BOARD00034

• Board Meeting Date: 5/23/2005
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

NRLC Conference: The Natural Resources Law Center will be holding its 26th Annual .
Summer Conference June 8-10 at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The Conference, .
entitled "Hard Times on the Colorado River: Drought, Growth and the Future of the Compact",
will highlight legal, policy and management issues relating to the long-term future of the
Colorado River. Topics to be discussed will include the Law of the River, availability ofthe
system to meet delivery and hydropower obligations, potential impacts of shortages to water
users and the enviromnent, and solutions for future management. We are sponsoring this year's
conference.

Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program Launched: On April 4, the
Interior Department and Lower Colorado Basin leaders met at Hoover Dam to launch a 50-year
conservation initiative that provides more than $626 million in federal and local funding to
protect fish and wildlife along 400 miles of the lower Colorado River, while meeting the needs
of farmers, tribes, industries and urban resident who relay on the river for water and power
supplies. The regional partnership includes six state agencies, six tribes, 36 cites and water and
power authorities, and six federal agencies. Public interest groups also participate. Known as
the Lower Colorado River Multi-SpeCies Conservation Program, the conservation plan is
designed to benefit at least 26 species. The partnership will restore a range of habitats along the
lower Colorado River, including 8,132 acres of riparian, marsh and backwater habitat for six
federally-protected species and at lest 20 other species that are native to the river.

Coordinated Reservoir Operations - Peaking River Flows for Endangered Fish Not
Feasible This Spring: A voluntary river flow program to provide enhanced spring peak flows
for endangered fish is not feasible this year because owners and operators of Upper Colorado
River Basin reservoirs above Palisade, Colorado, must capture all available incoming river flows
to rebuild storage that has decreased significantly during the last several years of prolonged
drought.

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.- ".' .:.
The Coordinated Reservoir Operations Program (CROPS) was established in 1995 as p(lrt onhe
Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program (Recovery Program). CROPS
coordinates the managed bypass of storable inflows that are projected to spill from major
Colorado reservoirs, which include Granby, Dillon, Green Mountain, Wolford, Williams Fork
and Ruedi. The purpose of CROPS is to enhance spring peak flows to the Colorado River,
without causing flooding, to improve habitat and facilitate spawning oftwo endangered fish
species -- the Colorado pikeminnow and the razorback sucker.

While this year's early snowpack was near average, or in select portions of the basin slightly
better than average, the dry warm winds in early April decreased the snowpack and runoff
forecast projections to the point that most reservoirs will either just fill or come up slightly short
of full. The recent sustained drought has resulted in the augmentation of spring peak flows
during only three of the last 10 years since CROPS was implemented.

CROPS members include the Colorado River Water Conservation District, Denver Water, the
cities of Aurora and Colorado Springs, Recovery Program, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
National Weather Service, Colorado Water Conservation Board, Colorado Division of Wildlife
and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

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