BOARD02463

• Board Meeting Date: 3/22/2005
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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· Highlands Ranch Reservoir No. 12 -- A new 220-acre reservoir in Douglas County that could hold
up to 1.36 billion gallons with a dam that is 100 feet high and 1,500 feet long.

Bear Creek Reservoir Evaporation Replacement: The State of Colorado at the time of construction of
Bear Creek Lake Reservoir by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers committed to maintain a permanent
pool at the reservoir. The CWCB has acquired water rights for the permanent pool that are relatively
junior and only in priority during spring runoff and other high flow events. Evaporative losses from the
permanent storage pool have been covered in previous years using substitute water supply plans involving
the use of the Colorado Department of Human Resources (HR) very senior Simonton Ditch water right.

HR has no existing use for the Simonton, but has not been willing to covey the Simonton Right to the
CWCB without, in our opinion, exorbitant compensation.

Recent changes in the law would now require the state to file for an augmentation plan to replace Bear
Creek Lake evaporation or have the reservoir operated for that purpose.

Staff will be working with State Parks, Division of Wildlife and the City of Lakewood to attempt to
resolve the evaporation replacement on a long-term basis.

South Platte Forum: The date of the next annual South Platte Forum has been set for Oct. 26 and 27. For
more information visit: htto://southolatteforum.org.

South Platte Well Users Face 'Absolute Crisis': This year will be "an absolute crisis" for irrigation well
owners according to Tom Cech the Executive Director of the Central Colorado Water Conservancy
District. About 1,400 wells in the district will get between zero and 50 percent of the water this year that
they were allowed to pump last year. The majority of those wells are along the South Platte River from
the Brighton-Hudson area north to Greeley then east to Fort Morgan.

The crisis is the result of a drought that followed 20 of the wettest years in modem history. That drought,
which started in 2000 -- combined with exploding growth, court rulings and state legislation -- has
resulted in well owners being required to replace the water they use in the summer back to the South
Platte River in the winter to meet the needs of water right holders senior to those well owners.

Central has filed a water replacement plan with the water court in Greeley. A hearing has been set for
May.

In addition, Central may be forced to provide more replacement water from recent findings of well use in
the Beebe Draw and Box Elder areas of central Weld, which run parallel to the South Platte. According to
Cech, Central is looking at replacement water that cost $3,000 an acre foot three or four years ago that
now costs $6,000 or upward of $10,000 an acre foot because of growth.

Chatfield Reservoir Reallocation Study: There is an informational Board memo in your notebook, but
other activities are as follows. Chatfield Antecedent Flood Study - Larry Lang went to Omaha, Nebraska
on Mar. 4 to meet with the Corps' hydrologist about the Chatfield antecedent flood study.

The purpose of the study is to review Colorado's extreme precipitation and large floods to reevaluate the
Corps input design parameters that require the antecedent flood must be 50 percent of the Probable
Maximum Flood. The Corps stated that the study findings will be completed July 31,2005. This
investigation is one assumption that may carve out 20,600 AF of water supply storage from the flood pool
and still not reduce the level of flood protection to downstream areas.

Cherry Creek Dam Safety Study: During Larry Lang's Mar. 4 meeting in Omaha, a formal request was
made to the Corps to use Colorado's Probable Maximum Precipitation study findings from the for
reevaluating the Probable Maximum Flood (pMF) needs at Cherry Creek Dam and Reservoir. The

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