WSP01376

• File Number: 8142.700
• Description: Trinidad Project - Annual Operating Plans and Reports
• State: CO
• Basin: Arkansas
• Water Division: 2
• Date: 12/1/1988
• Author: US DoI BoR
• Title: Review of Operating Principles Final Report
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Operating Principles/Plan

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c..lrccu~ in years when John Mart in Reservoi I' wou 1 d spi 11 and, therefore, wou 1 d not
reduce the usable water available to downstream users. Further, these deple-
tions during John Martin spills were included in annual averages; therefor€, the
annual average usable enhancement was somewhat larger than the 300 acre-feet per
year shown, under historic operation.

Both the State of. Kansas and the Arkansas River Compact Administration based
their approval of the Trinidad Project on the 1961 and 1964 Studies and the 1964
Irrigation Report. In our opinion, it is rather late for Kansas to change their
position and insist that the Trinidad Project be operated to prevent depletions
on an annua 1 bas is, parti cu 1 ar 1y cons i deri ng the total absence of evi dence that
the Kansas water users wi 11 suffer a damage from project operations as con-
templated in these reports and in House Oocument 325. It is our conclusion that
evaluation of project operation and proposals for amendments to the Operating
Pri nci p 1 e shou 1 d cont i nue to be based on the average annual impacts, pro v i ded
that there is not a general trend of depletion to the inflow to John Martin
Reservoir during dry years.

The studies run on the operation during the 1979-84 review period do not provide
a sound basis for assessing the future i~pacts that would be caused by transfer
of water out of the Model Ri ght and storage of wi nter water under the di rect
flow rights. These studies are also not useful for evaluating proposed amend-
ments to the Operati ng Pri nc i p 1 es beca.use the full project acreage was not
irrigated during the review period, these studies are not representative of
expected future conditions. Since the studies on the review period do not com-
pare actual operation to a "without project" condition, they cannot be used to
determine what, if any, injury the Project may have on downstream water users.
The studies run over the 1925-57 period ,do provide a sound basis for assessing
future impacts and evaluating proposed amendments.

Kansas has objected to the use of the 1925-57 studies for this review.
Considering that the 1979-84 review period is not representive of future
conditions and therefore not useful for .developing amendments to the
Operating Principles and further considering 'the "...and the Principles
amended as necessary" phrase in Kansas Condition 4, Kansas' objection seems
unwarranted. The Kansas objection also conflicts with the comment by David
L. Pope, Kansas Chief Engineer and Director of Division of Water Resources,
made in the 'first paragraph on page 6 of his February 28, 1986 letter to
Raymond H. Willms that "an appropriate analysis would be to apply the
actua 1 operati ng pract ices, as documented above, to the 1925-1957 study
period and compare the results of this analysis to the original operation
studies."

The array of studies run on the 1925-57 period show the impacts of the
practices of transferring water out of the Model Right and storing \/inter
water under the direct flow rights. The studies also show the impacts of
various levels of over irrigation, project operation with a 39,000 acre-
foot joint-use pool (instead of the 19,500 acre-foot pool used in the
1961-64 studies) and several levels 'of bypass to Ninemi1e and Highland.
The studies show the impacts of individual practices and conditions and
various combinations of practices and conditions. A description of the
various studies was displayed earlier in this section on pages 17 through
20, and the results are shown in Table 5 and Table 6.

Tables 5
studied,

and 6 show that under most of the practices and conditions
the inflow to John Martin Reservoir is larger than that which

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