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. Colorado Water Conservation Board Department of Natural Resources 721 Centennial Building , 31 3 Sherman Street Denver, Colorado 80203 Phone: 1303) 866,3441 FA)(: 13031 866-4474 t)TATE OF COLORADO -:: . " , ., MEMORANDUM Bill Owens Governor TO: Colorado Water Conservation Board Members Peter Evans, Acting Director?h ~ - ~ Randy Seaholm, Interstate Steams Investigations Section Chief Greg E. Walcher Executive Director, DNR FROM: Peter H. Evans Acting Director. ewes DATE: 19 January, 1999 RE: Agenda Item 17b, January 27-28, 1999 Board Meeting-- Rio Grande Decision Support System - Progress Report . RGDSS Project Manager Issue At our November 1998 meeting, the Board decided to include recommendations in the 1999 Construction Fund Bill that will provide the remaining funds necessary for development of the RGDSS and to provide funding and FTE authorization for the necessary staff support during fiscal year 1999-2000. With respect to the staff requirements, we agreed that I FTE would be allocated to our office for the project manager, and that 1.5 FTE would be allocated to the State Engineer's Office to expedite the cross-referencing of water rights and well permits, Since that decision, Hal has raised concerns that his integrity as a witness in future litigation may be compromised ifhe does not directly supervise the RGDSS project manager. This is a concern we did not discuss prior to the November 1998 decision, so we have examined it with the Attorney General's staff. After discussing this concern with Wendy Weiss, Jennifer Gimbel, and Steve Sims (the new First Assistant Attorney General for the water section) we concluded that there is a significant basis for Hal's concern, . Therefore, we propose that 1) the RGDSS Project Manager will work in our offices and be supervised by Randy Seaholm, 2) our RGDSS management team will continue to include both CWCB and State Engineer's staff, and 3) any significant concerns regarding the data to be used or the calculations and assumptions to be applied will be reviewed by the State Engineer, the CWCB Director, and the appropriate attorney from the AG's office, In the event that we are unable to come to agreement on the most appropriate resolution of these concerns, the State Engineer will have the deciding vote. In order to make this perfectly clear, and to provide maximum clarification in the event that the State Engineer is called to provide testimony in litigation, we can develop an agreement covering this and other management aspects of the RGDSS initiative, This should allow us to continue to increase the CWCB's capacity as a strong partner in the L:\BOARDMEM\Jan 99\17b,doc 01/19/99 - 1