Colorado proposes to shut groundwater irrigation on all wells within three miles of all Republican River Basin streams in Yuma and Kit Carson counties.
Copy of the rules are suppose to be posted before the meetings at:
Meetings with representatives from Colorado Division of Water Resources will be in the following locations:
Holyoke: October 3 Peerless Theater 2:00 pm
Wray: October 3 Wray City Hall 7:00 pm
Yuma: October 4 Church of Nazarene 9:00 am
Idalia: October 4 Homestead Hall 2:00 pm
Burlington: October 4 Community and Education Center 7:00 pm
Copy of the rules are suppose to be posted before the meetings at:
Web Site
The Rocky Mountain News has a story about what the Colorado Governor's Water Task Force recommend regarding irrigation.
It seems that the favorite suggestion of every task force is to ask for more money for more studies, funded by the people they are studying. I wonder if it has something to do with the people that are chosen for the Task Forces in the first place.
Few Colorado farmers will take comfort in their recommendations.
Farmers have adopted a "live and let live" attitude. As a result, there is no organized resistance to those who have decided to take the water for their own purposes.
The Rocky Mountain News has a story about how Colorado has decided to shut down about 44% of the irrigation wells on the South Platte.
By signing the Cooperative Agreement Nebraska has agreed to do the same type of thing on the Nebraska portion of the Platte. The reductions will be modest in the first 13 years but then Nebraska has committed to also shutting off wells. Nebraska says we can always opt out of the agreement in the future if it becomes too painful.
Nebraska seems to think that we can take the noose off our neck anytime we want to. We will just put it on now to make everyone happy and let the future politicians figure out how to escape from the commitments we are making now.
Oh, and those promises we made to get you to go along with putting that rope around your neck... It was someone else that made those promises.
The long term future of the Platte is even scarier than the Republican.
A story out of the Denver Post about how Colorado plans to comply.
The Rocky Mountain News reports the same story but one could get a very different impression of the same facts.
Ag Journal Story on Colorado plans. It appears that Colorado is hoping for more time and that more people might sign up for CREP and EQIP. There is nothing in the story that suggests that Colorado has any realistic plans on how comply. Reducing pumping in Colorado works the same way as it does in Nebraska. It will not result in compliance. WaterClaim has posted multiple reports showing that a change in pumping is of very little benefit. There seems to be a lack of comprehension of how the computer simulation works that controls the entire thing. Because it is complicated, too many pubic officials have ignored their responsibility to become experts on behalf of the people they represent.
Colorado regulators might want to review the HINDERLIDER v. LA PLATA RIVER & CHERRY CREEK DITCH CO., 304 U.S. case.
I expect that Colorado will do what Nebraska is doing. Take all available surface water and put it in the stream. That means draining Bonny Reservoir. The Hinderlider case demonstrates that can be done without compensation.
It looks like Colorado may take the same approach as Nebraska to satisfy Kansas.
I find it strange that policy makers prefer to take the drastic actions they are rather than take a look at a couple of problems we have found in the Model or to import water.
A study of why our water policy makers all chose to jump off the cliff when other options were available should be an interesting read for a future generation that wants to avoid the same mistakes this one is making.
A story in the Sterling Journal Advocate reports that buying out irrigation acres will not be enough in Colorado.
WaterClaim has been reporting that buyouts alone will not work in Nebraska either. Nebraska has the luxury of being able to do things that Colorado cannot. The question is, will the NRDs do more than just buyout surface irrigation? If not, then the problem will persist.
Attempt to name aquifer a river basin fails first round.
Fourty Five day trial begins in Colorado regarding the shut down of groundwater irrigation wells.
The groundwater irrigators that had their wells shut in Colorado last year are trying to get Colorado to recognize the aquifer as a seperate basin.
For those of you that enjoy reading legal stuff you migth find the oral arguements between Kansas and Colorado before the US Supreme Court regarding the Arkansas River to be interesting. There are many simularities between the Arkansas and Republican cases. Kansas argued that Colorado should have to stay in compliance each year. Colorado argued that a 10 year average would be much better. The Supreme Court agreed with Colorado.
