South Platte - Parker W&SD_LSP IrrigationResearch&Demo_Application_Nov2008

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Alternative Agricultural Water Transfer Methods -Grant Application Form January 2008 The proposed 4-year project scope has been developed by CSU personnel and will be implemented by many of the agriculture-related departments at CSU. While CSU is conducting the research into innovative limited crop irrigation techniques, the overall focus of the study is to develop a practical and administrable process that will allow historic consumptive use water to be transferred from agriculture to municipal and industrial use. The detailed scope of work is presented in Section 6 of this application. The key CSU personnel involved in this project are shown in Exhibit B, attached. Mr. Frank Jaeger, District Manager at PWSD, will be the overall project manager and Mr. Bruce Lytle of Lytle Water Solutions will serve as the project liaison, coordinating water rights issues associated with the proposed research. To gain input from the local community, CSU has also set up an Advisory Committee to assist the project. The Advisory Committee has met three times to date and is scheduled to meet periodically throughout the course of the project to provide input to the project. The Advisory Committee includes local farmers, local businessmen, and representatives from the Division 1 Engineer's Office in Greeley and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District. The Advisory Committee members are shown in the attached Exhibit C. One phase of the project will include controlled research by CSU on a farm in Logan County that is owned by PWSD. Various crops will be planted by CSU and these plots will be irrigated in different patterns to assess the crop's ability to thrive under varying irrigation practices, e.g., irrigating alfalfa prior to its first cutting, letting it grow without irrigation through the second cutting, and then irrigating it again prior to the third cutting. In this way, CSU will develop a data base on the most efficient irrigation practices for various crops where the crop can still thrive under a lower irrigation volume. The difference between the reduced irrigation volume and the historic irrigation volume related to consumptive use could then be made available for transfer to PWSD for municipal use. The challenge to this research is to develop the means to quantify the water savings, as it will not be as easily quantifiable as with a "buy and dry" concept. Phase 4 of this scope of work is specifically designed to address how to quantify partial consumptive use water savings when the land continues to be irrigated by testing the reliability of using or modifying established methods of computing consumptive water use to document water saved with innovative irrigation approaches. In addition, a series of ground water monitoring wells has been developed around the research farms to better understand ground water levels and the potential for sub-irrigation. The participation of the Division 1 Engineer's Office in the process is going to be critical to answering the necessary questions regarding the quantification of consumptive use that will be removed from the land while the land is still being irrigated. The Division 1 office has reviewed the proposed scope of work for Phase 4 and believes that it warrants investigation relative to whether partial consumptive use savings can be quantified by this methodology. Mr. Lytle will be involved in this process to assure that the work being conducted by CSU will be workable in a change of water rights proceeding. Since adoption of a consumptive use quantification process to allow innovative crop irrigation management is paramount in the overall success of the study, CSU has proposed adding Phase 4 to its scope of work, which includes research and analysis in the field of remote sensing to quantify consumptive use water savings. The remote sensing of ET work is currently being conducted in the South Platte and the Arkansas River Basin in Colorado as well as the Palo Verde Irrigation District in California. This work will allow CSU to compare the remote sensing of ET values that reflect "actual" conditions versus the traditionally-calculated ET values (such as those computed from Penman Monteith, ASCE Combination Equation or Blaney-Criddle). By working with data from both the South Platte and Arkansas River basins, and working with the SEO through the Advisory Committee, the process may have statewide applicability for change of use proceedings. While the controlled research will develop an extensive data base on efficient irrigation practices and corresponding consumptive use savings, it also has to be shown that these applications can be implemented by farmers in the real world on a farm-scale basis. Therefore, there are also three on-farm demonstrations at PWSD's other farms in Logan County, where farmers will manage water savings approaches within the context of their own farming system and with guidance from CSU. In this way, CSU will receive valuable input and feedback 6