Framework for agreements to aid health of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is a starting point with an uncertain end

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May 8, 2020

Voluntary agreement discussions continue despite court fights, state-federal conflicts and skepticism among some water users and environmental groups

The Delta and the rivers that feed it serve many functions -- a source of water to meet the drinking water and irrigation needs across California, as well as providing key habitat for wildlife — The Delta and the rivers that feed it serve many functions — a source of water to meet the drinking water and irrigation needs across California, as well as providing key habitat for wildlife. (Source: California Department of Water Resources)

Editor’s note: Since original publication of this story on April 17, 2020, voluntary agreements have fallen apart.

By Gary Pitzer

Voluntary agreements in California have been touted as an innovative and flexible way to improve environmental conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the rivers that feed it. The goal is to provide river flows and habitat for fish while still allowing enough water to be diverted for farms and cities in a way that satisfies state regulators.

In a state with an array of challenges related to water, this is arguably one of the most pressing in California because of its potential to impact the millions of people who depend on water from the Delta’s key watersheds for drinking and irrigation. The Delta and the rivers that make up its vast watershed are also key habitat for the survival of imperiled chinook salmon runs.

Yet, no one said it would be easy getting interest groups with sometimes sharply different views – and some, such as farmers, with livelihoods heavily dependent on water — to reach consensus on how to address the water quality and habitat needs of the Delta watershed. Adding to the complications is the Delta’s role as the switching yard for water exports serving vast areas of the state as far south as San Diego, more than 500 miles away. Voluntary agreements would require water users to provide new flows for the benefit of rivers and streams throughout the Central Valley and outflow in the Delta, and commit money to fund habitat restoration, science and management to gauge the effort’s impact.

U.S. Geological Survey map showing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the rivers that feed it.

The voluntary agreement effort, initially begun in 2017, got a boost in early February when Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration released a framework for such agreements. That framework outlined a 15-year, $5 billion program that calls for as much as 900,000 acre-feet of new flows and 60,000 acres of new habitat to improve Delta water quality and help reverse the decline of salmon and other native fish in the Delta and its watersheds.

While water agencies throughout the sizeable Sacramento and San Joaquin river watersheds — from Fresno to Redding — embrace the voluntary agreement approach as a means for practicable and reasonable compliance with the state’s Bay-Delta water quality regulations, the idea of voluntary agreements is controversial. They are an alternative to a prescriptive regulatory policy, and that draws concern from some environmentalists and state regulators charged with enforcing water quality in the Delta. But many water users and some nongovernmental organizations view them as a viable compromise that can improve conditions for fish in a more flexible manner.

“We know there are going to be some parties that will oppose this. That’s the nature of California,” said Thad Bettner, general manager of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, the largest irrigation district in the Sacramento Valley covering about 175,000 acres. “This is a lot of hard work – how do you use water for the benefit of the fishery, how do you get projects done, how do you do the science and how do you spend money wisely? Some would rather litigate because that’s their business path, but we believe all these rooms are open for folks to participate.”

Bettner and his cohorts in the vast farmland of the Sacramento Valley were concerned that the second phase of the State Water Resources Control Board’s Bay-Delta Water Quality Plan, now on hold as voluntary agreements are hammered out, would have required a substantial amount of water to stay in the Sacramento River and its tributaries rather than irrigating fields and orchards.

“We know there are going to be some parties that will oppose this. That’s the nature of California.”
~Thad Bettner, general manager of Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District

“To meet that would be devastating,” Bettner said. “I don’t know how we would start to address that type of shortage impact.”

The Bureau of Reclamation, which stores and delivers about 12 million acre-feet through the Central Valley Project, was concerned that requiring percentages of unimpaired flows as the State Water Board sought “would create chaos in California water and result in years of litigation,” Ernest Conant, director of Reclamation’s Mid-Pacific Region, said in a statement.

Instead, he said, voluntary agreements “make the most of scarce water resources and address the landscape-level habitat stressors on species that flow alone cannot overcome.”

Reaching agreement in the midst of litigation

Lawsuits are a chronic fact of life in California water policy, especially in the Delta. There is a multitude of interests, and regulatory actions are often challenged as biased against one or more groups.

The State Water Board adopted (but hasn’t yet implemented) a regulatory plan in 2018 that would require as much as half of the flow to remain in the San Joaquin River system between February and June each year to aid Delta fisheries and combat salinity levels. Although the plan left room for incorporation of a voluntary agreements element, the State Water Board chose not to defer approval of its regulatory plan.

Water users, some of whom had prepared voluntary agreement proposals, promptly sued.

California Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot believes the state’s lawsuit against the federal government should not derail voluntary agreement talks. (Source: California Natural Resources Agency)

And as the federal government pressed ahead in February with new Endangered Species Act permits used to govern operations of the CVP pumping plant near Tracy, the Newsom administration sued over the adequacy of the environmental requirements. In a statement, California Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot said the state’s lawsuit against the federal government would not derail voluntary agreement talks.

In a Feb. 24 letter to Gov. Newsom, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt called the suit “ill-founded,” adding that, “over time, I suspect this litigation, like many other California water cases before, will end up with many parties and many twists and turns.”

He added that California and the federal government will face significant administrative and operational challenges related to the intertwined operation of the federally operated Central Valley Project and the State Water Project through the Delta and San Luis Reservoir, with the lawsuit creating “further uncertainty” of water supplies to people, farms and ecosystems.

This is a sticking point for which resolution seems especially challenging: The federal government’s updated CVP operations plan targets more water deliveries to contractors south of the Delta, many of whom use the water to irrigate farmland.

Reclamation said the new CVP operations plan is based on “robust modern science” that enables officials to quickly respond to agricultural, environmental and endangered species conditions.

For the second year in a row, a survey by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife found zero Delta smelt from September through December 2019. (Source: California Department of Water Resources)

Meanwhile, California’s Department of Water Resources in late March received what’s known as an incidental take permit for the long-term operations of the State Water Project, creating a separate set of operating rules for its Delta pumping operations. The permit covers four species protected under the California Endangered Species Act: Delta smelt, longfin smelt, winter-run chinook salmon and spring-run chinook salmon.

The permit, which contrasts the federal government’s aim of increased exports, mandates most of the additional outflow that would have been provided in the voluntary agreements, but without their flexibility, adaptive management or habitat provisions, said Paul Helliker, general manager with the San Juan Water District, a federal Central Valley Project contractor on the shores of Folsom Lake, an American River reservoir northeast of Sacramento.

Maurice Hall, associate vice president with Environmental Defense Fund, said the permit “just clouds everything and makes it difficult to see how a voluntary agreement can be landed at this point in time.”

California congressional representatives, led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, urged Gov. Newsom to work toward coordinated operations of the state and federal pumping facilities.

“This conflict, if allowed to continue, will not only reduce water deliveries just as drought may be returning to California, but also block the successful negotiation of voluntary agreements to meet Delta water quality requirements, which we support,” they wrote April 15.

Despite the difficulties, water users believe the state’s lawsuit against the federal government is not necessarily the death knell for voluntary agreements, although some are worried.

“The voluntary agreements remain the best opportunity to address the flow and non-flow factors affecting our native fish, and we urge the state and federal agencies to remain committed to a negotiated resolution despite the state of California filing suit,” the Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts said in a Feb. 24 joint statement. The statement noted that even though the two districts had sued the state, “that hasn’t prevented us or the state from negotiating in good faith [and] we see no reason why the federal government and the state of California can’t do the same.”

Thad Bettner oversees the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, the largest irrigation district in the Sacramento Valley covering about 175,000 acres. (Source: Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District)

The State Water Contractors echoed that sentiment, saying in a Feb. 21 statement that the differences between the state and federal governments are resolvable. “We encourage the public servants at both the state and federal levels … to get back to the negotiating table and settle these issues,” said Jennifer Pierre, the contractors’ general manager. “The outcome of those successful discussions will be far more effective than anything arising from a lawsuit that may take several years to resolve.”

Others are less sanguine. The litigation has “frozen a lot of people out of what’s even possible going forward,” said Bettner, with the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District.

Water for people, fish and the environment

Implementing unimpaired flows – essentially keeping more fresh water in rivers – to meet Delta water quality standards requires a separate water rights amendment process to determine who gives up water and how much. The plan would affect communities far and wide, including many urban areas. Michael Carlin, deputy general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which receives water from the Sierra-fed Tuolumne River, said a comprehensive voluntary agreement plan for the Sacramento and San Joaquín river watersheds requires many individual agreements – an exhaustive process that takes months to sort out.

“Unfortunately, the reality of where we are with voluntary agreements has not matched up with our hopes and our expectations.”
~Rachel Zwillinger, water policy adviser for Defenders of Wildlife

“There are many parties in the room and not all of them are that far along in their agreements,” he said, referring to the process. San Francisco, the Modesto Irrigation District and Turlock Irrigation District emerged from their process successfully to assemble the Tuolumne River Proposal, a voluntary agreement that includes investments of flows, habitat improvements and $80 million in funding commitments. “It’s a really big package,” Carlin said.

Environmentalists and fisheries groups have long decried a paradigm in which they say the Delta’s water quality and ecosystem needs consistently take a backseat to the needs of municipalities and agriculture. The 2009 Delta Reform Act recognized that in calling for reduced reliance on the Delta for water exports and improved regional self-reliance.

The deteriorating environmental conditions that have contributed to the decline and near-extinction of native fish in the Delta are an intractable problem that defies solution. Advocacy groups chafe at the perceived glacial pace of an oft-delayed bureaucratic process (the Bay-Delta Water Quality Plan update is 15 years overdue) in which results are measured incrementally.

