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The expected yield of the Compact Compliance Pipeline is approximately 15,000 acre- <br />feet per year, which should be adequate to ensure compact compliance for the 20-year <br />period of repayment of the CWCB loan. The North Fork Lease will reduce the <br />consumptive use charged by Colorado by approximately 2,500 acre-feet per year, which <br />will reduce the need to pump ground water from the Compact Compliance Pipeline, <br />thereby extending the life of the aquifer at the location where the wells for the Pipeline <br />project will pump. <br />2.2. Water Rights Included in the North Fork Lease <br />The water rights included in the North Fork Lease are listed on Table 1. The RRWCD <br />WAE leased these water rights in 2008, which demonstrated the feasibility of leasing <br />the water rights to reduce the consumptive use charged to Colorado under the <br />Republican River Compact Administration's accounting procedures. The analysis of <br />alternatives below discusses the benefit of the 20-year lease for compact compliance. <br />The preferred alternative is the North Fork Lease to supplement the Compact <br />Compliance Pipeline. <br />3.0 PROJECT DESCRIPTION <br />3.1. Purpose and Background of the North Fork Lease <br />The Final Settlement Stipulation entered into by the States of Kansas, Nebraska, and <br />Colorado in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Kansas v. Nebraska and Colorado in 2002 <br />provided for the dismissal of all claims for damages through December 2002, and all <br />three States agreed that compact accounting would be done based on a five-year <br />running average, beginning in 2003. The first five-year period ended at the end of 2007. <br />Colorado's beneficial consumptive use has exceeded its compact allocations in 2003 <br />through 2007 by approximately 10,500 acre-feet per year. Due to drought conditions in <br />1999-2002, it was anticipated that Colorado would exceed its Compact allocations in <br />2003 and 2004; however, it was expected that hydrologic conditions would then return <br />to average orabove-average conditions, which would bring Colorado close to <br />compliance with the Compact for a number of years. Eventually, because the RRCA <br />Groundwater Model indicated that ground water impacts from well pumping that <br />occurred decades ago will increase, it was expected that a Compact Compliance <br />Pipeline project would be necessary to offset calculated ground water impacts; <br />however, it was assumed that a pipeline project would not be needed for a number of <br />years, especially if precipitation returned to normal and programs to retire irrigated <br />acreage were implemented. The Compact Accounting for 2005 and 2006 therefore <br />came as a surprise and prompted action by the State Engineer and the RRWCD Board <br />of Directors. <br />The Colorado State Engineer proposed rules and regulations to curtail diversions within <br />a Curtailment Zone three miles from the North Fork of the Republican River, Chief <br />Creek, the Arikaree River, the South Fork of the Republican River, and Landsman <br />Creek beginning in 2009 if the State of Colorado is not in compliance with the Compact. <br />5 <br />