date and are believed to be higher today, although <br />the department was unaware of the extent of increase. <br />As with the CDOW managed SWA's, the irrigated acreage of lands that are operated under this <br />federal program do not increase and the management of diverted water is recorded under the <br />ditch that diverts to the land. In addition, the seasonal variations in water use are similar to <br />SWA's. No specific action needs to be taken to account for retired agricultural lands under this <br />program, because changes in acreage are accounted for in the historical irrigated acreage <br />assessment. <br />Page 3 of 8 <br />