Rachel Zwillinger, water policy adviser for Defenders of Wildlife, said her organization supports the concept of voluntary agreements because they offer the promise of faster implementation, habitat restoration and are collaborative in nature.

“Unfortunately, the reality of where we are with voluntary agreements has not matched up with our hopes and our expectations,” she said. “We are in a place where we have not been able to support what the administration has put forward.”

Kim Delfino, former California director for Defenders of Wildlife, said the governor’s framework contains inadequate flows, habitat commitments and other protections for fish. (Source: Water Education Foundation)

Kim Delfino, former California director for Defenders of Wildlife, said “something has to give,” with either environmentalists relenting or federal water contractors being willing to put more on the table. A voluntary agreement, she said, is supposed to be a part of the State Water Board’s Bay-Delta Water Quality Plan update for which the benchmarks are viable fish populations and a doubling of the salmon population.

There are other complexities as well. The Oakdale Irrigation District and South San Joaquin Irrigation District share rights to the Stanislaus River, which feeds the San Joaquin River. They believe the governor’s framework “appears to be even more onerous” than the State Water Board’s unimpaired flows plan and would be troublesome for fish management.

The problem is well-known: Operating reservoirs to serve the needs of flood protection and instream flow requirements while protecting water rights holders is a delicate balancing act. A certain amount of water has to stay in rivers and tributaries to maintain conditions for fish and to repel salinity in the Delta. Throw the needs of municipalities and farmers on top of that and the finite amount of water gets stretched to the point that tests flexibility.

Describing the basis of the Bay-Delta Water Quality Plan update in 2018, State Water Board staff noted that spring-run and winter-run chinook salmon, longfin smelt, Delta smelt and Sacramento splittail are in distress because of reduced and modified flows, loss of habitat (including access to floodplains), invasive species and water pollution. Flows, they said, “are an essential part of restoring a healthy ecosystem, and flows are the responsibility of the State Water Board.”

But finding a middle ground between the unimpaired flow requirements of the State Water Board’s Bay-Delta water quality update and the alternative of the flow commitments within voluntary agreements is not a fait accompli.

Steve Knell, general manager of the Oakdale Irrigation District, said he’s concerned whether the state’s voluntary agreements framework provides the sustainability that instream fisheries and agriculture both need. (Source: Oakdale Irrigation District)

Steve Knell, general manager of Oakdale Irrigation District, believes the voluntary agreements framework as it’s currently conceived would force the draining of the federal New Melones Dam, east of Stockton, as well as the district’s facilities at Donnells, Beardsley and Tulloch to the detriment of the cold water pools in the basin. The framework, he said, “may provide water to the Delta but doesn’t provide the sustainability that instream fisheries and agriculture both need.” In a Feb. 7 letter to state and federal officials, the Oakdale and South San Joaquin irrigation districts urged leaders to carefully account for the water designed to aid rivers and the water aimed at the greater Delta ecosystem, and to also ensure the State Water Project and Central Valley Project, which are junior water rights holders, contribute equitable amounts.

“Many senior water right holders, including the districts, have been willing to offer contributions in the settlement process that benefit their local rivers, and the districts understand that these contributions may also assist the state’s goals for the Delta,” the letter said. “However, these contributions are voluntary, and the needs of the Delta, if any, must be met first by junior water rights holders [such as the SWP and CVP] under California’s rules of water right priority.”

Solving Delta water quality challenges

The State Water Board is required to regularly update its Water Quality Control Plan for the Bay-Delta. The December 2018 approval of the first phase of the plan requires 30 percent to 50 percent of the flows from February through June to remain in the Tuolumne, Stanislaus and Merced rivers. Water supply agencies protested.

“The district believes non-flow measures (such as habitat improvements) have as much or more advantage in helping fisheries in our river than just sending water down,” Knell said.

During the transition between the Gov. Jerry Brown and Gov. Gavin Newsom administrations in late 2018, the outgoing and incoming governors told the State Water Board that voluntary agreements “could result in a faster, less contentious and more durable outcome [and] are preferable to a lengthy administrative process and the inevitable ensuing lawsuits.”

Michael Carlin, deputy general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, said a comprehensive voluntary agreement plan for the Sacramento and San Joaquín river watersheds requires many individual agreements. (Source: San Francisco Public Utilities Commission)

The basis for voluntary agreements began in 2016 when then-Gov. Brown voiced strong support for them and directed the Natural Resources Agency to explore the potential for environmental flows in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins. He tapped former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt as chief mediator for stakeholder talks that began in 2017.

Release of Newsom’s framework is encouraging to stakeholders who spent 2019 building the concept of voluntary agreements.

“This is really the first tangible response that we have seen,” said Helliker with the San Juan Water District. “This is more comprehensive … and builds on previous efforts such as CalFed and the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.”

Andrew Fecko, general manager of the Placer County Water Agency, was the principal representative for the Sacramento region on voluntary agreements. He said the Newsom framework could in some respects mirror, but on a larger scale, previous settlement agreements such as the 2000 American River Water Forum Agreement where Sacramento regional stakeholders committed water and habitat improvements to benefit the lower American River.

“The Water Forum process was in many ways the first of the voluntary agreements, along with the Yuba Accord,” Fecko said, noting the 2008 agreement that committed water from the Yuba River watershed for salmon and steelhead fisheries. “The principal difference with this new statewide effort is that we are expanding the pace and scale of habitat construction on the American River by approximately five-fold, plus offering additional water for the health of the Delta. It’s a tremendous expansion of the regional commitment, but the success we have had with the Water Forum regional effort gives us confidence that we can improve the American River and the Delta.”

Source: California Department of Fish and Wildlife

Reclamation, which was on board with the 2018 version of a voluntary agreements framework, balked at what the Newsom administration presented in February, saying it was not consulted prior to the document’s release.

“The state has had minimal engagement with us on their proposal, so the rationale for the approach, and the expectations for Reclamation participation, are not clear,” said Conant, the regional Reclamation director.

Crowfoot, California’s Natural Resources secretary, disagreed, saying Reclamation was an active participant in voluntary agreement discussions throughout 2019, including the run-up to releasing the 2020 framework.

“Clearly more work lies ahead to shape the framework into an enforceable agreement to propose to the Water Board,” Crowfoot said. “This includes detailing clear expectations for all parties, including Reclamation.”

“Clearly more work lies ahead to shape the framework into an enforceable agreement to propose to the Water Board.”
~Wade Crowfoot, California’s Natural Resources secretary

Stakeholders resigned themselves to the state’s lawsuit against the federal government. Tom Birmingham, general manager of Westlands Water District in Fresno, the nation’s largest agricultural irrigation district, said discussions on voluntary agreements could proceed, though it would be difficult, and a final agreement could not be reached without Reclamation’s involvement.

California farmers have a lot riding on the successful resolution of the water quality plan. Chris Scheuring, senior legal counsel with the California Farm Bureau Federation, said the decision to pursue unimpaired flows or voluntary agreements is “a tectonic shift either way.”

Voluntary agreements, he said, “hold more promise because they offer the possibility of not doing wholesale damage to the water rights system … as opposed to an unimpaired flows approach, which is a ham-fisted way to go about it.”

Un-ringing the bell

After decades of wrestling with the challenge of finding the right regulatory approach to improve fish survival and water quality, the argument about voluntary agreements represents the latest chapter in a long-running, complicated saga. The state’s legal feud with the Trump administration about CVP operations is an obstacle.

“It’s pretty hard to un-ring the bell at this point,” said Bettner, with the Glenn-Colusa district. “The state and federal governments … could enter into some settlement, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. We are probably in this cooling off period for a time, then we’ll see where things go after that.”

But there is widespread belief that something is better than nothing regarding improving the Delta ecosystem. Longtime California water scholars Ellen Hanak and Jeff Mount with the Public Policy Institute of California say a negotiated agreement is the way to navigate the thicket of Delta issues.

In a Feb.10 commentary published in CalMatters that called the Newsom administration’s framework “imperfect but necessary,” they noted that current Delta management overemphasizes a handful of endangered fishes and that the voluntary agreements framework “makes an earnest attempt” to go beyond that approach.

California farmers, whose livelihoods depend on water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed, have a lot riding on the successful resolution of the Bay-Delta Water Quality Plan. (Source: California Department of Water Resources)

“We can appreciate why many parties would want to hold out for a better deal, and absent that, turn to the courts in the hopes of getting their way,” they wrote. “But as seasoned veterans of the Delta know well, the delay-and-litigate strategy has inherent risks because the outcomes are hard to predict.”

Whether through unimpaired flows or voluntary agreements, the way forward is something that “is not going to go unnoticed in history,” said Scheuring, who alluded to the early laws and policies that spurred water development.

“We were encouraged to use the water to make the landscape prosper – to have farms, and to have cities to populate this semi-arid region called the western United States,” he said. “Some people have kind of changed their minds about that human landscape, and hopefully there is a softer way to accommodate that change in thinking through voluntary agreements [and] supply and demand options.”

Reach Gary Pitzer: gpitzer@watereducation.org, Twitter: @GaryPitzer
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This story originally appeared on Western Water on April 17 , 2020.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism. The Water Desk is seeking additional funding to build and sustain the initiative. Click here to donate.

