|
<br />Brad - Thursday the 20th at 1 :30. Going once, going twice? Sold. Here or up _?_'
<br />
<br />- I will check to see if it's available.
<br />
<br />Larry - Really, the sound in this room is not good. I don't know what the rest of the people
<br />think. . . we need to do some improvements on this room. We need to do something.
<br />
<br />- You want me to see ifI can get either C6 or Building 11 at Camp George?
<br />
<br />Brad - Yes, why don't we do that? Tell you what, I will send out an e-mail as soon as we have the
<br />room, but let's at least do June 20th at 1 :30. OK, let's hear Agriculture.. .Bob?
<br />
<br />Bob - As I think all of your know, prior to April 30th the Governor had already requested an
<br />agriculture disaster designation for the entire state. That request was in the form of a letter to the
<br />Secretary of Agriculture and we have not yet had a response to that specific request but we're
<br />anticipating that it should be within the next week or two. And we're fairly confident that it will
<br />be granted. IN addition to that, our task force did reconnend that the Governor also requested
<br />from Secretary Benneman the ability to hay and graze CRT lands in the state. That is a separate,
<br />would require separate action. Yesterday, the Secretary did allow grazing of CRT lands in Baca,
<br />Bent, Cheyenne, Dolores, Huerfano, Kiowa, La Plata, Las Animas, Montezuma, Prowers, San
<br />Miguel, and Pueblo Counties. But it was done specifically just for those counties rather than on a
<br />statewide basis. One of the most significant indicators of drought, one of the most measurable
<br />early on, is that of a winter wheat crop, because it's the first crop down the line. And on April 30th
<br />our estimate was the economic loss to the state from the loss of the wheat crop was at about $42
<br />million, today its been revised somewhere over $70 million, and it continues to deteriorate on a
<br />daily basis because of the extremely dry conditions. Forage for livestock, of course, is very, very
<br />stressed, we have a number of ranchers that are faced at this time of liquidating their herds for the
<br />lack of feed, and I personally was on a trip on the San Luis Valley and also Southern Colorado just
<br />within the last few days, and it clearly is the worst I have ever seen it, it just looks like a brown
<br />carpet out there. So conditions for agriculture are not good, and we know from an irrigation
<br />standpoint, there's going to be major shortages of water, it will be hitting, I think, very, very
<br />shortly, where irrigation water will not be available to those that normally irrigate. All in all, I
<br />don't have a lot of good news to tell you. But that is not important.
<br />
<br />Brad - Any questions? OK, let's move over to Energy, to Energy loss, Joe?
<br />
<br />Joe_ - The utilities don't envision any risk this year to hydropower provisions, even as it all
<br />went out they can run around it. There is adequate rights to cooling water for conventional plants,
<br />cooling water and cooling flows, so the major focus of our concerns are fire risk around
<br />transmission lines. They're comfortable in the aggregate, one transmission line could go out
<br />without any material disruption n the state's power, start losing two or more and there could be
<br />serious problems. In many of the. . .
<br />
<br />- Let me add to that, the fire injectors. The fire is at one of the power lines from Denver
<br />to Leadville, and power has been re- routed so that line is not in operation at this time.
<br />
<br />30
<br />
|