BOARD00191

• Board Meeting Date: 3/21/2002
• Description: WSP Section - Agricultural Water Policy Discussion
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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DRAFT

1 don't dry fanns, we need more storage. The Colorado infrastructure plan that CWCB is .
2 working on is going to evolve from meetings aro-(md the state and provide a better
3 statewide integrated plan for our future than we've had till now, and its going to be based
4 on developing additional storage, There are some places we can get additional yield,
5 some places you'll need more storage, There arel good things on the horizon, as we think
6 about water and Agriculture, There are some positive things going on in the Legislature,
7 This year there's legislation along the lines of the old Basin of Origin concepts of the
8 80's, generally the idea is that if you're going to take water from a basin, you're going to
9 have to provide mitigation, There's some political support for this already, On the water
10 banking project, Hal is finishing the rules on how the pilot project will operate" . this is
11 the new leadership for water management in Colprado, It will help farms get financial
12 support without permanently removing water from farms. We'll watch Hal's progress, its
13 very important, along with the concept of conserying water, to create incentives to do on-
14 farm improvements, The idea that "conserved water is just wasted water" is wrong.
15 There is a proposed instream flow water bill, which is controversial and not good policy
16 for agriculture, But some positive things may come out of it. There are challenges and,
17 potential threats associated with it. The bill in essence would give private individuals and
18 organizations the ability to hold instream flows (or environmental purposes, rather than
19 just the CWCB, The issue is not about the environment, it is about control. We need to
20 protect our streams, and we have done this, The !controversy attached to existing
21 instream flows is that generally the rights are toCl junior, and don't adequately protect
22 streams against threats. This latter is not true, We can and do get senior absolute water
23 rights donated to the CWCB, There's nothing in the current law that prohibits a senior
24 absolute water right from being changed in this way, Lots of red herrings, it's not about .
25 protecting the water, it's about controlling the water. Don't underestimate the potential
26 threat from legislation like this, Another concel\l is forest management, we're losing
27 hundreds of acre-feet because of poor management practices, The same practices used to
28 protect against forest fires will provide more water to our streams, Conventional wisdom
29 is that the compact amounts are just plain wrongl They were not wrong, the water they
30 measured was there at that time, Were those yel\rs' just aberrations? The measurements
31 were taken when there were fewer trees in Colorado than now exist. Our arguments on
32 the South Platte and Colorado Rivers could be that there's no reason for us to be fighting
33 each other, when the federal government could be adding water through better forest
34 management.
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36 Harold Miskel: Thanks, Greg, Do the Board Members have any questions? Greg
37 Hoskin wanted documented support that there alje fewer trees (1/100). Don Ament is
38 next.
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40 David Carlson: Ray Christensen, you will note, is following me on the program,
41 We've had a continued interest in irrigation and,the loss of water in agriculture for a long
42 time. I have a 3-part presentation for you, relying on a variety of information from other
43 agencies, I'll be highlighting many items that are already in the notebook. First, I'll
44 highlight a few elements of Colorado Agricultu~e, beginning with the Colorado land base,
45 We have 105,000 square miles, almost half oftliat private, some state and federal are
46 used for livestock. (using information in the packets he discusses: the future of .

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