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The Pueblo Chieftain Online <br />Page 2of3 <br />seeks expanded reservoir storage for not only Aurora, but Colorado Springs, <br />the Pueblo Board of Water Works and the conservancy district, among a few <br />others. <br />Critics of these complex arrangements have said Pueblo could have done better <br />- ensuring far more water for a kayak course - if the city had held out for <br />Colorado Springs to build its proposed pipeline below the confluence of the <br />Arkansas River and Fountain Creek, rather than west of town. <br />In that way, the 75,000 acre -feet of water would continue to flow through the <br />city. Instead, the plan is to take the water in the vicinity of Pueblo's main <br />treatment plant, thus depriving the river of flows needed to sustain the <br />proposed kayak course. <br />By two 4 -3 votes last spring, Pueblo City Council opted for agreements by <br />which Colorado Springs, Aurora and the Pueblo Board of Water Works would <br />forgo 7,000 to 15,000 acre -feet of water, not 75,000 acre -feet, a year to <br />maintain the flows here. <br />Anne Castle, a Denver lawyer retained as special water counsel, said she <br />advised the city of Pueblo to go with the intergovernmental agreement over <br />trying to persuade the Bureau of Reclamation to move Colorado Springs' <br />proposed pipeline to a point east of the city. <br />"The city of Pueblo doesn't have a water rights injury as a result of the <br />Southern Delivery System. So there was not water case litigation available to <br />Pueblo to fight SDS," Castle contended. <br />"The Bureau of Reclamation doesn't have the power to require Colorado Springs <br />to subordinate their water rights to Pueblo or anyone else. It's my belief and <br />the belief of the majority of the City Council that the mitigation (recreational <br />flows) could not be achieved by any other method," she said. <br />The lawyer also predicted that the city would save time and money by settling <br />with the other entities who opposed Pueblo's court application for a recreational <br />in- channel diversion water right. <br />The city has spent $650,000 on legal and engineering costs associated with the <br />recreational kayak course, according to Assistant City Attorney Tom Florczak. It <br />has approved yet another $150,000 to bring the court case to a conclusion. <br />But there's no guarantee the case will end any time soon. <br />Colorado Springs technically remains an objector, despite its public posture to <br />the contrary, "to ensure that the substantive terms of the stipulation are <br />included in any decree entered in this case." <br />http : / /www.chieftain.com/print.php ?article= /metro/1093633446/5 8/27/2004 <br />