Major South Platte River basin project would maximize reuse of Western Slope water, report says

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Aspen Journalism

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May 5, 2020

The South Platte River runs by an electricity plant near I-25 in Denver. A project proposed by the South Platte Regional Opportunities Water Group would allow Front Range water managers to maximize the reuse of Colorado River water. Lindsay Fendt/Aspen Journalism

By Lindsay Fendt

DENVER — A multibillion-dollar reservoir and pipeline project may one day pull more than 50,000 acre-feet of water per year from the South Platte River before it reaches Nebraska. That’s more than 16 billion gallons of water, enough to fill 25,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The possible project is laid out in a new report from the South Platte Regional Opportunities Water Group, or SPROWG, a group of water managers from the Front Range. If built, the project would enable Front Range water managers to repeatedly reuse water diverted from the Colorado River, something Western Slope water managers have long encouraged and see as a welcome shift.

“There is a lot of fully reusable water that makes its way down the South Platte,” said Eric Kuhn, a retired manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District who now writes about Colorado River issues. “This is something that people on the Western Slope have been trying to encourage for probably 70 years.”

The group used a $350,000 grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the South Platte Basin and Metro Basin roundtables to complete the year-long study, which was released in March. The group members hope the project could help close a water-supply gap of as much as 540,000 acre-feet that the state is projecting for the South Platte River basin by 2050.

Since the 1930s, Front Range water planners have looked west to bolster their water supplies. An elaborate series of reservoirs, underground tunnels and pipelines now conveys about 400,000 acre-feet of water annually from the Colorado River headwaters to the South Platte basin.

Water is diverted from the Colorado, Fraser, Blue, Eagle, Fryingpan and Roaring Fork rivers in Grand, Summit, Eagle and Pitkin counties and sent under the Continental Divide to the South Platte basin.

Large projects on the South Platte were previously written off due to the high costs of water treatment, but as the cost and controversy surrounding transmountain diversions have grown, a project such as SPROWG — which would have seemed expensive decades ago — is now on par with most other supplies of water. Depending on which concept configuration is used and whether the water will need to be treated, building the project would cost between $1.2 billion and $3.4 billion to build.

The South Platte River runs near a farm in Henderson, Colorado, northeast of Denver. Henderson is the site of one of the possible reservoirs for the regional water project proposed by SPROWG. Lindsay Fendt/Aspen Journalism

Use to extinction

Each of SPROWG’s storage concepts would capture stormwater and native South Platte water during wet years. While the project would not be used to store water from existing or future transmountain diversions, it would capture water from the Colorado River that made its way back to the river as a return flow after being used elsewhere within the basin.

“SPROWG is not intended to store supplies from an existing or new transmountain diversion project (though it will provide a means to utilize unused reusable return flows from transmountain diversions),” the report said.

Once water is transferred over the mountains to the Front Range, it can legally be used to extinction, meaning that it can return to the river as runoff, be recaptured and be used again perpetually. By decree, certain volumes of Colorado River water can only be reused within a certain area, something the SPROWG project would need to ensure.

“If they are going to take the water in the first place, they should make sure they are reusing that water to the full extent possible,” said Andy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, which was formed in 1937 to protect Western Slope water.

Although the SPROWG project does not require more water from the Western Slope, it is not considered a replacement supply for any of the existing water that the region takes from the Colorado River system. Despite the continued need of existing transmountain diversions, Mueller sees the project as an acknowledgement by at least some on the Front Range that the Colorado River is no longer a feasible option for future water supplies.

“I think there are a number of operators of Front Range systems that recognize that the Colorado River system has hit its limit,” he said.

While Western Slope water managers interviewed for this story were all generally supportive of the project, the Colorado Basin Roundtable, which represents different water districts and users within the basin, has not yet taken a formal opinion on it.

Conceptual project

The concepts outlined in the report are still far from a fully formed project, as no steps have been taken toward permitting, acquiring land or even identifying a user for the water. But SPROWG members hope that the analysis could be the first step toward a basinwide water project, a cooperative effort not typical of other large water projects.

“It just seems like something that we need to do, organizing the basin and helping the basin function as efficiently as possible,” said Matt Lindburg, SPROWG’s senior engineering consultant. “It will definitely be a project and concept that folks want to pursue.”

The report analyzed four possible storage and pipeline configurations that would collect agricultural water returned to the lower South Platte as runoff from the region’s farms, and then pump it back to the Denver metro area.

Three of the four project alternatives include an approximately 80-mile pump-and-pipeline system that would move water from a reservoir in Balzac, northeast of Denver, uphill to the metro area. The pipeline would allow the metro area to reuse some water that it already returned to the river as runoff or through water-treatment plants. The conceptual reservoirs could store between 220,000 and 409,000 acre-feet of water.

The idea to design a basinwide water project came from conclusions in the South Platte Storage Study, a 2018 analysis of basin-water supplies that was funded by the Colorado legislature.

That study found that the state was sending an average of 293,000 acre-feet more water down the South Platte and into Nebraska than what is required by the South Platte River Compact, an agreement between the two states that governs how much water Colorado is able to take from the river.

The SPROWG project would be designed to capture some of this water while remaining within the confines of the compact. The report suggested that water could be reused rather than the basin continuing to rely on either Western Slope or agricultural water.

In recent decades, agriculture along the South Platte has been the other main source of water for growing municipalities. Municipal governments buy out farms with senior water rights and dry up the fields, sending the water to the cities.

“This is probably the only other option on the table,” said Joe Frank, general manager of the Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District. “We want to do as much as we can to minimize the pressure on those other sources of water.”

The report also shows that the cost of the water from the projects would be consistent with other projects in the region — between $18,400 and $22,600 per acre-foot for untreated water and between $33,600 and $43,200 for treated water.

Whether cities will need additional South Platte water in the future, some of it is already spoken for. In March, 600,000 cranes — 80% of the world population — will visit an 80-mile stretch of the mainstem of the Platte River in Nebraska, where the birds fatten up on grain before a long migration north. Water flowing in the river makes this spectacle possible.

Even if the SPROWG concept were built, it would need to work within the confines of the Platte River Recovery Program, which was created to help protect these cranes and other endangered species on the river.

The recovery program, which secured additional water and land for habitat, has led to a dramatic increase in the population of endangered birds during migration season in Nebraska. SPROWG’s designers say they would work within the program, timing reservoir releases and saving water for specific ecological needs, but the report does not include a full environmental analysis.

Aspen Journalism is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization covering water and rivers in collaboration with The Aspen Times and Swift Communications newspapers. This story ran in the April 25 edition of The Aspen Times and the April 27 edition of Aspen Journalism.

Editor’s note: This report has been updated from its original version to correct that 50,000 acre-feet of water per year is more than 16 billion gallons of water.

This story was supported by The Water Desk using funding from the Walton Family Foundation.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism. The Water Desk is seeking additional funding to build and sustain the initiative. Click here to donate.

Polis signs five major water bills into law: instream flows, anti-speculating, and more

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Fresh Water News

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May 5, 2020

The Colorado State Capitol remains quiet as COVID-19 forces lawmakers home. April 28, 2020 Credit: Jerd Smith

By Larry Morandi

Gov. Jared Polis, even as COVID-19 swept across the state, gave his stamp of approval to five major pieces of water legislation, paving the way for everything from more water for environmental streamflows to a new study on how to limit water speculation.

Lawmakers announced March 13 that they would temporarily suspend work to comply with stay-at-home orders, and now plan to return May 18 to complete the session.

Signed into law in late March and early April, the new measures represent months if not years of negotiations between farm, environmental and legal interests that came to fruition this year thanks to hard-fought bipartisan agreements.

Three of the new laws address water for streams, fish and habitat, allowing more loans of water to bolster environmental flows, protecting such things as water for livestock from being appropriated for instream flows, and using an existing water management tool, known as an augmentation plan, to set aside water rights for streams.

Expanded instream flow loans

House Bill 1157 expands the state’s existing instream flow loan program, which allows a water right holder to loan water to the Colorado Water Conservation Board to preserve flows on streams where the state agency already holds an instream flow water right. The CWCB is the only entity in Colorado that can legally hold such rights, intended to benefit the environment by protecting a stream’s flows from being diverted below a certain level. Under existing law, a loan may be exercised for just three years in a single 10-year period.

The new law, however, expands the loan program by authorizing a loan to be used to improve as well as preserve flows, and increases the number of years it can be exercised from three to five, but for no more than three consecutive years. It also allows a loan to be renewed for two additional 10-year periods.

“This bill becoming law is crucial for our state’s rivers, our outdoor recreation businesses, and downstream agricultural users who depend on strong river flows,” said Rep. Dylan Roberts, D-Avon. After a similar bill he sponsored failed to pass last year, he said, “I knew I needed to work to bring more people to the table and improve the bill so we could garner the support we needed, and that is what we did. I am thrilled that we were able to get this done with strong bipartisan support.”

To ensure protection of existing water rights, House Bill 1157 increases the comment period on loan applications from 15 to 60 days; allows appeal of the State Engineer’s decision on a loan application to water court; and requires the CWCB to give preference to loans of stored water over loans of direct flow water where available.

“There’s no injury to other water uses. And there’s a methodology if someone feels they are injured they can go to the water referee in an expedited manner,” said Rep. Perry Will, R-New Castle and one of the bill’s sponsors.

Protecting existing water uses

House Bill 1159 provides a means for existing water uses, such as water for livestock, that have not been legally quantified to continue when an instream flow right downstream is designated. Current law is unclear as to whether preexisting uses that lack a court decree are protected. To provide clarity, the bill requires the State Engineer to confirm any claim of an existing use in administering the state’s instream flow program.

