|
<br />Mike - About 4.1 is as low as SWSI can get. With 20% of average, don't even want to think
<br />about it. Obviously, we need better than an average snowpack next year to return to what we were
<br />accustomed to for water supplies.
<br />
<br />Brad- Any more questions for Mike?
<br />
<br />Mike - I have one more slide. This is the streamflow forecast for May 1 st, again, exceptionally
<br />below, 0-25% of average, now it's forecast throughout the Lower Rio Grande, San Juan, Animas,
<br />Dolores, San Miguel, Lower Gunnison, Upper Gunnison, Grand Mesa, over Grey Creek.
<br />Headwaters of the South Platte, and lapping over the Front Range with the Big Thompson and St.
<br />Vrain Basins, the best conditions in the state, but still only slightly better than 50% of average in
<br />those basins. The remainder of the state, for the most part, 25-50% of average. And most ofthose
<br />forecasts are April through July or September. Any questions?
<br />
<br />_ - Did you make any correlations about 1955 and 1934 and 1931? Those were our worst
<br />years. How does this year compare to those three years?
<br />
<br />Mike - well, I haven't gotten into that. You've got a very different sample size and its kind of an
<br />odd comparison for those years compared to this year, our number of sites was very different, their
<br />locations were different, its hard to come up with an exact comparison, but this year, is very
<br />similar to '54 and I haven't even looked at the '30's yet.
<br />
<br />.. .(inaudible)...as an analogy was drawn to 1954, and you say its that bad, but we're
<br />down to that level, how does the demand side of the equation.. . (inaudible).
<br />
<br />Mike - It's like night and day. That's the thing that is.. .the big unknown is what demands will do
<br />this year. Similar to '77, but '77 had a wet summer, Paul, so that remains to be seen if we're
<br />going to have that.
<br />
<br />- And I think if you look at demand, certainly the impacts are felt by the population
<br />increase, but the amount of water being used is really still primarily ag water, so the impacts to the
<br />agricultural connunity are still huge. It took much less water in the '50's to handle a population
<br />than it does today, but the amount of water from the state's water supply is still 80% plus for
<br />agricultural use in the state, so even through the population has skyrocketed, the impact for
<br />populated areas is going to appear greater, you also have to bear in mind where the water is used
<br />within the state, and how that water is moved from one user to another.
<br />
<br />Mike - Good point.
<br />
<br />Brad - Next up is Jack Byers.
<br />
<br />Jack Byers - Techno change here. Of course while 1'm doing this, I wanted.. .my son's up in
<br />Montana, you know they've had some drought activity up there, and he was telling me that the
<br />bait shops up there were stocking in buckets, and that one of the reasons was they felt they were
<br />going to have better luck taking the bucketfuls of water down to the stream and saying here, fishy,
<br />fishy. I was told not to tell that joke, it wasn't funny enough, but I thought it was good anyway.
<br />
<br />11
<br />
|