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// 2 <br />December 13, 2018 <br /> <br /> <br />any period in which the Flow Management Program is operated to require Pueblo West to <br />forego diversions and other parties have agreed to not exercise the exchange to Pueblo <br />Reservoir decreed in Case No. 2009CW103. <br /> <br />The proposal states, as though it were a fact, “Super Ditch ...formed in 2008 for the benefit <br />of the farmers in the Lower Arkansas Valley...” This may have been the stated <br />purpose. However, no evidence is presented that it benefits or will benefit farmers who do <br />not lease water to Super Ditch. In addition, it’s our understanding that farmers who do <br />lease water to Super Ditch only get paid for transferable HCU that actually is usable by the <br />purchasing municipalities, and so they take the risk that their lease income may be <br />substantially less than if they had farmed instead of fallowed. Thus, the leasing farmers <br />might or might not benefit. This is mentioned because this pilot program request should <br />be evaluated on the basis of prevention of injury to other water rights, not on a claim of <br />benefits to society in general. <br /> <br />There are concerns about operation of this type of source as source water for an exchange <br />due to questions as to amount and timing of its availability as related to the required <br />analysis of transferable HCU, return flows, sub-irrigation or dry-up verification, all <br />required to be analyzed as part of the pilot program (This was not addressed in 2010CW004 <br />because that was purely an exchange priority case that did not attempt to qualify source <br />water for an exchange.) <br /> <br />Applicants indicated that they recognize that the exchange potential, requested in Case No. <br />2010CW004, on the Arkansas River does pose a hydrological challenge to operation of the <br />CS-U Pilot Project under certain conditions. In addition, they say that this proposal has <br />been designed to include various mechanisms to allow for operation in times of limited <br />exchange potential such as the use of stepped exchanges to intermediate storage locations, <br />use of recharge facilities, and trades of water. They also state because the Catlin Canal <br />augmentation stations (located on Timpas Creek and Crooked Arroyo) and the point of <br />delivery of recharge to the Arkansas River from the Schweizer and Hanagan recharge <br />ponds are located downstream of several of the locations of historical return flows, this <br />proposal indicates several other possible additional recharge locations, retiming of <br />recharge, and use of upstream storage in order to ensure the ability of the pilot project to