Augmentation of instream flows

House Bill 1037 authorizes the CWCB to use an acquired water right, whose historic consumptive use has been previously quantified and changed to include augmentation use, to increase river flows for environmental benefits. Farmers have long used so-called augmentation water to help offset their water use, particularly of groundwater, when that use is not in priority within Colorado’s water rights system. Now that same water can be used to boost environmental flows.

Anti-speculation study and water conservation in master planning

Beyond instream flows, Gov. Polis signed Senate Bill 48, which requires the Colorado Department of Natural Resources to form a working group to explore ways to strengthen anti-speculation laws. The agency must report its recommendations to the interim Water Resources Review Committee by Aug. 15, 2021.

Also signed into law was House Bill 1095, which authorizes counties and municipalities that have adopted master plans that contain a water supply element to include state water plan goals and conservation policies that may affect land development approvals.

Larry Morandi was formerly director of State Policy Research with the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver, and is a frequent contributor to Fresh Water News. He can be reached at larrymorandi@comcast.net.

Fresh Water News is an independent, nonpartisan news initiative of Water Education Colorado. WEco is funded by multiple donors. Our editorial policy and donor list can be viewed at www.wateredco.org.

This story was originally published on Fresh Water News on April 29, 2020.

State demand-management investigation moves ahead

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Aspen Journalism

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April 28, 2020

The Government Highline Canal, seen here just before its filled for irrigation season, irrigates farmland in the Grand Valley near the Utah state line. Some Grand Valley irrigators may welcome the chance to be paid to leave water in the Colorado River. — The Government Highline Canal, seen here just before it’s filled for irrigation season, irrigates farmland in the Grand Valley near the Utah state line. Some Grand Valley irrigators may welcome the chance to be paid to leave water in the Colorado River. Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

By Heather Sackett

LAKEWOOD — State workgroups charged with making sense of a program to add water to a savings account in Lake Powell have begun narrowing down the complicated questions such a program would have to grapple with.

But some state officials worry that a Western Slope group is going its own way, possibly undermining the state process.

Water managers and experts from around the state met for two days in early March to compare notes on their current investigation of the feasibility of a voluntary, temporary and compensated water-use-reduction program, known as demand management.

The workshop brought together many of the participants who sit on the eight workgroups created by the state to explore different aspects of a demand-management program: law and policy; monitoring and verification; water-rights administration and accounting; environmental considerations; economic considerations and local government; funding; education and outreach; and agricultural impacts.

At the heart of a demand-management program is a reduction in water use in an effort to send up to 500,000 acre-feet of water downstream to Lake Powell to bolster levels in the giant reservoir and meet 1922 Colorado River Compact obligations. Under such a program, agricultural-water users could get paid to temporarily fallow fields and leave more water in the river.

Russell George, a former Colorado lawmaker and chair of the Interbasin Compact Committee who helped create the state’s basin roundtables, rallied participants and acknowledged that tackling demand management was a hugely ambitious and thorny project.

“It’s time for this and here we are, to wrestle to the ground this monster that just does not want to give,” he said.

The Colorado Water Conservation Board is heading up the investigation into demand management and is about nine months into the process. Workgroups have met two or three times so far, and many have acknowledged the chicken-or-egg dilemma in front of them.

“It’s like going on vacation, but we don’t know if we even want to go on vacation or where we are going or who’s going with us,” said CWCB Interstate and Federal Manager Amy Ostdiek.

Some groups say they can’t complete their work because they need the input of other groups to inform their work. Some want to know what the alternative to demand management — shutting off water rights in the event of a compact call, known as curtailment — would look like before they commit to creating a water-use-reduction program.

Under the terms of the Colorado River Compact, the Upper Basin states (Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah) are required to deliver 75 million acre-feet over 10 years to the Lower Basin states (Arizona, Nevada and California). If the Upper Basin fails to deliver the water, the Lower Basin could make a “compact call,” triggering cutbacks — something water managers want desperately to avoid.

Some members of the Colorado Water Conservation Board expressed concern that the Colorado River Water Conservation District’s demand management study may be at odds with the state process. From left, back row: Steve Anderson, Dan Gibbs, Kevin Rein, Jim Yahn, Heather Dutton, Russell George, Curran Trick, Greg Felt; front row: Jessica Brody, Gail Schwartz, Celene Hawkins, Jaclyn Brown, Becky Mitchell. Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

Equity

Equity is one topic that demand-management discussions keep turning to again and again. Some Western Slope water users fear that their ranches and fields will be ground zero for a water-use-reduction program. And with temporarily dry fields comes the potential for secondary negative economic impacts to agricultural communities.

“The other side of the fairness coin is mistrust,” George said.

But members of the agricultural-impacts workgroup pointed out that equity means equity of opportunity, not just shared burden. Some irrigators may welcome payment for their water.

“There are many people in ag that don’t want others being too quick to take away potentially profitable opportunities for their farm or ranch,” said Mark Harris, general manager of the Grand Valley Water Users Association. “If demand management can be considered a different kind of crop, farmers and ranchers will consider it because they have an economic incentive. Farmers and ranchers are not dead-set against it.”

But for all the uncertainty still out there, workgroups have begun to narrow the focus of their work down to “threshold” issues, some of which overlap among the eight workgroups.

The two-day workshop concluded with a group exercise that found the following issues to be the most important for those who could be crafting Colorado’s demand-management program: simplicity of monitoring; state-wide resiliency; environmental impacts and benefits; agriculture viability; and shared responsibility.

Some said it was time to stop talking and start acting. According to a real-time text poll, 57% of the workshop participants said the demand-management feasibility investigation was moving too slowly.

“It’s time to take the next step and start doing some pilot projects,” said Barbara Biggs, general manager of Roxborough Water and Sanitation District. “We can’t answer questions sitting around a room talking about it.”

This cornfield in Fruita is an example of agricultural land that could be temporarily fallowed and farmers paid under a demand management program. State workgroups are working toward narrowing the scope of a demand management feasibility investigation. Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

River District study

A week after the state-led demand-management workshop, Colorado River Water Conservation District general manager Andy Mueller stood before the CWCB board at its regular meeting and told board members that the River District had received a grant for its own study of demand management and water marketing on the Western Slope, a move that some board members saw as subverting the state’s grassroots process.

“All the conversations we had in this room for two straight days and to preempt that discussion, that bothers me somewhat because I think we are getting out in front as a river district,” said Gail Schwartz, a former lawmaker and Basalt-based CWCB board member who represents the Colorado main stem on the board.

CWCB South Platte River Basin representative Jim Yahn agreed.

“We have to be careful because it could be somewhat confusing,” he said. “We want to project this unified front. We are looking at everything we can, but we want to be on this path together.”

Mueller said the study, which will be funded in part by a $315,721 WaterSMART grant from the Bureau of Reclamation, is meant not to compete with the state process but, rather, to feed into it. He said the decision to undertake the study is not a result of dissatisfaction with the CWCB’s work but, rather, is based on the need to fulfill the River District’s mission.

“We think our district has an obligation to the water users in the communities within our district to make sure that the water supply within our district and for water users in our district is adequate for all our needs,” Mueller said. “(The CWCB) is not the only governing body that has the right and obligation to be involved with demand management; the River District shares that obligation.”

The mission of the River District, which represents 15 Western Slope counties, is to protect, conserve, use and develop water in the Colorado River Basin. Mueller said the study is meant to come up with policy recommendations for the state if and when it develops a demand-management program.

Still, the move had echoes of a lingering and long-standing mistrust between Western Slope and Front Range water users, which George had alluded to the week before.

“There can be a perception in rural Colorado that people on the Front Range don’t have our best interest in mind,” Mueller said.

This story was originally published by Aspen Journalism on March 24, 2020.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism. The Water Desk is seeking additional funding to build and sustain the initiative. Click here to donate.

One year later: What the March 2019 avalanche cycle hints at on climate change

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Aspen Journalism

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April 28, 2020

A large natural avalanche released on Garrett Peak, which can be seen from Snowmass Ski Area, on March 13, 2019. Scouring the entire mountain along with some adjacent slopes, the slide was one of the three most destructive in Colorado’s history, all occurring last March. Photo by Colorado Avalanche Information Center.

By Catherine Lutz

Brian Lazar clearly remembers his personal “‘holy crap’ moment” of the March 2019 avalanche cycle.

Early last March 9, the deputy director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center stood atop Highland Peak and saw that the entire Highlands Ridge, which stretches behind Highland Peak and includes popular backcountry skiing areas such as Five Fingers and the K Chutes, had slid. It was the largest avalanche he had ever seen in Colorado.

The avalanche had broken naturally sometime overnight, with a crown later estimated to be nearly two miles wide. It ran more than 3,000 feet downhill, funneling into Conundrum Creek Valley with such momentum that after filling the creek, it traveled 300 feet up the other side. The force took out “hundreds if not thousands of trees,” according to Lazar’s report, and damaged an unoccupied home that was saved from obliteration by a concrete wedge built for exactly that reason.

Along with his 19 CAIC colleagues, Lazar was experiencing the most intense two weeks of his career — dealing daily with forecasting, public-safety concerns and threats to infrastructure as storm after storm delivered unprecedented amounts of heavy, wet snow across the state.

“Almost every corner of the state was producing historic-sized avalanches, so it was all hands on deck,” said Lazar. “No one slept for about two weeks.”

Early in the cycle, Lazar had watched the storms rolling in from the West Coast. He recalled seeing “a shocking, amazing amount of water coming our way” — borne on atmospheric rivers, which are narrow streams of concentrated water vapor in the sky — and thinking it was time to elevate avalanche danger to “extreme” due to anticipated snow loading.

