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;))),,'.8 8igh Country News - February 24, 1992 14. 1992 Wilderness water takes another turn Colorado's wilderness bill - a con- troversial compromise betWeen Sen. Hank Brown. R-Colo.. and Sen. Tim Wirth. O.colo. - was intended to create 641.690 acres of new wilderness. Instead. lhe bill has become an engine pushing on Col<rado's water developers, environmentalists and bureaucrats to redefine the state's approach to water within and oUlside of wilderness areas. Initially, environmentalists were ensnared by the bill. A mid.1980s law- suit by the Sierra Club Legal Ddense Fund asking for reserved. water rights in wilderness entwined two fonnerly sepa. rate issues: wilderness and stale control of water. Thai halted progress on a new Colorado wilderness law until the Wirth- Brown compromise bill sptcifically rejected federal reserved wilderness waterrighlS. Environmentalists were OUtr3ged at lhe national precedent they feared the compromise mighl sel. They were unable to prevem the bill from passing the U.S. Senate this summer, bul ha\'e thus far stilled !he biU in the House. In part. the water rights contrOVe~y is academic. Most of the 641,690 acres of proposed wilderness land do nOl them- selves need protection. Eighty-seven pa- cem is high-elevaLion. headwaterS land not subje(:t 10 upstream diversion. But three areas, consowting 13 p:r- cem of the acreage, are downstream of agriculWralland; additional water diver- sions could dry up wilderness streams, although this is unlikely. As part of me compromise. the three lower-elevation wilderness areas would be prolected Ihrough Colorado's instream flow program. In effect, a fed- eral wilderness area would depend on a stale water sySlem for its waler. Waler develope~ were pleased, wtUle environ- mentalists. who so:: ColOl"3do's instream now program as a sham. felt further bctr.1:y~ by this prtlend protection. The three areas take in sections of the Piedra. Roubideau and Tabeguache rivers. Perhaps as a way to test the work- ability of the instream now approach, Brown and Wirth asked the U.S. Forest Service to quantify the water needed to pro~C1 the wilderness values of the tluee ..... (HeN. '1/'.,')1). On Jan. 23, the ForeS! Service's Rocky Mountain Region submined its rec- ommendations fa the Piedra to ~ CoI- or3do Wa~r Conservation Board. wtUch administers the instream 00'* p-Dgram. The repon was a shocker. This rust effcrt anywhere by the Forest Service to quantify wilderness water needs sur- prised even the Wilderness Society's Denver-based Darrell Knuffke in its gen- erosity 10 instream flows. The 3D-page report recommended insueam flows up 10 1,6 J.S cubic feet per second (ds) during peak spring flows, which have exceeded 1,800 cfs in recent years. This is well above lhe river's cur- rent instream flow rights of 20 to 70 cfs, designed only to protect lhe river's cold- water fishery. The authors. William Gabben and Katherine Foster, used a "dynamic claim" approach that tries to mimic the river's aClual now. 11 differs from the traditional stepped method that claims a fixed amount of water. Region 2 Forester Gary Cargill says the Piedra report "represents the best sci- ence we know how 10 do," But he acknowledges that the approach is simi- lar to that used by his agency 10 quantify water needs for stream channel mainte- nance. 'That draws the Piedra effan imo yet ano!her fight. The Forest Service and Colorado have been in war.er coun for years over how much water it takes to maintain "favorable conditions of now" in nation- al forest streams (lieN, 9/10190). With final arguments to be heard in Greeley water coun in Marth, the Colorado auor- ney general's office worries that if Col- orado agrees to the Piedra compromise. il could undermine the fight against channel maintenance. Wendy Weiss, the State's rust assis- tant attorney general, says the State "is opposed to any flows for channel main- tenance" under Ihe Foresl Service's organic acL (The FInSI Service says its mission is 10 proteCt wat.erS.heds, and that requires occasional high nows to main- tain stream channels. The stale opposes the ForeSI Service's requesl for high mainlCnance nows.) But Weiss also says her office "wants to work with the Forest Service to develop a methodology" for the Piedra that both the state and the federal government can live with. Much is a1 stake here. 11le SLate has spent an estimated S5 10 S 10 million in court to oppose Ihe forest Service's claims, and is nOf. about to walk away from its position, On the other hand. a fellow state agency. the Colorado War.er Conservation Board. appears inleres~d in creating a viable instream flow pro- gram. And al the moment. the Piedra recommendation is a test of the board's commiunent 10 instream flow. There is also the federal angle, The Brown-Winh compromise. whicb the water developers favor. is credible only if the state shows it can protect wilder, ness water rights. Failure of the Piedm approach could aid opponents of !he bill. '"The state can't have its cake and eal it 100," comments the Colorado Mounwn Club's Anne Vickery. Most Colorado environmentalislS acknowl- edge that the Colcndo Wau::t Conserva- tion Board wants to strengthen ilS ane- mic instream now program. But the Wilderness SocielY's Knuffke says, ''The State'S water politics is going to make the board's job very difficult, if not impossible." Knuffke adds, "If the board with- stands the challenges from Sam Maynes (a Durango water auomey) and others, then the legislature will gel involved" and weaken the board's abili!)' to prote.Ct wilderness water. ''This is the trouble with prOlecting federal public values through slatesysterns." On March 5-6. the Colorado Water Conservation Board will hold a public hearing in Denver on the Piedra recom- mendations, It could delay action. But then Congress might want to take the Piedra and the other two downstream areas out of the wilderness bill to pro- vide faster passage. However a spokesman for Sen. Brown says he opposes such deletions. Some environmental critics see Brown's opposition as his way of scuttling the bill. Other observers Soay Brown sees !he Piedra as the ideal opporlunity to encourage an improvement of Col- orndo's ins~ flow program and pr0- vide a believable alternative to federal reserved wilderness .....ater rights. Copies of "Insueam Flow Needs Assessment and Recommendations for !he Proposed Piedra Wilderness" can be obtained from the Colorado Water Con, servalion Board, 1313 Sherman St., Room 721. Denver, Colo. 80203 (3031866-,....'). / - Ulny Moslur" " The wrikr free-lances from Craw- ford, CoIOl'3do. ~