Colorado - Missouri Heights Water Activity Summary Sheet

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Water Supply Reserve Account – Grant and Loan Program Water Activity Summary Sheet Applicant: Amount Requested: Basalt Water Conservancy District $25,000 Water Activity Name: Source of Funds: Missouri Heights Ground Basin Account Water Monitoring Program, Phase II Water Activity Purpose: Matching Funds: Nonstructural Study Yes, $25,000 County: Garfield and Eagle Drainage Basin: Colorado Water Source: Missouri Heights Aquifer – ground water is tributary to Cattle Creek, the roaring Fork River, and ultimately the Colorado River. Water Activity Summary: The Basalt Water Conservancy District (District) is both the sponsoring agency and the official applicant for this grant. The District is a quasi-governmental body organized in 1963 under Section 37-45-101, et seq. C.R.S. This makes the District an eligible entity for grant funding under the terms of Senate Bill 06-179. The District is governed by an eight member Board of Directors representing seven geographical divisions within the District’s boundary. The District is funded by a mill levy assessed on property owners within the District’s boundary and fees assessed on water allotment contracts. Its annual operating budget is approximately $300,000. The District was created for the purposes of conserving, developing, and stabilizing water supplies for the benefit of users within the Roaring Fork Valley. Today, the District operates a comprehensive water supply plan that provides 422 domestic, agricultural, and commercial contractees with dependable legal water supplies. The District's water rights are used to benefit its contractees, by allowing them to continue to divert water at their well, spring, or surface diversion in times of shortage when their use would otherwise be curtailed. The District owns substantial domestic, municipal, and agricultural direct flow water rights, and maintains several reservoir storage contracts with the US Bureau of Reclamation for the release of water from Ruedi and Green Mountain Reservoirs. The District supplies augmentation water for a number of contracts located on Missouri Heights. Missouri Heights is located on a broad mesa above the Roaring Fork River, near Carbondale, Colorado. Expanding development on Missouri Heights has led to increased groundwater withdrawals and new demand for District water allotment contracts. Augmentation releases for Missouri Heights’ well contracts present a unique augmentation situation. The wells deplete the Missouri Heights aquifer, but the augmentation releases do not provide direct, physical recharge to the aquifer. The lack of direct recharge has raised concerns that Missouri Heights contracts will deplete the local aquifer. In order to monitor the effects of well withdrawals on the aquifer, the District implemented Phase I of the Missouri Heights Ground Water Monitoring Program in 1982. Phase I monitored water levels at three wells and four springs in the vicinity of Missouri Heights. A monthly, instantaneous measurement was taken at each of the seven sites. The frequency of data collection provided the basis for a reconnaissance level assessment of fluctuations in ground water levels and their relationship to climatic trends, increased 1