BOARD01505 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

. . . and their organizations. o Ed Armbruster presented a power point presentation, summarizing the recent water rights investigations report, a copy of which had been provided to the majority of the attendees. The prcsentation included a summary of study objectives, historical use of the Trust and CWCB' s water rights, current water rights administration, alternatives for other uses, inslream flow issues and other objectives. The focus of the study was to document historical water rights and uses and provide an estimate of historic diversion and consumptive use amounts. Ed's presentation and report were weU received by the attendees. A copy of Ed's presentation is attached. o Open Discussion -- The attendees raised many water right related issues, including conducting biological analyses to quantify instream flow needs and assessing tributary inflows in various reaches of the river. Also discussed were possible future uses of the Trust's and CWCB's water rights and potential consequences if the rights were acquired by large upstream users. o Milton Derrick pointed out that the Uravan remedial action plan (RAP) would not be completed by the end of 2007 as previously estimated. He explained that the site must be removed from the Superfund priority list and the Environmental Protection Agency must agree to terminate the radioactive materials license before the RAP can be completed. He said that any of the regulatory agencies could, in the future, require Umetco to perform additional construction and remedial work hefore regulatory releases were granted, and .. indicated that the Trust water rights would be required for such work,. o Dan Merriman asked if a portion of the water rights could be transferred to the CWCB prior to the termination of the RAP. Greg Hoskin responded that this would likely require a court order and approval of all the parties to the Consent Decree and RAP. It was generaUy agreed that this would be a difficult and likely expensive undertaking. o Dan Merriman raised the question of finding other uses for some of the water rights before they are transferred to the CWCB so as to prevent diminishment of the water rights due to lack of use. Milton Derrick said he and Mr. Large had discussed the matter and determined there was probably no way the water rights could be used for other purposes without a change of the point of diversion and possibly a change of use. He said his principals at Umetco and the Dow Chemical Company would not be interested in funding such changes. o Mary Helen deKoevend asked if the CWCB would seU any of the water rights after they were acquired from the Trust, which led to a lengthy discussion about the terms of the Mcmorandum of Understanding dated March 20, 1991, between the CWCB, Montrose County and the communities ofNucla and Naturita. Dan Merriman said that under the terms of the MOU, the local governments have a 9O-day right of first refusal to match any offer the CWCB may receive for the subject water rights. o Dean Nasland raised potential inconsistencies in the language of the MOU. He believed that it was unclear as to which water rights were subject to specific terms of the MOU. He said that because the Trust water rights are senior to most other water rights on the San Miguel River, any future use as determined by the CWCB would be of great interest to all water users on the river. o Dean Nasland asked whether the CWCB would use the non-consumptive San Miguel Power Company water right or wait until the consumptive water rights were acquired from the Trust. Dan Merriman indicated the CWCB would probably not need to wait for the Trust water rights before deciding about uses for the power company water right. Dean Nasland added that the ditch company would like to acquire somc of the Trust 39