DWCD passes 2002 budget

DWCD passes 2002 budget

Dec. 8, 2001

By Jim Mimiaga
Journal Staff Writer

The Dolores Water Conservancy District board geared up for 2002 Thursday, passing $16 million in appropriations with a budget of $3.7 million for McPhee Reservoir operations and maintenance.

The special district, which manages the Dolores Project, holds $12.3 million in reserve cash, said general manager John Porter. But the amount, although totally appropriated, is not all used.

He explained that all of the district’s collected revenues are allocated during the budget as a general accounting practice to accommodate for expected or unexpected contingencies, "so the $16 million appropriation is misleading," Porter said.

Extra millions of dollars will likely be needed, however.

Next year, the district expects to begin a financing an expansion plan that will deliver irrigation water to an additional 3,000 acres in Montezuma and Dolores counties.

The $8 million WETPACK Phase I project has been approved by the Bureau of Reclamation and survived federal environmental review. It will be financed mostly by a $7.2 million loan from the Colorado Water Conservation board. Construction is planned for Fall 2002, with completion by 2006.

The district repayment plan involves investing $5 million to $7 million into an annuity. The interest will cover payments of the loan. Depending on the annuity amount invested, the earned interest will either replenish the district’s initial investment or not, at the close of the 30-year term.

The plan involves purchasing 6,000 acre-feet for $2.25 million from the Montezuma Valley Irrigation Company, whose stockholders have authorized that the sale be negotiated. Once the sale is finalized, which is imminent, a series of pipelines and pump stations would then be constructed to deliver the water to dryland farms near Pleasant View.

The actual operating budget of $3.7 million falls into five categories.

$1 million for administration.
$2.1 million in the Enterprise Fund for operations and maintenance of the Dolores Project facilities. Of that, $900,000 goes toward salaries and benefits for the district’s 23 employees.
$404,000 for operating the Towaoc Highline Canal. The canal serves the Ute Mountain Ute Farm and Ranch Enterprise, a series of 104 circle farms.
$194,000 for operations and maintenance of two hydro-electric power plants of the Dolores Project.
$45,000 for wetlands improvements.

Other highlights of the budget and DWCD board meeting:

As part of successfully completed biological opinions, environmental assessments and water carriage contracts, the WETPACK project will include increased selenium monitoring in Yellow Jacket Canyon, the district said. The district agreed to fund the studies, expected to cost $80,000 over a several-year period.

For 2002, the DWCD budgeted $10,000 for gathering baseline data on tributaries into Yellow Jacket Canyon, which feeds McElmo Creek.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologists required the monitoring to determine if return flows from irrigating previously dryland farms would concentrate toxic levels of selenium into McElmo Creek. If they do, mitigation would be required by the district.

Vern Harrell of the Bureau of Reclamation reported that, based on 30-year averages, if runoff is 100 percent of normal, then the reservoir, which is at its lowest since filling, would still be 2.5 feet short of filling.

The good news for irrigators is that even if winter snowpack is 75 percent of normal, there will be enough water to go around without administering shortages. This year the snowpack was at 76 percent of normal.

The good news for rafters is that if the current trend of snowstorms continues, a rafting season on the lower Dolores below McPhee dam is a possibility. Initial calculations show that if the winter snowpack is just 10 percent higher than normal, a rafting release of 16,000 acre-feet, or six days’ worth, is a likely occurrence.