Last March 7, CAIC issued the extreme warning — a 5 (on a scale of 1-5), which recommends avoiding all backcountry terrain — in four of its 10 backcountry zones, including Aspen, for the first time in its history.

Two days later, Lazar was in Aspen to help local officials deal with concerns about municipal water supplies being cut off by slides (which they were not), when he witnessed the Conundrum avalanche.

The avalanche that fractured across a nearly two-mile-wide section of Highlands Ridge in March 2019 was one of the largest in Colorado history. A home in its path survived with minimal damage thanks to a defensive wedge above it. Courtesy of Brandon Huttenlocher/CAIC

The Conundrum avalanche would be classified a D5 on the five-level D (for destructive) scale, meaning it’s among the largest avalanches known and can “gouge the landscape.” This slide and two others, including one that scoured Garrett Peak up East Snowmass Creek on March 14, were the first in Colorado history to be classified as D5s.

According to Lazar, about 1,000 avalanches statewide were reported to CAIC during the first two weeks of last March. Of those, 87 were categorized as D4 or larger. By comparison, 24 avalanches classified D4 or larger were reported statewide from 2010 through 2018. Further analysis of CAIC’s avalanche database, which starts in November 2010, shows that 12 of the 15 observed D4-plus avalanches in the Aspen zone ran last March.

Although the 2019 slides claimed no lives in the Roaring Fork River valley, eight people across the state were killed and a record 136 people were caught in avalanches last winter.

Avalanche experts agree that what happened in Colorado last winter — and across much of the west — was unusual, with some suggesting that kind of widespread, large-scale avalanche activity hasn’t been seen for well over a century.

In studying what led to this avalanche cycle, snow scientists are identifying some elements — such as warmer temperatures, wetter air and snow, and more-intense storms — that are not so unusual and are consistent with a warming climate. Experts are careful to distinguish weather and climate, especially when it comes to individual weather events, but there are links between the two.

“Avalanches are weather-driven phenomena, so if there’s changes in the weather — big or little — it will affect avalanche cycles,” said CAIC director Ethan Greene, a snow scientist. “I don’t think there’s a question that avalanche cycles are affected by changes in climate. It’s more a question of how.”

Anatomy of a cycle

Greene breaks down the March 2019 cycle into three phases. First, early-season snowfall in October formed a weak base layer. Early snow is not unusual, but the fact that it stuck on all aspects was, he said.

The second event was consistent snowfall through midwinter, which Greene considered somewhat unusual because there were no extended dry periods or large-enough storms to slough off the upper layers of the snowpack.

Then came the atmospheric-river succession of warm storms, during which some weather sites recorded the highest 24-hour precipitation totals in their history, according to Greene. The season’s strong snowpack, atop a thin unstable base, couldn’t withstand the weight of the new snow, particularly with its high water content. Avalanches ran long, with huge fracture lines, on all aspects. The fractures from the Conundrum slide were so energetic that they propagated deep into the underlying snowpack, setting loose massive volumes of snow.

“What’s unusual about what happened in March was the magnitude of some of these events and their successive nature — a two-week period with all those events, that’s very unusual,” said Greene.

CAIC is teaming up with the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Geological Survey and Montana State University to study the March 2019 cycle. Through the Colorado Big Avalanche Project, a study of tree rings collected last summer, snow-science professionals are researching the likelihood of such a cycle happening again and how climate change affects snowpack and avalanches.

Researchers with the Colorado Big Avalanche Project collected hundreds of sample disks from trees downed by the March 2019 avalanches. Tree rings, in some cases from 300-year-old trees, can offer a lot of historical information not otherwise available. Photo courtesy of CAIC.

What the science says

In the U.S., there hasn’t been much scientific study of the link between climate change and avalanche activity, but there has been work on elements seen in the 2019 avalanche cycle.

One trend that’s crystal clear is that winter temperatures are rising. Winters in Pitkin County are nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer on average than they were during the 1950-75 baseline period. And March is the fastest-warming month — with temperatures rising just under 1 degree per decade.

Pitkin County’s average winter temperature has risen by .4 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, compared to the baseline period of 1950-1975. Graph from Climate at a Glance Tool, NOAA

Temperatures are expected to continue rising into the future, although by how much depends on greenhouse gas emissions. A 2008 study co-authored by Lazar (before his CAIC tenure) predicts that Aspen will warm around 3.6 degrees by 2030 and nearly 9 degrees by 2100.

Lazar’s study, done for the Aspen Skiing Company, concluded that wet snow avalanches are likely to occur earlier in future winters on Aspen Mountain — in some scenarios, during the operating season instead of after the lifts close. This will pose a new operational challenge for future ski-area managers, he noted.

A related impact on snow and avalanche activity is snow-water equivalent, or SWE, which is the amount of water in snow and is a standard measure of snowpack. Seasonally, low snowpacks can lead to dry soil, drought and wildfire conditions, while high season-long SWE can produce high stream runoffs, healthy water supplies and more stable snowpacks.

A dramatic increase in SWE in a short period of time can overstress the snowpack and produce large avalanches, as it did last March. For example, on April 1 Independence Pass measured its highest snowpack since 1984; but it wasn’t trending that way until the early March storms added several inches of SWE.

Snow science professionals also watched SWE numbers rising rapidly, and observations confirmed that the snowfall from the storms was unusual.

“From a field practitioner perspective,” said Greene, “there were certain parts of the state where the snow just felt different — a little moister, clinging to places in a certain way.”

Chris Wilbur, an engineer and alpine natural-hazards expert based in Durango, has observed and documented warmer winter storms over the past two decades. The snow-loading of March 2019, he wrote in The Avalanche Review recently, was “not inconsistent with climatic trends of warmer and wetter air masses colliding with our mountains.”

Wilbur in 2018 surveyed 240 experienced avalanche practitioners across North America on the impacts of climate change on avalanches. Respondents across all regions both observed and predicted more wet avalanches, more avalanches at higher elevations and, in general, increases in snowpack stability due to wetter, denser snow.

In a phone conversation, Wilbur explained that some of the increased activity will likely be driven by warmer, more extreme storms — such as those in March 2019 — which hold more energy and thus deliver lots of precipitation and wind. Avalanches at higher elevations, which in Colorado is usually above treeline, are likely to be bigger and more destructive. On the other hand, Wilbur and other experts foresee fewer avalanches at lower elevations, where there will be less snow.

“We’re in the early stages of seeing changes, though in my observations, mostly through the literature, the potential effects of climate change on avalanches might be accelerating. That’s just my opinion,” Wilbur said. “The wild card is the variability that comes with climate change.”

Scientific study of climate and avalanches seems more robust in Europe and in the Himalayas. A 2013 study in the Swiss Alps found more wet snow and “glide” avalanches (ones where the entire snow cover runs on smooth ground) happening in midwinter, coinciding with rising temperatures.

In the French Alps, a 2014 study predicted increasing wet avalanche activity at high elevations earlier in the winter season, along with fewer avalanches at lower elevations and in springtime. By the end of the 21st century, however, snowpacks will be getting thinner even at high elevations, reducing avalanche danger.

Using 150 years of tree ring records, researchers in the Indian Himalayas found that a warming climate is producing more and more destructive wet-snow avalanches in winter and early spring.

avalanche cycle 2019 — A large avalanche ran the length of Independence Mountain, near Independence ghost town, early in the March 2019 avalanche cycle. The section of Highway 82 it ran onto was closed for the winter at that time; other highways around the state were impacted by avalanches while open. Photo by Catherine Lutz/Aspen Journalism

The human factor

Overall, a wetter, more stable snowpack is good news for backcountry travelers.

“I’ve definitely noticed that the snow is denser and thicker on average,” said Lou Dawson, founder of WildSnow.com and a local backcountry skier for more than 40 years. “More and wetter Colorado snow as a rule make for safer backcountry.”

But a 2017 study linking atmospheric river events and avalanche deaths suggests that atmospheric rivers are more dangerous for a continental snowpack such as Colorado’s, which is weaker than coastal snowpacks and less able to handle heavy snow-loading.

“Large, late-season storms may lead to decreased snow stability during a time of year previously characterized by increased stability,” the authors of the study wrote in the Journal of Hydrometeorology. “With increasing numbers of recreational backcountry users and changing mountain snowpack conditions, we might expect the future to be characterized by enhanced exposure to avalanche hazard throughout the (western U.S.).”

Dawson argues that high avalanche danger associated with storms like those last March mostly deters people from venturing into the backcountry.

“I was just another backcountry person sitting in Carbondale knowing I couldn’t go anywhere,” he said.

Three of the eight fatalities during the 2018-19 season occurred during the March storm cycle; two of those three were backcountry skiers. Overall, a record 135 people were caught in 92 avalanches — numbers that correspond more to the sheer volume of avalanche activity than any one type of storm.

Last winter’s avalanche cycle also wreaked havoc on homes and infrastructure. Roads and highways closed around the state, and Castle Creek Road was buried by an avalanche that also interrupted power service to some homes.

Eight homes were destroyed or damaged during the March storm cycle, including the Conundrum Creek home with the protective avalanche wedge.

Civil engineer Art Mears, who works with homeowners and governments across the west to mitigate natural hazards, said that the Aspen Snowmass area is not unique in avalanche threats to its built environment. While local building codes consider 100-year avalanches, Mears thinks they should consider 300-year avalanches.

