BOARD02219

• Board Meeting Date: 9/10/2002
• Description: Report of the Attorney General
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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Piedra River by October 21 st. The technical team wilI meet again on that date and the full .
negotiating team will meet in Durango on November ~1 51 to discuss the Piedra and Technical
Committee recommendations for other streams. .

3. Kansas v. Colorado, United States Supreme CQurt, No. 105, Oril!;inal.
,
The trial on 1997-99 compact compliance, future ,compact compliance, and t~e quantum of
darnages to be paid by Colorado for the period before 1997 continues in Pasadena before the
Special Master. Based on different interpretations of the Supreme Court's ruling on prejudgment
interest, Colorado calculates darnages for the 1950-94 period to be $29 million in 2002 dollars,
while Kansas calculates damages to be over $53 million in 2002 dollars. The states have agreed
to an October briefing schedule for this legal issue.

4. Golden Boat Chute case, appeal to Colorado Supreme Court.

The Colorado Supreme Court has set oral argum~nt for October 2. Steve Sims will argue for
the state parties.

5. Applications of Eal!;le River Water and Sanitation District (Case No. 00CW259) (aka
Vail) and Town of Breckenridl!;e (Case No. 00CW281)

The Court denied the Applicants' post-trial mot~ons for costs and attorneys fees in both
cases, finding that the law concerning the issues was unsettled, and that the final decrees did not
grant the Applicants more than the Applicants' proposed settlements.

7. Rio Grande Silvery Minnow v. Keys, No. 99 CV 1320, US District Court, District of .
New Mexico.

On August 30, 2002, the Bureau of Reclamation (BuRec) requested to reinitiate consultation
with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) regarding the Silvery Minnow. The BuRec
admitted there is not enough water to keep the flows of the Rio Grande at a level consistent with
the Biological Opinion (BO).

On Friday, September 6, 2002, the environmental groups filed a motion seeking emergency
injnnctive relief. The environmental groups requested that the Court enter a temporary
restraining order and/or preliminary injunction as soon as possible, ordering the Federal
Defendants to release water from federal storage it). order maintain some flows in the Rio Grande
for the remainder of the year. They claim approxitnately 280,000 acre-feet of water remains in
upstream storage in the various federal reservoirs: Heron Reservoir, EI Vado Reservoir, Abiquiu
Reservoir, and Cochiti Reservoir. Of this amount) about 24,500 AF is San Juan-Charna water
under 2002 contracts to entities other than Albuquerque or Middle Rio Grande Conservancy
District. . .

The Court set an emergency hearing on the motions for Monday, Sept. 9, 2002. At that
hearing the judge postponed a ruling on the emergency TRO, saying he wanted more information
before ruling on whether to order BuRec to releas,e water from Heron reservoir. The hearing is
now slated to continue on September 16.

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