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-~ • ~~.o • RICHARD D. LAMM < ~4 7 Governor N ~ ~..~~~. c DIVISION OF WATER RESOURCES Department of Natural Resources 1313 Sherman Street -Room 818 Denver, Colorado 80203 Administration 13031 892-3581 Ground Water 13031892-3587 ~~ i.w l_9U-e~G,-E Mr. John McCuskey Adams County Planning Dept. 450 South 4th Avenue Brighton, CO 80601 June 6, 1978 iii iiniiiiiiiiiiii ...VIPER State Engineer ~O p~ L./f". Re: Debus Gravel Pit - Casey #45-78-ZP. Dear Mr. McCuskey: As requested by your office, we have reviewed the platting and rezon- ing application for a gravel pit on regional park property owned by Adams County. Exhibit B indicates that gravel will be removed by dragline and that water for dust control will be hauled from offsite by a water truck. These mining procedures should have little effect on water resources if the dust control water is obtained from a source decreed for industrial or mining purposes. The proposed reclamation plan will, however, have a seriotAS detrimental effect on water rights in the over-appropriated South Platte Basin. The land to be used for gravel extraction has been historically irrigated by water from the Brantner and Lower Clear Creek Ditches. Historic consumptive usca was esti- mated by Leonard Rice Consultants to have been 133.8 acre-feet annually. Although irrigation will be eliminated after mining, evaporation will consume approximately 132 acre-feet annually. If the water rights historically utilized for irrigation were no longer used and included in a plan for augmentation, no injury to the prevailing hydrologic balance should occur. Page D-33 states, however, that irrigation water is or>c y use on t e mLnLng sL eZVfit"n~t'be-- used to offset future water use", but "...will be transferred to ancther parcel of land to irrigate crops". In fact, the application states that "no mitigation o the evaporation loss is planned" . This reclamation plan is not acceptable to this office because irreparable, perpetual injury will occur to alt water rights below Henderson. Until the county prepares a plan for augmentation acceptable to the affected water users and to the Division 1 Water ~:,ourt, we will not recommend approval of this application.