Unpredictability is something avalanche professionals deal with daily, but the increasing variability of weather events in light of climate change adds another challenge.

Although nobody expects to see another avalanche cycle like last winter’s anytime soon, Greene and his team have been surprised to see several similarities this season: a similar weak base layer, progressively strong snowpack and an atmospheric-river event in early February that “produced some interesting avalanche activity,” said Greene. “We saw some 50-year events.”

“There are 50 knobs that affect avalanche conditions, and it’s not the setting of each of those knobs, it’s cumulative,” Greene concluded. “We have to understand how they all come together and affect avalanche activity. What I can say is that climate change will make things more complicated.”

This story was published by Aspen Journalism on March 9, 2020. Aspen Journalism collaborates with The Aspen Times and Aspen Public Radio on coverage of the environment and climate change. A version of this story ran in the The Aspen Times and a conversation about the story aired on APR on March 9.

This story was supported by The Water Desk.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism. The Water Desk is seeking additional funding to build and sustain the initiative. Click here to donate.

As temperatures rise, Arizona sinks

By

High Country News

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April 27, 2020

Climate change and unregulated wells are depleting the West’s groundwater reserves.

By Jonathan Thompson, High Country News

Arizona is sinking. The combination of groundwater pumping and warmer temperatures is shrinking aquifers and lowering water tables. And as the land subsides, fissures open, 2-mile wounds that devour infrastructure and swallow livestock. Four of Arizona’s five economic pillars — cattle, cotton, citrus and copper — use huge amounts of water, while the fifth, the state’s climate, is changing, making water scarcer. Development and growth are intensifying the problem, despite relief from state laws and the existence of the Central Arizona Project, which began delivering Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson in the 1980s.

Today, where subsidence is worst, groundwater pumping isn’t even monitored, and big agricultural and anti-regulatory ideologues try to stymie any efforts to keep tabs on how much water is being pumped. Big corporate farms are sprouting in areas without CAP water and virtually no regulation on groundwater pumping. More and more farms produce alfalfa, one of the thirstiest crops on Earth; the number of acres in hay production more than doubled between 1987 and 2017, and tonnage nearly tripled. Meanwhile, Arizona is getting even hotter.

That kind of heat, according to a recent study published in Nature Communications, strains groundwater reserves, too. The study “Evapotranspiration depletes groundwater under warming over the contiguous United States” found that warming also stresses plants, forcing them to suck up more groundwater and further lowering water tables. “These changes show that even the most moderate warming projection can shift groundwater surface water exchanges and lead to substantial and persistent storage losses,” the study notes, adding that with just 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) warming, the nation’s groundwater reservoirs collectively will lose about four times the total volume of Lake Powell over four years.

“Humans are short-circuiting the natural system.”

Warming stresses plants in the same way in the arid West, Laura Condon, an assistant professor of hydrology at the University of Arizona and one of the study’s authors, said. Since the water tables here are deeper, however, the effect on groundwater is less pronounced — at least under natural conditions. But when crops are stressed by warming, more groundwater pumping is needed. “Humans are short-circuiting the natural system,” Condon said.

In other words, Arizona is sinking, getting hotter and getting thirstier. Groundwater pumping is increasing, water tables are plummeting, and many rural residents are watching their wells go dry, according to a recent investigation by Rob O’Dell and Ian James for the Arizona Republic. Not long ago, the football field at western Arizona’s Salome High School was reduced to dust thanks to water restrictions at the groundwater-dependent town, which has a number of large corporate alfalfa farms nearby.

What does all this look like on the ground? The graphic shows one farming area and its subsidence zone, southwest of Salome.

Water level depletion case study in La Paz County, Arizona. Source: High Country News

Jonathan Thompson is a contributing editor at High Country News. He is the author of River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster. Email him at jonathan@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor.

This story was originally published at High Country News (www.hcn.org) on April 1, 2020.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism. The Water Desk is seeking additional funding to build and sustain the initiative. Click here to donate.

Study: Colorado’s water still affordable, but that may change as COVID-19 stresses utilities

By

Fresh Water News

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April 27, 2020

Prairie Waters’ Richard Rodriquez tests water quality at the Peter Binney Water Treatment Plant July 12, 2018. Credit: Jerd Smith

By Jason Plautz

Even before COVID-19 swept across Colorado and other states, concern over the cost of water had begun to rise.

Nearly 12 percent of American households lack access to affordable water, a number that is expected to triple in the next five years, according to a 2018 study from Michigan State University (MSU).

The good news: Western states are still able to provide relatively affordable water, but that could change as utilities try to recoup losses associated with the pandemic and begin to pay for the massive repairs and upgrades to their systems that were on the drawing board before COVID-19 struck.

Measuring affordability

In Colorado, newer infrastructure and conscious rate-setting has kept water largely affordable, as in most Western states. The MSU study found that less than 8 percent of Colorado’s census tracts were at “high risk” of an affordability crisis based on income, better than all but 12 other states. (“High risk” tracts were defined with a median income of less than $32,000, where rate increases would disproportionately affect ratepayers’ budgets.) Among the regions identified in the study as at risk were Denver, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, and Alamosa in the San Luis Valley.

Water systems built in the mid-century infrastructure boom or to comply with the Clean Water Act requirements of the 1970s are reaching the end of their useful life. That’s on top of the massive programs to replace lead and copper lines, the need to procure more water in drought-prone areas, and the cost of adapting infrastructure to cope with extreme weather from climate change.

According to the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA), water rates have risen faster than inflation since 2002.

And for customers on fixed incomes, even small increases can make a huge difference for their budgets.

“When we think about affordability, we’re not concerned about whether it’s expensive for someone to water their lawn. We want to know that people can cook, shower, clean, flush their toilets…the basic necessities,” says Manny Teodoro, an associate professor in the political science department at Texas A&M University.

States are grouped by EPA region. Colorado is in EPA Region 8, where the average annual wastewater charge in 2018 was $289—less than other regions.

According to Denver Water spokesman Todd Hartman, most households the utility serves pay less than 1 percent of their income for water. Denver Water does not have specific numbers on how many households pay more than 1 percent for drinking water, Hartman says, but added that, “Socioeconomic conditions in the Denver Water service area compare favorably to U.S. averages and have continued to improve in recent years.”

But with costly repairs coming due, it will take a concerted effort to maintain high-quality infrastructure and deliver quality water, while keeping rates from ballooning in a way that disproportionately affects lower-income families.

In Colorado, drinking water infrastructure needs are estimated at more than $10 billion, according to the 2020 Colorado Infrastructure Report Card from the American Society of Civil Engineers, with a chunk of that cost going back to ratepayers. That’s prompted discussions about how to best fund those repairs—and how to make sure that no customer feels an unfair burden when utilities need more capital.

“The question of the [utility] bill has always been there, but it’s becoming more and more significant,” says Andrew Rheem, a senior manager with the Colorado-based consulting firm Raftelis, which has worked with utilities in Boulder, Greeley and Denver. “How it gets addressed is going to continue to evolve, but right now a lot of communities are just wondering how to find any solution.”

The cost of water

When water affordability enters the national conversation, it’s usually because of a crisis.

In 2014, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department took an extraordinary step: In order to recoup unpaid bills, it shut off running water to more than 30,000 low-income households who were behind on payments. As the utility worked to put customers on a payment plan and restore service, the action drew a rebuke from around the world; even the United Nations sent a delegation to the city and deemed it “contrary to human rights.”

Traditionally, governments and utilities, including Denver Water, determine affordability with the EPA calculation that compares water and wastewater bills to a region’s median household income (MHI). If drinking water doesn’t exceed 2.5 percent of MHI and wastewater doesn’t exceed 2 percent, they are considered affordable.

According to Texas A&M’s Teodoro, the working poor are paying roughly 10 percent of their income on water nationally. That number could rise if economic trends continue.

“In a lot of communities, things like rent and energy are going up faster than incomes are,” Teodoro says. “Both the numerator and the denominator are going in the wrong direction.”

Most of the pain, however, is likely to be felt in the American South, where incomes are lower and infrastructure is in more desperate need of repair. Cities in the Northeast, where pipes can date back to the early 1900s and the income gap is wider, are also in greater danger.

Elizabeth Mack, who authored the MSU study, says affordability is posed to be a “burgeoning crisis.” It already weighs on households that are struggling with high rents, energy bills and food costs, but could soon rise even more.

“You can start seeing problems affecting households we consider lower-middle income,” Mack says. “These households are already squeezed from a variety of perspectives. If incomes were going up a lot, this might not be an issue, but they’re just not.”

The crisis also breaks along color lines. In a 2019 report, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People found “a clear connection between racial residential segregation and black access to water systems,” including rising rates that disproportionately affected black neighborhoods.

The West, however, has largely avoided those problems. In Teodoro’s national analysis, he found that Western states had, on balance, more affordable rates than the rest of the country. NACWA’s annual Cost of Clean Water Index found that EPA Region 8 (Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota) had the lowest average wastewater charge of any region, with a $289 annual average compared to the $504 national figure.

That’s in part because of less urgent infrastructure needs. Although much of Colorado’s water infrastructure dates back to at least the 1960s, it’s still in better shape than pipes and treatment plants in other parts of the country. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that Colorado needs $10.19 billion in drinking water infrastructure improvements over the next two decades, a huge bill but less than other states like Pennsylvania ($16.77 billion), Alabama ($11.26 billion), and Ohio ($13.41 billion).