In the Nebraska/Kansas case, Nebraska ended up agreeing to a 5 year average in normal years and a two or three year average in dry years. Could Nebraska have got 10 years? Perhaps, but we will never know.
The Denver Post reports that irrigators are blaming their local equivalent to an NRD for failing to address the problem. The Central Colorado Water Conservancy District has been pointing the figure at the cities that have forced a shut down of irrigation wells.
In late August, another group of Colorado irrigation wells were ordered turned off. These wells were within a few miles of the Nebraska Colorado border. The crops still needed water. One of the well owners went out to turn the well on and found this notice taped to his control panel.
Colorado surface irrigators off of the Pioneer and Laird ditches pay no fee to the Colorado Ground Water Board for diverted water from the Republican River since their right is pre-Compact. There is a fee for surface evaporation loss at Bonny Reservoir, and that fee is paid by the State. All groundwater irrigators pay a $5.50 per acre fee.
Crops needs water. There have been several studies that look at what happens to yields when the crop receives less water than it needs. We looked at a report done by Gary Hergert and others published in the Journal of Production Agriculture, Oct-Dec 1993, and another published by KState - Department of Economics by Dumler, and a third that was published in the American Society of Agricultural Engineers by Schneekloth, Kocke, Hergert, Martin, and Clark. If anyone wants to look at their research, just contact me and I can point you in the right direction.
Based on their data and research (and then I updated to reflect current yields), we have produced the Crop Response to Water chart. This chart is for corn. Click on the image to enlarge.
The Colorado Division of Wildlife and Wildlife Commission (CDOW) has withdrawn its appeal of the Colorado Ground Water Commission decision to dismiss the complaint by the Pioneer and Laird Ditch
CDOW orginally filed its appeal on June 14, 2006
CDOW withdrew its appeal on July 7, 2006
The threat to ground water irrigaton remains because the oringial complaint from the original plaintiffs still stands.
CDOW simply brought additional resources to the table however the primary plaintiffs have enough resources to pursue the issue without CDOW help.
The following is an open letter Kim Killin, Republican River Water Conservation District board member
I talked with Scott Richrath, the Republican River program manager in the Colorado Division of Water Resources, and Stan Murphy, Republican River Water Conservation District manager.
We talked about what Colorado is doing to try to stay in compliance with the three State Settlement Agreement regarding the Republican River.
Two web sites have been setup to provide information about water issues. The Colorado Division of Water Resources has a page dealing directly with the Republican river and that site is at: http://www.water.state.co.us/wateradmin/RepublicanRiver.asp
The Colorado Republican River Water Conservation District also has a site that can be found at http://www.republicanriver.com/
Scott Richrath, the Republican River program manager in the Colorado Division of Water Resources said, farmers are being paid between $1,700 and $3,000 per acre to stop using their wells.
Approximately 70 of the more than 4,000 irrigation wells in the Colorado portion of the Republican River Basin have been shut off since 2004.
Colorado raises $2.8 million per year by assessing fees on all the water users within the basin. Well irrigators are assessed $5.50 per acre per year, while surface irrigators annually pay $5.10 per acre foot and municipal and commercial users pay $4.40 per acre foot
Read more of the story in the Sterling Journal Advocate
On June 16, the Colorado Division of Wildlife appealed a Colorado Groundwater Commission ruling. The CDOW joined the Pioneer and Laird Irrigation Districts in seeking a reduction of water use by groundwater irrigators. This adds State dollars and resources to the lawsuit. CDOW is similar to the Nebraska Game and Parks and CGC is similar to the Nebraska Deparment of Natural Resources.
The CDOW asks the Court to order the CGC to declare that all groundwater that contributes to streamflow is a is a tributary of the stream and therefore subject to surface water rules. What is not said by the CDOW is what percentage of the groundwater is considered a contributor to the streamflow but we know that the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources, which worked out the groundwater accounting procedures on the Republican River in cooperation with Kansas and Colorado, believes that 100% of all groundwater is a part of the streamflow.
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