BOARD01648

• Board Meeting Date: 7/20/2004
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

notified of the specific use of said right. Without such a scheme, there is no conceivable way to
measure injury and impose terms and conditions..."

The Attorney General's Office will report on this matter as well.

Trail's End: On June 16 the Colorado Supreme Court issued its decision in the Trail's End case,
affirming the Division No.2 water court's denial of declaratory and injunctive relief sought by Trail's
End against the State and Division Engineers. The Division Engineer had ordered Trail's End to stop
diverting water at locations other than the points of diversion decreed to its water rights until Trail's
End obtained water court approval of the changed points of diversion. Trail's End argued that having
once diverted the water at its decreed points of diversion and having returned it directly to the stream,
it was entitled to "recapture" the returned water further downstream without adjudicating a change of
water right.

The Supreme Court held that the practice proposed by Trail's End would constitute a change of water
right or adding new or supplemental points of diversion within the meaning of the 1969 Act, and
therefore it must obtain judicial approval of the changes in points of diversion. Congratulations to
Alex Davis, of the Attorney General's Office, for her excellent briefs and oral argument on this matter.

Colorado River Basin

Price-Stubb Fish Passage: Reclamation has issued a draft Revised Supplemental Environmental
Assessment (EA) for fish passage at the old Price-Stubb Diversion in Debeque Canyon near Palisade.
This EA, dated April 2004, supplements previous EA's done in April 1999 and July 2002. The
Preferred Alternative identified in the 2004 EA is the downstream rock fish passage alternative with
whitewater features. Comments were due by June 18.

Upper Colorado River Commission Meeting: The Commission met on June 17 in Salt Lake City to
discuss issues related to discussions with the Lower Basin States, to receive reports from Federal
agencies and to honor Wayne Cook for years of dedicated service to the Commission upon his
retirement.

Seven State Meetings: A technical meeting of the seven state representatives was held on June 7 in
Las Vegas to discuss model runs that Reclamation is making and the assumptions that are being used
in those model runs, Le. what storage levels in both Powell and Mead should Reclamation strive to
protect, what annual release rates from Powell should be assumed 8.23 or 7.48 MAF, what benefits are
their to storage in Powell and Mead given different levels of lower basin shortage declarations and
conservation measures.

The preliminary results of these runs were presented to the seven basin states on the afternoon of June
17 and further modifications to those runs suggested.

The next meeting of the seven basin states will be June 23-24.

Colorado River Salinity Control Program: The Forum met in Rock Springs, Wyoming on June 3. I
was elected Chairman for the next two years, with Dennis Underwood of the Metropolitan Water
District ofCalifomia elected as Vice Chainnan.

The Workgroup was assigned to begin developing criteria and assumptions for the 2005 Triennial
Review and that information along with appropriate model runs will be presented to the Forum in
October.

On motion from Colorado, the Mancos Valley Salinity Control Project was formally adopted into the
program, making it eligible for basin state cost-sharing funds. The Mancos Conservation District will
cooperate with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service to reduce about 30,000 tons of salt

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