HYDRO28563

• Permit No: M1985026
• IBM Index Class Name: Hydrology
• Doc Date: 6/23/2006
• Doc Name: Substitute Water Supply Plan
• From: Weiland Inc.
• To: OSE
• Permit Index Doc Type: Correspondence
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

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DS ~~ ~ STATE OF COLORADO
OFFICE OF THE STATE ENGINEER of cO~o
Division of Water Resources ~O~
Department of Natural Resources „~ i
1313 Sherman Street, Room 818 June 19, 2006 ' +
Denver, Colorado 80203 ~ ~
~ r876 r
Phone [phone]
FAX [phone] RECEIVED eiGovemo~s
wwwwatecstate.w.us
' Russell George
Mr. Peter Wayland UN 2 3 2006 Executive Director
Weiland, Inc. Hal o. Simpson, P.E.
525 3rd Avenue, Suite 211 state E"®neer
Longmont, Co 80501 Division ~t Minerals and Geology
Re: 'Substitute Water Supply Plan Challenger Pit
DMG File No. M-1985-026
Section 29, T5N, R67W, 6th P.M.
Water Division 1, Water District 4, Weld County
°Approval Period: January 1, 2006 through December 31, 2006 or (December 31, 2007)
Contact Phone Number for Mr. Peter Wayland: 303-532-0951
Dear Mr. Wayland:
The State Engineers Office has completed a review of your April 6, 2006 request for renewal and
amendment of the substitute water supply plan for the Challenger Pit. The original plan was approved
on June 30, 2005. The purpose for the amendment is to account for changes in depletions at the site.
The required fee of $217 for the renewal of this substitute water supply plan has been submitted.
It should be noted that the mining at the Challenger Pit site has been completed and the
reclamation will create three unlined ponds with an exposed surface area of approximately 20 acres.
Pond 1 measures 14 acres of water surface area and Ponds 2 and 3 each measure 3 acres in water
surface area. The only loss now associated with the gravel pits is evaporative loss. The previous
substitute water supply plan required the applicant to file for a permanent plan for augmentation with
the Water Court by December 31, 2005 to include, but not limited to, the long-term evaporation losses.
You have stated that approval of this plan will assist in proceeding to water court to obtain an
augmentation plan as well as provide a working plan until such time as the augmentation plan is
approved by the Water Court. To allow additional time to prepare the augmentation plan for the water
court, the deadline for submitting an application for along-term augmentation plan is hereby extended
to December 31, 2006 by way of this letter. Approval of this plan does not imply approval by this office
of any related litigation.
The anticipated net depletion for this plan is 47.34 acre-feet per year for up to 20 acres of
water exposed after December 31, 1980. According to the information provided, no water surface was
exposed within the reclamation permit boundary prior to January 1, 1981.
The proposed source of replacement for this pit is the historical consumptive use credit from
five (5) shares of Hill & Brush Ditch water rights from the dry-up of 25 acres of land. The previous plan
assumed that 20 shares of Hill & Brush were used to irrigated approximately 61.5 acres and that
approximately half of the historic acreage would be dried up due to the mining project. A more detailed
review of the irrigation practices at Challenger Farm indicates that the historical acreage was closer to
100 acres, of which 25 acres have been dried up due to the mining project. The dry up of 25 acres is
associated with 5 shares of the water right. The return flow obligation associated with the dry up of the
25 acres totals 13.42 acre-feet with anon-irrigation season return flow obligation of 1.25 acre-feet. For