BOARD01270

• Board Meeting Date: 9/13/2005
• Description: Report of the Attorney General
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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its reconsideration of the reservoir's permit and would maintain the Joint Operation Plan on
the Cache la Poudre while the appeal is pending.

6. Green Mountain Reservoir/Heenev landslide case.

On August 7, 2003, the Colorado River Water Conservation District and several other
west-slope entities filed a petition against the Bureau of Reclamation in U.S. District Court
for Colorado to enforce the provisions of the Blue River Decree. The west slope petitioners
are seeking changes of Bureau of Reclamation policy concerning the interrelationships of the
replacement pool and power pool in Green Mountain Reservoir. The Division of Water
Resources has intervened in this litigation. The Court has not yet ruled on the United State's
motion to limit judicial review, but has revised the litigation schedule to conclude any
discovery by this December and to file briefs in February of 2006. The parties are in the
process of negotiating a settlement, but there are no significant developments to report.

Green Mountain Reservoir administration issues. The drought has raised issues about
how the State Engineer administers the fill of Green Mountain Reservoir. A committee of
interested parties was formed to work out an acceptable agreement on administration. After
reviewing comments, the State Engineer released an interim 2005 policy on April 28th.
There is nothing new to report.

7. South Platte Three-State Cooperative Al!reement.

The Governance Committee met August 4 and 5 and again on August 29 and 30. The
next meeting is September 12 and 13. The schedule for the Final EIS (FEIS), Biological
Opinion (BO) and Record of Decision (ROD) has been delayed 1 to 2 months. The main
culprit in the delay was the bypass flow issues that the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)
raised in June. The FEIS will be ready for internal review in late September and is not set for
publication until late October. The ROD is now expected in late January or early February
2006. The Governors will be asked to sign the Program Document after the ROD is issued.
The Cooperative Agreement (CA) and all bridge measures expire December 31,2005. The
Governance Committee negotiation team will recommend another CA extension to and
induding the expected program start date of October I, 2006.

The Governance Committee has started its final review of program documents. It has
agreed on nearly all issues involving the form of the Congressional authorization legislation.

There are several issues still under discussion. One is the FWS desire for pulse flows.
Unresolved sub-issues involve whether to pay potential power interference to the Districts
for water bypassed to create pulse flows; whether pulse flows can get through the
downstream "choke point;" and what pulses are needed. The other is "vegetation
management," or the impacts to stream flow caused by reduced runoff due to increasing
forest density. The Forest Service is balking at taking any responsibility for any impacts to
flows, arguing that the recent Healthy Forest initiatives will have a major impact on forest
density and therefore there will not be impacts to stream flows. Because of the uncertainty
involved, and concern that program participants should not be required to cover any shortfall

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