BOARD01617

• Board Meeting Date: 5/19/2003
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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meet. The federal plan appears to be close to finished and may be supportable. Issues continue
regarding the United States Forest Services vegetation management plan.

The CA expires on June 30 and we have begun more detailed discussions on the extension. It should
be noted that the Governance Committee has the authority to extend the CA until December 30, 2003
so some flexibility exists. However, the contract for the executive director, Western Ecosystems,
expires on September 30, 2003 so formal action will be required by that time. Things to consider
include: the length of the extension, which is initially proposed to be June 2005 (this includes time to
obtain legislative approval and hire staff); identification of additional milestones to be completed
during the extension; development of a budget that fits existing fmancial resources; and development
of interim measures to allow existing and new water related activities to have Endangered Species Act
compliance during the extension. This last point has proved to be a challenge because Colorado and
our water users would like flexibility for any "offsetting actions" needed to allow a new water project
to begin operations. Nebraska has postured that the measures need to be water related and potentially
one to one replacement of depletions. If this were to occur it could be very detrimental to our ability to
support the proposed program.

Central City Trial Begins: The Water Court for Water Division 1 chose not to rule on the competing
motions for determination of a question of law. The Court order provided: "Due to the current Water
Judge's relative inexperience with water rights and water rights litigation, the court has determined that
it will defer determination of this matter until it can hear further evidence and argument on the .
following questions: (I) Whether vested rights other than senior rights are entitled to protection under
the current statutes governing plans for augmentation; and (2) Whether a non-consumptive water right
with a junior priority suffers injury, and is therefore entitled to protection under a plan for
augmentation, if an upstream senior right is operated out-of-priority without replacing depletions
otherwise available to the junior non-consumptive right." Consequently, the CWCB will be
participating in this three-week trial, which begins on Mai. 12 in Greeley.

Drought Mitigation Request: On May I we received a request from the Groundwater Appropriators
of the South Platte for drought mitigation funds. During the last year's Special Session of the General
Assembly $1 million was set side to provide grants for water augmentation. The letter from GASP
states that are trying to quantify how much money they would need, but estimate hat a cash settlement
of $64 per acre-foot may be needed.

City of Boulder Lifts Water Restrictions: CWCB staff has just received notice that the Boulder City
Council established a Stage One drought response, which is a low-level drought involving voluntary
outdoor watering restrictions for city of Boulder residents. This decision means that the city will not
need to invoke the reversion clause included in the 1990 Water Right Donation Agreement between
the city and the Board for this season. Last year, the city imposed mandatory water restrictions and
invoked the water right reversion clause in the agreement, allowing the city to use the donated instream
flow rights for municipal purposes.

San Juan River Basin

Navajo-Gallup Project Update: The staff continues to work with the Upper Colorado River
Commission on the issue of exporting and using Upper Colorado River Basin water in the Lower
Colorado River Basin. The Commission has reached tentative agreement on a resolution that would
allow the project to proceed in accord with the Colorado River and Upper Colorado River Compacts.
That resolution will be discussed with Board during the May meeting.

Animas-La Plata Project: Staff has been participating with Reclamation and others on the "Project
Operations Committee" (POC) formed to oversee the long-term operation, maintenance and

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