PROJ00495

• Contract/PO #: C153678
• Contractor Name: Lower Arkansas Water Management Association
• Contract Type: Loan
• Water District: 67
• County: Prowers
• Bill Number: SB 96-124
• Loan Projects - Doc Type: Feasibility Study

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LAWMA's two largest municipal users -- Lamar Light and Power and the Lamar Water
Department -- warrant specific discussion here. Lamar Light and Power, which pumped 8,344
acre-feet in 1994, operates a battery of 17 wells to provide cooling water for the Lamar
Power Plant. This water is pumped from the wells into the cooling system, run through the
cooling system, and then discharged into the Lamar Canal. The usage is non-consumptive in
that essentially all the water pumped from the wells is discharged into the Lamar Canal. Since
the discharge from the power plant is counted by the Water Commissioner against the decrees
for the Lamar Canal, it reduces the water that can be diverted into the canal from the river
and often reduces the water that must be passed by upstream junior water rights. When the
water users under the Lamar Canal are not irrigating, normally November through March, the
discharge from the power plant is returned to the Arkansas River through Clay Creek. As
described later, LAWMA claims a limited credit for this practice as augmentation for upstream
water rights.

The City of Lamar owns and operates 35 wells as part of its water system. The
pumpage from these wells was 2,754 acre-feet in 1994. All but three of these wells are
located in the Clay Creek drainage and are used to supply Lamar's potable water system. The
remaining three wells are located at the Lamar airport and are not presently used. In addition
to water rights for each of the wells, the City owns 1,316 shares in the Fort Bent Ditch
Company, owns 50 shares in the Lamar Canal and Irrigation Company, and purchases
Fryingpan-Arkansas Project water from the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy
District. In recent years, the purchases of Fryingpan-Arkansas project water have been more
than sufficient to cover all of the City's water depletions.

Colorado Beef, which used 820 acre-feet in 1994, is the largest commercial user in
LAWMA. It operates a feed lot located in the main stem area about 5 miles west of Lamar.
The present capacity of the feed lot is 40,000 head, but Colorado Beef is considering an
expansion to 60,000 head. Prior to December 1993, the water for the feed lot was obtained
from a series of wells constructed into the Dakota and Cheyenne Formations, with the wells
being covered by membership in LAWMA. In December 1993, Colorado Beef changed its
source of supply to several alluvial wells, which increased its depletion to the Arkansas River.
This increase in depletion has been augmented completely through a substitute water supply
plan approved by the State Engineer and an agreement with LAWMA. As discussed in a later
report section, this agreement makes some replacement water available to LAWMA.

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