BOARD00543

• Board Meeting Date: 7/28/2003
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

e

.

e

introduced and conducted the meeting quite effectively. He was invited to tour the Basin in both
states.

Prior to the start ofthe meeting, we devoted time to committee meetings where significant progress
was made on modifying the Operating Principles for the Trinidad Project through the leadership of
Reclamation and the willingness of Purgatoire River Water Conservancy District and Kansas officials
to work together. Unfortunately, complete agreement was not reached as the District's preferred
method of improving winter stockwater releases procedures could not be adopted in final form due to
the need for further analysis by Kansas and the Corps of Engineers.

Agreement was reached on the effectiveness of the District's new irrigated acreage tracking system
and on a change of use of Model Land Co. water rights to enhance the permanent pool at Trinidad
Lake, but these changes will most likely not be fully implemented until the stockwater issue is
resolved.

Less progress was made on the issue of disputed accounting issues at John Martin Reservoir. Both
states expressed frustration that their respective staffs had not reached closure on at least a few of the
disputes, and they were directed to redouble their efforts in as many face-to-face meetings as
necessary.

Finally, Wendy Weiss' imminent retirement from the Colorado Attorney Generals Office was
acknowledged by both states and she was thanked for the professional and courteous service she
provided to ARCA during her representation of Colorado before ARCA. Steve Sims will now be
representing the Colorado on ARCA issues.

U.S. Forest Service - Federal Reserved Water Rights in Water Division 2: On April 16 we
received a draft stipulation and decree for firefighting and administrative water rights in Division 2 that
totaled 110 acre feet and that dismisses with prejudice all reserved right instream flow claims. We
reviewed those documents and authorized the AG to sign them. We are awaiting the signed documents
completing this case.

2003 Fryingpan-Arkansas Project Water Allocations: According to estimates from Reclamation
there will be 37,500 acre-feet of Project water available for allocation in 2003. There is no unallocated
Project water remaining from 2002 except for Enterprise reserves set aside for emergencies and 1,350
acre-feet reserved for return flow sale shortfalls. The SECWCD received requests for 152,754 acre-feet
of Project water. Agricultural entities requested 108,692 and municipal entities requested 43,567 acre-
feet.

In May, the Bureau of Reclamation projected that the Project would produce 37,500 acre-feet of water
for allocation. The SECWCD then allocated 35,134 acre-feet of Project water -- 51% of the allocation
went to municipal entities and the remaining 49% went to agricultural users. This is the second year
that municipal entities requested the full 51 % as outlined in the "Allocation Principles." Municipal
entities requested more water than they would need on an annual basis because they are trying to
replace reserves used during the 2002 drought.

The allocation of 35, 134 acre-feet is a great improvement over the 10,864 acre-feet that was allocated
in 2002. Unfortunately, a large portion of the return flows from this allocation will accrue to the river
system after the irrigation season and will not be available for well augmentation until later years. As a
result, the District only allocated 3,605 acre-feet of Project water return flows for agriculture in 2003,
this compares with 17,054 acre-feet allocated in 2002. Also exacerbating the return flow shortage is
the fact the large municipal Project water users requested the first right of refusal to Project water

15