BOARD01008

• Board Meeting Date: 1/27/2004
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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estimated at 2,197,000 acre-feet per year, in contrast with the average of 1,898,000 acre-feet per
year given in the 1991 - 1996 report. (These consumptive use numbers do not include mainstem
reservoir evaporation, which averaged 687,800 acre-feet during this period. Colorado's share
would be approximately 356,000 acre-feet).

Compacts Operations Guide (Revised): In order to address agency succession planning, and
Water Supply Protection Program needs, Randy Seaholm and Susan Maul are designing series of
"Compact Operation Guides" (COGs) that will capture the program's history and operation in
abbreviated form for the Colorado and Arkansas River Compacts, the 3-State Agreement, the
Endangered Fish Programs, Colorado River Salinity and other program issues. Information
provided will include agency processes, players, armual calendars, the subject's importance,
CWCB policies, key issues, key subject documents and their location in CWCB. Each subject
will be cross-referenced to the CWCB Water Supply Protection Program's filing and imaging
indexes.

A pilot document related to the Colorado River Annual Operating Plan has been prepared and is
being reviewed for overall design and structUre. Once the format is approved, individual subject
pages will be completed, peer reviewed and assembled into a single publication. Once the COG
has been completed, an ammal review will be made and the COG updated as appropriate.

Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program (CRBSCP): The CRBSC Forum and
Advisory Council met in Santa Fe on October 28-29. Principal items discussed included:

. Federal funding recommendations for Federal FY 05 of$17 million for USBR, $23
million for USDA, and $5 million for BLM.

. A draft report on opportunities for collaborative projects controlling selenium in the
Upper Basin was received and discussed. While joint projects will be encouraged there
will be no use of salinity control funds to offset the added costs of such projects,
therefore other sources of selenium control funds will be required.

. There was discussion of new findings that Lake Powell is stratified with increasing
salinity levels at lower depths. As the reservoir is drawn down outlet flow salinity
concentrations will increase. This is a departure from earlier modeling assumptions that
the reservoir functioned as a completely mixed vessel. Additional studies are in progress
to determine how effects at Lake Mead will buffer the effect of these high salinity
discharges before reaching the Lower basin. The Forum's Work Group was assigned the
task of evaluating and understanding these studies and developing recommendations on
how to incorporate any new Lake Powell dynamics into future modeling efforts.

. Funding for the USDA EQIP portion of the program is expanding rapidly under the
current Farm Bill. The Forwn is nearly ready to approve a new EQIP salinity control
project area at Mancos Colorado. In addition the Forum will be requesting Basin Funds
to help defray its costs of managing the parallel program.

With the larger USDA program the Lower Basin Fund used for required state cost sharing is at
risk of going into a deficit within the next 3-5 years. Several options that the Lower Basin states
might use for reversing the decline were discussed.

~o!Qrado River AQP :lnd California Quantification Settlement Agreement: On Oct. l6,
2003 Secretary Norton signed an agreement with California water entitieS-that concluded the
actions necessary to make the California Quantification Settlement Agreement a reality. The
graph below is used to help monitor how well California is doing in reaching the target
reductions in use by California agriculture described in the Interim Surplus Guidelines.
Currently, the year-end forecast is slightly in excess of the 2003 year-end target of3.74 MAF for
California agriculture.

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