30 ‎(3)‎

• Board Meeting Date: 5/21/2008
• Description: IWMD Section - Presentation of Agricultural Water Conservation Paper
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

design tra~tsfer pro~~rams." ;emphasis added} Dram this statcn~ient. and from the language
in Scnat~ 13111 t)7-i?'. it is clear that the Le«isiati~•e intent yeas tc~ de~c:k~p ne«•
information relati~~t tr, p;~tential innot•~tti~-~: aeri~ultural in-i~~~~stio~l methd~sds that ti.•auld
facilitate agricultural t~~at~;r transfers ~rithout causin~~ irrel.ar~lble harm to rural economies
the ~~•a}' traditional "lau~ and dr<-" practices could. if implemented on a ~•erv large scale.
as predicted ma}- be necessar}~ by the States;~ide Water Suppl}= Initiatiti•e (S1VSl j stud}'.
I=urthetmore. the intent «as to conduct the studies in a wa<< that would be defensible in
11'ater Coup and administrable by the State Engineer. ]t ~•as also the intent to make the
studies funded by the grant monies "usable and transferable" so that monies ~t°ere not
spent to develop a local project that would not have an}• applicability "to other users and
other areas of the state.'' E~jhile these factors are clean;- in the Legislative intent and in
the outline tar how grant application tivould be evaluated, these factors ~c~ere not only not
considered by CWCB staff in the revie~;• of the PWSD application, the fact that PWSU
adhered to these principles in its application «°as used as reasoning for recommending
denial of our application. ~l`e totally fail to comprehend the logic used by staff in
conducting the evaluation of the P1~'SD grant application at~d believe that this project is
critical to the future of providing necessary water supplies to urban areas while
preserving rural economies in a ~~=ay that no other project in this competitive grant
pro~~ram can. or is tr}•ing to. accomplish.
In addition. PWSD provided input to the committee that assisted with the drafting
of the guidelines for the grant applications and, as such. ~~=e believe that «=e adhered to
these criteria as discussed in those meetings. One of the key strategies discussed in these
meetings was that the projects needed #o have wide applicability beyond the study being
funded. PR'SD and Colorado State have worked very diligently to make sure that is the
case. However, staff has apparently decided that very specific studies need to be designed
and Pt'4'SD has been criticized for taking too broad an approach. We ~;711 address each of
the staff s issues in the following sections, providing information wh}> staff s conclusions
are wrong.
There is no matching contribution by PR~SD in this application. P«TSD
initiated this study partially as a direct result of the conclusions from the S~VSI study,
which indicates that hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land may need to be
t~~tken out of production to serve future municipal and industrial demands along the Front
Range. 1 personally met filth Dr. Larry Penley, the President of Colorado State, to
etiplore ways that the fatal dry-up of hundreds of thousands of acres of irrigated land
would not have to occur to satisfi= the Front Range's ~~~ater needs. The result of that initial
discussion ~~~as the genesis of this project. PWSD has no~~° spent over X490,000 of its o«•n
money (a 40°1o match, page 13 of the appticationj in developing and promoting this
project to see if there are "gays to achieve the goals the Legislature subsequently set in
Senate Bill 07-122. In addition. as described in the grant application, PWSD is going to
be expending significant sums of money to develop the necessar• means to take the data
generated by Colorado State and use it in a way that «•ill support a change of use
proceedin~l in Water Court (see pages 6 and 12 of the application}, ~~•hich could also be
considered matching funds. By considering that the initiative taken by PLVSD and the
state's premier agricultural university is «•orthless in this process, stag is trying to quash