Even areas where income levels could signal affordability challenges have kept water rates low. The San Luis Valley was a high-risk tract in Mack’s study, based on median income, but rates in the City of Alamosa are not a serious burden for residents. Heather Brooks, city manager for Alamosa, said the city has, if anything, kept rates too low to cover capital costs. A half-cent sales tax dedicated to water infrastructure has helped defray those costs.

Pueblo Water spokesman Joe Cervi likewise said that the utility has lowered costs by keeping a lean staff and planning ahead for major repairs. According to city data, the average bill for 11,000 gallons is $53.15, well below the Front Range average of $62.82.

A helping hand

Often, affordability can butt up against one of the biggest priorities for Colorado utilities: conservation. In 2014, Longmont Water decided to encourage conservation by charging customers based on use, rather than the lifeline rate that charged everyone the same amount for their first 2,000 gallons. There was concern, however, that the change could punish families who need lots of water to shower and cook, says Becky Doyle, a rate analyst and manager for the City of Longmont’s Department of Public Works and Natural Resources.

“A grandma who lives by herself can keep the water bill low, but that’s not the only kind of low-income household composition we need to be worrying about,” Doyle says. “Low-income households aren’t all low water users.”

Longmont already had a rebate program for fixed-income seniors, but extended that benefit to any household eligible for the Low-income Energy Assistance Program (LEAP). But, in a sign that water isn’t top of mind for many households, only two additional applicants signed up in the first year. Expanded outreach has garnered about 130 participants, but Doyle acknowledged that’s still not everyone.

Facing much-needed infrastructure repairs, other utilities across the state have sought to blunt the impact to customers with their own expanded assistance programs. Denver Water, for example, has some 140 projects planned for the next five years, which call for higher customer bills. After a rate increase in 2019 that added roughly 55 cents per month for urban customers (the increase was between $1.90 and $3.40 per month for suburban households), the board has approved another increase for 2020 that will add about a dollar more per month. (For suburban households, the increase will be between $1.15 and $1.36.)

The increases to the fixed monthly charge, which is associated with the meter size, are being done slowly to even out revenues year to year, and to limit the impact on the community, the utility says. Denver also uses a three-tiered charge and assesses indoor use, such as flushing toilets, cooking and bathing, at the lowest rate to reduce the burden on low-income families that, say, won’t pay for watering a lawn. The lowest rate is also measured during the winter, reflecting “essential, nondiscretionary usage,” Denver Water says.

Denver Water also offers assistance, like a one-time courtesy cancellation and payment extension for water shutoffs after delinquent payments and a pilot partnership with Mile High United Way to provide one-time bill relief and like other utilities has pledged to suspend shutoffs to help protect those who’ve lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic.

Elsewhere, utilities are exploring income-based structures that would ensure that the poorest families face the lowest cost burden. Philadelphia in 2017 rolled out a first-in-the-nation structure that charged lower rates for households at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty line, which some experts predicted would actually increase revenues by reducing missed or late payments. Baltimore, where some poor black residents have complained of triple-digit bills, has also debated a similar structure, and advocates are watching closely to see if the model could be expanded to more cities that are facing payment crises.

Is there a fix?

For utilities, providing service without raising rates would be easiest with an influx of federal funding. Washington has been talking about water infrastructure assistance, including through the proposed LIFT Act (Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow’s America Act), and under some of the COVID-19 relief measures, money may be provided to help utilities offset their infrastructure costs.

And all the while, drinking water standards and infrastructure costs will only pile up. That, says MSU’s Mack, means utilities need to start planning to avoid the worst impacts.

“We can’t say what’s going to happen, but there could be some big spikes in bills if all this deferred investment comes up at one time. The risk is when that gets to households that are already being squeezed,” she says.

An earlier version of this article appeared in the Spring 2020 issue of Headwaters magazine. This story was published by Fresh Water News on April 15, 2020.

Jason Plautz is a journalist based in Denver specializing in environmental policy. His writing has appeared in High Country News, Reveal, HuffPost, National Journal and Undark, among other outlets.

Fresh Water News is an independent, non-partisan news initiative of Water Education Colorado. WEco is funded by multiple donors. Our editorial policy and donor list can be viewed at wateredco.org.

Colorado bill to expand loan of water to the environment has wide support

By

Aspen Journalism

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April 24, 2020

Bill expands water loan program. — Stagecoach Reservoir on the Yampa River, was part of a temporary water loan under the CWCB instream flow program. House Bill 20-1157, which aims to expand the program, is making its way through the legislature with broad support. Photo by Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

By Heather Sackett

A bill aimed at expanding Colorado’s instream-flow loan program is moving through the state legislature and has support from agricultural water users, Front Range water providers and environmental organizations, in contrast to last year when the bill ran into opposition.

House Bill 1157, which last week passed the House in a unanimous 60-0 vote, would allow water-rights holders to temporarily loan their water to the Colorado Water Conservation Board’s instream-flow program with the goal of improving the natural environment.

The bill expands the number of years from three to five (but for no more than three consecutive years) that a loan may be exercised within a 10-year period. The loan also may be renewed for two additional 10-year periods, meaning that holders of agricultural water rights could theoretically loan their water for the benefit of the environment for 15 of 30 years.

Environmental groups, including The Nature Conservancy, Colorado Sierra Club and Conservation Colorado, support the legislation, and so do water-user organizations, including the Colorado Water Congress, Denver Water, Northern Water, and the Grand Valley Water Users Association.

HB 1157 is sponsored by Sen. Kerry Donovan (D-Vail) and District 26 Rep. Dylan Roberts (D-Avon), both of whom floated a similar bill last year. This year’s iteration gained the sponsorship of District 57 Rep. Perry Will (R-New Castle).

After the bill faltered in last year’s legislative session, Roberts knew he had some work to do before he brought it back to lawmakers, so he spent the summer and fall talking with the many interested parties about how to improve it.

“I represent Eagle and Routt counties, which are home to four major river systems, and I know how vital it is to the Roaring Fork Valley, the Eagle River Valley and the Yampa River Valley to have a really strong flowing river,” he said.

The Eagle, Colorado and Roaring Fork rivers flow through Eagle County, and the Yampa River flows through Routt County.

“Instream-flow loans allow people to loan the water back and help the river, while not losing their water rights,” Roberts said.

In the new bill, lawmakers added more protections for water-rights holders by increasing the window for people to appeal a loan. The legislation quadruples the comment period from 15 to 60 days so that those who feel they could be harmed by a loan of water have sufficient time to raise their concerns with the state engineer.

CO bill expands water loan program. — State Sen. Kerry Donovan, middle, speaks at the legislative session at Colorado Water Congress in January. Donovan and Rep. Dylan Roberts, right, along with Rep. Perry Will (not pictured) are sponsors of House Bill 20-1157, which would expand the state’s instream flow water loan program and allow agricultural water users to leave more water in the river to the benefit of the environment. Photo by Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

Instream flow program

Colorado’s instream-flow program gives the CWCB the ability to hold water rights specifically for preserving the natural environment “to a reasonable degree” by keeping water flowing in the river. Since 1973, the CWCB has appropriated instream-flow rights on nearly 1,700 stream segments, covering more than 9,700 stream miles.

Instream water rights are administered under Colorado’s prior appropriation system. And, given that none of the instream rights were in place before 1973, most of them are junior to senior agricultural water rights. Those rights, which can date to the 1860s in Colorado, have a higher priority under the “first in time, first in right” doctrine.

Senior ag rights divert significant amounts of water from the state’s rivers and streams and can even dry up some reaches in drought years. However, the state’s instream-flow program does allow owners of such senior water rights not to use their rights for irrigation and instead leave their irrigation water in the river, on a temporary basis, to bolster low flows. And the new legislation expands that option.

The temporary loan program — where water-rights owners offer, in exchange for payment, to contribute their water to one of these segments with an existing instream-flow right — has only been used seven times since its creation in 2003. In Division 5, temporary water loans have occurred on Deep Creek, the Fraser River and the Colorado River.

CWCB officials estimate an additional two to four loans under the program over the next few years.

In past deals, irrigators have been paid for the loan of their water by the state, Trout Unlimited or the Colorado Water Trust.

According to CWCB Stream and Lake Protection section chief Linda Bassi, the loan program can help boost streams in late summer when flows are low, temperatures are high and fish are stressed.

“It’s a really helpful tool for instream flows that fall short,” she said. “It’s always good to have more tools to help preserve the environment.”

River District support

The bill has garnered the support of the Glenwood Springs-based Colorado River Water Conservation District, which helped shape the revamped 2020 bill with its input. The River District board voted unanimously to support the measure, according to Zane Kessler, director of government relations.

“Rep. Roberts went above and beyond to make sure the bill addressed the River District’s needs and provides meaningful protections to our constituents on the West Slope and agricultural water users across the state,” Kessler said.

Also, the legislation requires the CWCB to give preference to loans of water stored in reservoirs, when available, over agricultural and other water rights diverted directly from rivers and streams. This provision was included at the request of the River District.

Kirsten Kurath, attorney for the Grand Valley Water Users Association, said lawmakers worked with the association over the past year to improve the bill from 2019.

“I think, in general, that the bill is much more protective now of other water-rights users on the stream,” Kurath said.

The bill is now under consideration by the state Senate.

Aspen Journalism collaborates with The Aspen Times and other Swift Communications newspapers on coverage of water and rivers. This story ran in the Feb. 29 issue of The Aspen Times and the March 1 edition of Aspen Journalism.

