C150227 approval ltr

• Contract/PO #: C150227
• Contractor Name: South Platte Ditch Company
• Contract Type: Grant
• Loan Projects - Doc Type: Approval Letter

CWCB 2005-2006 NON-REIlVIBURSABLE PROJECT APPLICATION
' Cover Letter 08/30/OS
South Platte Ditch Co., Johnson & Edwards Ditch Co. & Lower Platte & Beaver Canal
Co. Canal Modernization and Radio Telemetry Demonstration Project.
To the CWCB:
The applicants are three small independent ditch companies with aging infrastructures
and with shareholders who are trying to survive in the face of marginal returns for crops,
rapidly escalating water-related legal and engineering costs, and growing competition
from front range interests for continued use, and ownership, of our water assets. The
applicants are seeking an innovative means of stretching the value of limited water
supplies in an affordable manner.
The proposed demonstration project is an outgrowth of a limited scope pilot project in
which radio/control equipment supplied by IC Tech (formerly Control Design Inc) of
Albuquerque NN� was installed and field tested at the South Platte Ditch Company.
Cooperators in the pilot project included the Division One State Engineer's Office (Brent
Schantz, River Commissioner of Districts one and sixty-four); the Lower South Platte
Water Conservancy District; Reclamation's Water Resources Research Laboratory;
, Control Design Inc.; and the South Platte Ditch Company.
A field day was held August 10, 2005 at which performance observations of the
radio/control equipment were presented, and possibilities for e�ended use of the
equipment was discussed. Dr. John Wilkins-Wells of Colorado State University has
received funding from Reclamation's Science & Technology Program to undertake
activities to promote adoption of canal modernization technologies. He was instrumental
in assisting with setting up the field day event.
Wilkins-Wells outlined an effort he is working on to establish field demonstration
programs in cooperation with Colorado irrigation districts. He has received commitments
of $30,000 each from the Colorado River Water Users, the Lower Arkansas River
Conservancy District, and from Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District. With
this money and other funds that can be put with it, Wilkins-Wells is seeking to apply for
matching funds through Reclamation's Water 2025 Challenge Grant Program. The
funding would be used to establish four to five demonstration sites on the Eastern Slope
and four demonstration projeets on the Western Slope. A demonstration project that is an
outgrowth of the 2005 South Platte Ditch pilot proj ect will be one of the projects
Wilkins-Wells has indicated he will endorse.
Involvement of Reclamation's Water Resource Research Laboratory is in canjunction
with a goal of working with irrigation districts to develop a knowledge base of "what
works". Irrigation districts who have previously adopted canal modernization