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<br />1439 <br /> <br />I Totals I 9 days <br /> <br />115 out of 18 <br /> <br />Division Engineer Stepping Down: On Mar. 7, Division Engineer Wayne Schieldt announced he was . <br />resigning as the Division 4 Engineer for family and for personal reasons. He will assume the role of <br />Assistant Division Engineer. ' <br /> <br />Platte River ~asin <br /> <br />South Platte Decision Support System: The South Platte Decision Support System (SPDSS) <br />continues to move forward. The detailed scopes of work; for all Phase 1 and 2 tasks have been <br />completed and contracts are now in-place and work has begun. <br /> <br />Platte River Cooperative Agreement Update: During the last two months the Cooperative <br />Agreement (CA) participants have been busy trying to address numerous issues raised by the states and <br />federal participants. For some time the number of issues that arise during the development of the <br />proposed program have outpaced the negotiators ability'to resolve the issues. <br /> <br />To help address some of the more difficult issues we de\)ided to utilize a facilitator. Our first meeting <br />with the facilitator was helpful but no major breakthrough occurred. We continue to have significant <br />differences of opinion with Nebraska over how Colorado will operate our Tamarack Plan in relation to <br />Lake McConaughy. In addition, although it was not the focus of the facilitated workshop, it is <br />becoming more apparent that the United States Fish and Wildlife Service will also focus the Biological <br />Opinion on program effects on non-program lands. This appears to set up some type of "performance <br />criteria" for non-program lands and is problematic. On$ of the attractive aspects ofthe program as we <br />had perceived it is that it allowed us to manage for species benefits on the lands we acquire/manage <br />(10,000 acres in the first increment) and this would result in a definable and finite responsibility for <br />Colorado. <br /> <br />The negotiations also focused on issues related to the conveyance capacity of the North Platte Channel <br />at North Platte, and on the use of the Nebraska districts facilities, which would be used to convey <br />program water from the Environmental Account in Lake McConaughy. At certain flow levels several <br />houses in North Platte become inaccessible. It appear~ that this problem is a land-use issue (building <br />in the floodplain) versus geomorphic changes. Neyertheless, in the interest of trying to reach a <br />solution we helped draft language, which would pro-\ride for a suite of potential solutions without <br />presupposing a single solution. Again we had difficulty with the authors of the Environmental Impact <br />Statement (ElS) and Biological Opinion (BO) because they appear to want to outline a single option. <br /> <br />The CA participants also began discussion of an extensIon to the CA. It appears that an extension <br />thorough at least June 2005 is needed to allow the completion of a final EIS, final BO, Record of <br />Decision, final National Academy of Science review, ~d legislative briefings. This extension if <br />approved would require a contract amendment and pot$tially additional funding. The Board will be <br />provided with specific information on this as it become~ available over the next couple of months. <br /> <br />Finally, a negative consequence of the extension ofthe CA is that we have several water users, most <br />notably Denver Water, that have new water projects that need to obtain USF& WS approval to "come <br />on line." The program was to act as the reasonable and'prudent alternative for these projects, and <br />absent a program the CA required a one to one replacet1lent of depletions. In order for Colorado to <br />agree to a CA extension we believe that our water user~ should have greater flexibility because the <br />delays are largely not the fault of Colorado. We will be supporting our water users in their attempt to <br />get a more flexible "interim measure" for their new pro~ects. <br /> <br />South Platte Rules and Regulations: In December 2002, Division I Water Court Judge Hays ruled <br />that the State Engineer did not have authority to approve out-of-priority diversions pursuant to the <br />South Platte Rules and Regulations, which were developed last spring. This decision is puzzling given <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />28 <br />