C154204 Interagency Agreement - Laserfiche WebLink

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Atachment B-1 and replacing resources damaged in the Alamosa River watershed by the Summitville Mine project. Contingency 1. The described project will require an advance payment from the State to the submitting agency. The Trustees recommend that the State agency request a waiver of the State's Fiscal rule governing the use of advance payments in compliance with the requirements of G.R.S. 25-0203. 2. An evaluation process will be developed such that funding is allocated according to a process approved by the Trustee Council. That is, the In-stream Flow group has suggested dividing Phase I into Part A and Part B. They will present and report to the Trustee Council at the completion of Part A, and the Trustee Council will then evaluate progress and authorize expenditures for Part B. 3. It is the intention of the Trustee Council that the State's contract with the proponent will not be signed and initiated until the non-NRD matches are guaranteed by the funding entities. Matching funds for Part A must be approved before NRD funds will be made available for Part A. Matching funds for Part B must be approved before NRD funds will be made available for Part B. Alamosa River Watershed Restoration The proposal by the San Luis Valley Resource Conservation & Development Council is for a project valued at$1,083,800, which requests $500,000 in NRDA funds and includes $624,300 in matching funds. The Alamosa River Watershed Restoration Foundation is a volunteer group of nine local landowners that formed in 1995 in response to serious problems on the Alamosa River. These problems include: • Channel straightening in the 1970s by the Army Corps of Engineers; • Over-appropriation of water rights; • Metal and acid spills from the Summitville Mine Site, located in the San Juan Mountains upstream on the Alamosa River, which occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s, affecting downstream ecological features of the Alamosa River; and • And recently, severe drought conditions in 2002 and 2005. The following conditions have caused severe degradation of the river, and have impacted those who depend on it for their livelihood: • The local groundwater table dropped as a result of the channel straightening, affecting wells, wetlands, and plants; the river became unstable and eroded adjacent riparian and agricultural landscapes; • The riparian corridor was injured, including severe impacts to willows, thin-leaf alders, and cottonwoods, and total decimation of aquatic species historically found in the river; • Historic water diversions and their structural components were affected by the acid drainage, eating through pipes in one year's time; Appendix A Alamosa River Natural Resource Damage Recovery Fund Trustee Review Page 4 of 6 . .