Minutes May 2008 CBRT

• Basin Roundtable: Colorado
• Title: Colorado Minutes 5/08
• Date: 5/19/2008
• Basin Roundtables - Doc Type: Minutes

287,000-459,000 AF 100% Total expected conservation savings
Interruptible Supply Agreements (ISA) and Rotational Fallowing Arrangements (RFA)
offer the greatest potential agricultural savings. Statewide, agriculture consumes 85% of
the states water supplies. There are 1.6 nullion irrigated acres on the East Slope, and
880,000 irrigated acres on the West Slope. Western Slope agriculture traditionally uses
more water per acre than the Eastern Slope. Most West Slope irrigation rights have
priorities that are senior to the 1922 Colorado River compact.
4. If Colorado does not approve additional transbasin diversions to the Front Range, the gap
will just get larger. Sununit County Conunissioner Tom Long commented that Denver's
legal requirement to reuse transbasin diversions to extinction must be met before
additional transbasin diversions should occur.
Colorado needs to adopt a common methodology to quantify river flows. Site specific
studies are very expensive and time consuming. It will be problematic for Roundtables to
decide where to do quantification studies, and there will be a tradeoff between whether to
preserve river flows for particular uses such as fishing or rafting vs. leaving amounts in
every stream to meet critical flow levels. (See the April Roundtable minutes for a
discussion of critical flow levels on the Colorado River and Muddy Creels by Grand
County consultants Peggy Bailey, P.E., and Thomas A. Wesche, PhD.)
6. We have no facts to backup the Yampa pumpback or the Flaming Gorge pumpback, just
opinions about whether or not to do them.
7. We will never have all the information we need to make decisions; there will always be
uncertainty.
Rick Brown agreed with Aspen Water Engineer Plul Overeynder's comment that East
and West Slope cooperation will improve if there is a referee who can manage the
negotiations, and if both sides adopt a list of best practices such as:
a. Reuse water to extinction.
b. Coordinate releases and diversions to maintain critical flows or to optimize flows for
rafting and recreation whenever possible.
c. Take the time reasonably necessary to collect information about rivers and then freely
share that information before making decisions that have long term effects on rivers.
d. Conserve water whenever feasible.
16. Stan Cazier mentioned that the CWCB is working on a proposal to revise Rule 8(e), the
definition of Instream Flow.
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