Colorado River drought study advances as participants call for fairness between cities, ranches

By

Fresh Water News

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April 24, 2020

Drought program will require fairness in costs and benefits. — Lake Powell would become home to a special 500,000 acre foot drought pool if Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico agree to save enough water to fill it. Credit: Creative Commons

By Jerd Smith

If Colorado decides to join in an historic Colorado River drought protection effort, one that would require setting aside as much as 500,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell, can it find a fair way to get the work done? A way that won’t cripple farm economies and one which ensures Front Range cities bear their share of the burden?

That was one of the key questions more than 100 people, citizen volunteers and water managers, addressed last week as part of a two-day meeting in Denver to continue exploring whether the state should participate in the effort. The Lake Powell drought pool, authorized by Congress last year as part of the Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan, would help protect Coloradans if the Colorado River, at some point in the future, hits a crisis point, triggering mandatory cutbacks.

But finding ways to set aside that much water, the equivalent of what roughly 1 million people use in a year at home, is a complex proposition. The voluntary program, if created, would pay water users who agree to participate. And it would mean farmers fallowing fields in order to send their water downstream and cities convincing their customers to do with less water in order to do the same. The concept has been dubbed “demand management.”

Among the key issues discussed at the joint Interbasin Compact Committee and demand management work group confab last week is whether there is a truly equitable way to fill the drought pool that doesn’t disproportionately impact one region or sector in the state.

In addition, a majority of participants reported that they wanted any drought plan to include environmental analyses to ensure whichever methods are selected don’t harm streams and river habitat.

Some pointed to the need to identify “tipping points” when reduced water use would create harmful economic effects in any given community, and suggested that demand management be viewed as a shared responsibility.

Flipping the narrative of shared responsibility, participants said sharing benefits equally was important as well. They want to ensure that people selected to participate would do so on a time-limited basis, so that a wide variety of entities have the opportunity to benefit from the payments coming from what is likely to be a multi-million-dollar program.

“People are starting to get it,” said Russell George. George is a former lawmaker who helped create the 15-year-old public collaborative program which facilitates and helps negotiate issues that arise among Colorado’s eight major river basins and metro area via basin roundtables. He chairs the Interbasin Compact Committee, composed of delegates from those roundtables.

“It’s understood that we have to be fair about this and we have to share [the burden] or it won’t work. I think we’re making great progress,” George said.

The Colorado River is a major source of the state’s water, with all Western Slope and roughly half of Front Range water supplies derived from its flows.

But growing populations, chronic drought and climate change pose sharp risks to the river’s ability to sustain all who depend on it. The concept behind the drought pool is to help reduce the threat of future mandatory cutbacks to Colorado water users under the terms of the 1922 Colorado River Compact.

The public demand management study process, facilitated by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, has caused concern among different user groups, including farmers. Because growers consume so much of the state’s water, they worry that they are the biggest target for water use reductions, which could directly harm their livelihoods if the program isn’t implemented carefully and on a temporary basis.

In early 2019 the seven states that comprise the Colorado River Basin—Arizona, California and Nevada in the Lower Basin, and Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming in the Upper Basin—agreed for the first time to a series of steps, known as the Colorado River Basin Drought Contingency Plan, to help stave off a crisis on the river.

And while Lower Basin states have already begun cutting back water use in order to store more in Lake Mead, the four Upper Basin states are still studying how best to participate to shore up Lake Powell. For the drought pool program to move forward, all four states would need to agree and contribute to the pool. George pointed to Colorado as a leader among the four states, saying it would likely be responsible for contributing as much as 250,000 acre-feet to the pool.

“We appreciate the focus, dedication and collaboration of our work group members,” said CWCB Director Rebecca Mitchell in a statement. “This workshop was the next step in sharing ideas for Colorado’s water future, and positioning our state as a national leader for cooperative problem solving.”

The eight major volunteer work groups, addressing such topics as the law, the environment, agriculture and water administration, will continue meeting throughout the year, with a mid-point report based on their findings to date due out sometime this summer.

Travis Smith, a former CWCB board member from Del Norte who is now participating on the agriculture work group, said he is hopeful that the work groups will be able to come up with a plan the public will endorse. Any final plan will likely have to be approved by Colorado lawmakers.

“Coming together to address Colorado’s water future is something we’ve been practicing through the [nine river basin roundtables] for years. Will we get there? Absolutely,” Smith said.

Jerd Smith is editor of Fresh Water News. She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email at jerd@wateredco.org or @jerd_smith.

Fresh Water News is an independent, non-partisan news initiative of Water Education Colorado. WEco is funded by multiple donors. Our editorial policy and donor list can be viewed at wateredco.org

This story originally appeared on Fresh Water News on March 11, 2020.

Marble quarry operators violated Clean Water Act, Army Corps of Engineers finds

By

Aspen Journalism

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April 24, 2020

Yule marble quarry photo 1 — The Pride of America Mine, long known as the Yule Quarry, as seen from the air in January. The marble quarry’s operators, Colorado Stone Quarries, are facing scrutiny related to a diesel spill and the temporary diversion of Yule Creek. Photo by Mike Stevens/Ecoflight

By Heather Sackett

MARBLE — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has determined that the operators of a local marble quarry violated the Clean Water Act when they diverted a tributary of the Crystal River to make way for a mining road.

In the fall of 2018, Colorado Stone Quarries, which operates the famed Yule Quarry just outside the town of Marble, diverted Yule Creek from its natural channel — located on the west side of Franklin Ridge, a rock outcropping — to the east side of the ridge. Operators piled the original streambed with fill material, including marble blocks.

Although this move probably spared Yule Creek the impacts of a diesel spill last October, it was done without the proper permits or oversight, according to the Army Corps.

Under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, a project requires a permit from the Army Corps if it includes the discharge of dredged or fill materials into waters such as rivers, streams and wetlands. CSQ did not obtain a permit for the project because company officials thought the work was exempt, citing the temporary nature of the access road and creek diversion.

Army Corps officials disagreed.

“The work performed does not qualify for an exemption,” states a March 5 letter from Army Corps Colorado West Section chief Susan Nall, as the work “is being utilized for purposes other than moving mining equipment (e.g., hauling mined marble, accessing other portions of the mine, fuel staging area, and performing spill cleanup and monitoring activities) as required by the applicable exemption.”

Nall’s letter then declares: “Therefore, the work is a violation of the Clean Water Act.”

In order to remedy the situation, the Army Corps wants Yule Creek returned to its original alignment.

“Our preference is always to preserve the physical waterway if possible,” Nall said.

CSQ is considering a few different alignments for Yule Creek.

“The current alignment does accomplish the goal of creating separation between the creek and mining activities, which benefits the watershed,” CSQ general manager Daniele Treves said in a prepared statement.

The company plans to apply for an “individual permit,” which will require a 30-day public notice, public review and comments. The final decision on the Yule Creek alignment rests with the Army Corps.

The diversion of Yule Creek came to the attention of Army Corps staff after October’s diesel spill, which released roughly 5,500 gallons of fuel from storage tanks onto the ground.

Although CSQ notified the Army Corps in 2018 that they were planning to divert about 1,500 feet of the creek, the company didn’t follow the proper procedure and the Army Corps didn’t realize the scope of the work it was planning, according to Nall.

“We did not realize it was a formal request for concurrence of an exemption. That might have been an error on our part,” Nall said. “We didn’t object, and they took it as a concurrence. Nothing is exempt until we say it is. They really should have obtained it from us in writing.”

Yule marble quarry photo 2 — Marble blocks line the banks of the Crystal River where County Road 3C, known as the Quarry Road, crosses the river. Marble quarry operators Colorado Stone Quarries was fined $18,600 by the Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety for an October diesel spill. Photo by Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism

DRMS penalty

On Wednesday, the board of the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety levied a $18,600 penalty for the October spill. The accident resulted in the quarry’s violation of three state statutes: unauthorized release of pollutants into groundwater, failure to minimize disturbance to water quality and failure to comply with the conditions of the permit.

DRMS determined September’s relocation of generators and the diesel-fuel tanks that supplied them was not approved and was a violation of CSQ’s permit. The diesel tanks were not put in secondary containment structures.

CSQ has agreed to pay the fine.

“We are always more interested in gaining compliance than the monetary aspect of it,” said Russell Means, minerals program director for DRMS.

According to an agreement between quarry operators and state regulators, CSQ also will continue to clean up the site, including bioremediation treatments to remove hydrocarbons from the soil and long-term water-quality monitoring.

Means and Nall said CSQ has been cooperative throughout the process.

“I think everybody’s interest is the same — we would all like to see the spill area cleaned up and the best thing for Yule Creek,” Nall said.

The quarry, now known as The Pride of America Mine, is owned by Italian company Red Graniti and employs about 30 to 40 people. According to CSQ, there are enough marble reserves contained in its six galleries to continue mining at the current rate for more than 100 years.

Aspen Journalism collaborates with The Aspen Times and other Swift Communications newspapers on coverage of water and rivers. This story appeared in the March 30 edition of Aspen Journalism, The Aspen Times and Glenwood Springs Post-Independent.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism. The Water Desk is seeking additional funding to build and sustain the initiative. Click here to donate.

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Reaching agreement in the midst of litigation

Water for people, fish and the environment

Solving Delta water quality challenges

Un-ringing the bell

Use to extinction

Conceptual project

Expanded instream flow loans

Protecting existing water uses

Augmentation of instream flows

Anti-speculation study and water conservation in master planning

Equity

River District study

Anatomy of a cycle

What the science says

The human factor

Measuring affordability

The cost of water

A helping hand

Is there a fix?

Instream flow program

River District support

DRMS penalty

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