Re: Agenda Item 25 May 20-21, 2008 Board Meeting

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JOHN W. SUTHERS Attorney General CYNTHIA H. COFFMAN Chief Deputy Attorney General DANIEL D. DOMENICO Solicitor General STATE OF COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF LAW OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL May 8, 2008 STATE SERVICES BUILDING 1525 Sherman Street - 7th Floor Denver, Colorado 80203 Phone (303) 866 -4500 Request for Expenditure from Litigation Fund for Protection of Colorado's Allocations in the Arkansas River Dear Board Members: By this letter, I am requesting the expenditure of up to $150,000 from the Board's Litigation Fund under section 37- 60- 121(2.5)(a)(III), C.R.S. That section authorizes the Board to expend money from the Litigation Fund at the request of the Attorney General for the costs to defend and protect Colorado's allocations of water in interstate streams and rivers. I believe this expenditure is necessary to adequately defend, in negotiations or litigation, Colorado's allocations of the Arkansas River and to provide support in implementation of the expected decree in Kansas v. Colorado (No. 105, Original). The requested funds would be used in two contracts to be negotiated by CWCB staff with input from the Attorney General's office. Both contracts shall include terms regarding timeline and supervisory personnel that anticipate the possibility that the data and analysis will be offered into evidence in future Compact litigation. First, up to $100,000 would fund a contract with Colorado State University, led by Tim Gates and Luis Garcia, to continue monitoring conventional and improved irrigation technologies in the Lower Arkansas River Valley. This project began in 2004, funded by the CWCB, and was continued during the first part of the current irrigation season under funding from the DWR. The request herein would provide for data collection starting July 1, 2008 through the remainder of the current irrigation season. CSU will monitor irrigation timing, total water applied, crop evapotranspiration (ET), surface runoff, deep percolation, movement and accumulation of dissolved salts on irrigated fields, general soil characteristics, ground water table characteristics, crop yields, and more. The data will be used to assess the portion of irrigation diversions from the river consumed for beneficial use, as compared to the portion that returns to the river system via surface and ground water flows, as well as the portion that is non - beneficially consumed. This information will be used to analyze the varying efficiencies of existing irrigation application practices in the Lower Arkansas River Valley, and to understand how to mitigate impacts on flows within the Arkansas River so as to insure compliance with the Arkansas River Compact. The second proposed contract is with the Colorado Water Institute for tlp to $50,000 to draft a comprehensive Report on the data described above. The Institute would analyze the data collected by CSU from 2004 through the end of the current irrigation season, from both