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Water Supply Reserve Account - Grant Application Form <br />Form Revised May 2007 <br />Meeting Water Management Goals and Objectives and Identified Water Needs <br />i. The water activity helps complete a needs assessment, including consumptive and/or non-consumptive needs, that Avas <br />not fully funded from other sources. <br />• The Project helps implement the findings of the study prepared by the USBOR for the Colorado <br />Division of Water Resources in September 1994. This report presented several conceptual design <br />alternatives for replacing the diversion structure on the Conejos. Although the problems at this <br />bifurcation point and the need for this project have been recognized by the Water Commissioner of <br />District 22, by the Division Engineer's Office of the Colorado Division of Water Resources, by <br />hydraulic engineers at the USBR, and by the Conejos Water Conservancy District, there have been <br />no funds available to address the issues nor to mitigate or cure the deficiencies. <br />• Previous attention has focused on operational and maintenance issues. Since then MLI has <br />included goals to improve riparian habitat, to enliance and the fishery and related recreational <br />assets of the popular Conejos Carryon, and to ensure that critical habitat is preserved for the <br />southwest willow flycatcher, the bald eagle, and the yellow-billed cuckoo. <br />• MLI has added a revegetation initiative to augment the findings of previous studies, with follow-up <br />restoration elements and plantings of willow clumps at the site. As cottonwoods and willow <br />regenerate, this will enhance water quality and mitigate the effects of construction and activity at <br />the site. <br />Subsequent to previous studies, MLI has obtained assistance from NRCS to add main channel <br />stabilization measures using J-hook rock structures. <br />Although previous studies have brought the problems in this reach of the Conejos to the forefront <br />in terms of the potential for causing serious consequences, MLI has not had the funds to <br />implement any of the suggested alternatives. Funding requested in this proposal, when granted, <br />will finally <br />j. The water activity meets one or more of the nine water management objectives of the Statewide Water <br />Supply Mitiative (SWSI); helps implement projects and processes identified as helping meet Colorado's future <br />water needs, and/or addresses the gap areas between available water supply and future need as identified in the <br />SWSI or the Rio Grande Interbasin Roundtable's basin-wide water needs assessment done in accordance with <br />the Colorado Water for the 21 st Century act. <br />• The water activity meets the following water management objectives identified in the Statei ide Water Supply <br />Initiative (SWSI): <br />• It sustainably meets agricult ral demands by increasing the ability of irrigators to divert their appropriated water <br />right when they are in priority. <br />• It sustainably meets agricultural demands of 18,000 primary irrigated acres of farmland within MLI, <br />3,600 non-MLI acres, plus another 3,250 acres of the Richfield system which are outside the <br />boundaries of MLI but which occasionally divert water through this same structure and therefore <br />benefit from this project. <br />• It provides for enviromnental enhancements to fish habitat by reducing sediment load and woody debris. <br />• It provides operational flexibility by reducing the problems of high sediment loading of diversion structures, <br />11