BOARD01164

• Board Meeting Date: 3/21/2006
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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desalinization project where the product water would be used in the state of the desalinization project and
a like quantity of Colorado River water would be used in another Lower Division state. As indicated
above, the Basin states will continue to meet to refine and provide needed detail to the preliminary
proposal and the draft Basin states agreement

Colorado River States Add Historic Chapter in W~t~r lJ~~ On Feb. 7, the Cclcmdo RivCi Compact
came to an agreement that set specific water allocations for Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New
Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Pressured by a six-year-Iong drought and Interior Secretary Gale Norton,
the seven states crafted a reasonable plan on how the river should be managed in times of drought. This
included a suggestion of creating conservation plans and water augmentation programs, such as lining
canals, cloud seeding and desalinization, in an effort to increase supplies and, importantly, further delay
when shortages on the river are declared.

Some details remain to be worked out. But upper basin states Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New
Mexico, and California, Arizona and Nevada in the lower basin agreed to forward a document to Norton
that will allow the Bureau of Reclamation to proceed with an ongoing environmental study of how to deal
with future water shortages on the river.

The seven basin states have heen meeting regularly since December 2004 to try to reach an agreement.
The absence of a deal, all sides agree, would likely lead to expensive and prolonged litigation that could
endanger future water projects.

"The most important part is the states all recognize the finite amount of water in the Colorado River basin,
particularly the lower basin," said Rod Kuharich, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
"I'm cautiously optimistic that it will protect the water users in Colorado."

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Palisade Votes No on Drilling in Watershed: The town of Palisade launched a fight against oil and gas
development in its watershed, voting unanimously to protest a federal lease sale offering more than
13,000 acres on Grand Mesa to development. A Feb. 9 Bureau of Land Management auction included
about 11,000 acres in Palisade's watershed, where the town collects its drinking water. The watershed is
in the area of the Kruzen Springs water system, north of Land's End Road and below the rim of Grand
Mesa.

Water Park Might Be Pushed Baek a Year: Kayakers might be paddling in place for another year
before they can play in the rapids of a water park in the Grand Valley. Federal officials are working to
build a structure with the rock that would allow endangered fish species access to about 40 miles of their
historic range in the Colorado River above the dam. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had set an end-of-
February deadline to seek bids for the rock needed to revamp the Price-Stubb Dam upstream from
Palisade, but they dido't meet it.

While constrUction was underway for the fish ladder and water levels were kept low, kayaking enthusiasts
wanted to tack-on the construction of a whitewater park, funding the additional expense themselves.
Both projects, however, have been jammed up by last-minute engineering issues.

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Brent Uilenberg of the Bureau's Grand Junction office stated in early March that they were down to a
point where he dido't know if they could go this year. Last year, the Bureau had to put offuntil now its
plans to get construction under way. Aod now, time is expiring again. Uilenberg had hoped to get bids
for about 30,000 cubic yards of rock in February, which he planned to place in the river this fall when
water levels are typically lower. The low water levels make it possible to reconfigure the dam and instal1
a fish passage for the endangered Colorado pikeminnow and razorback sucker.

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