Water issues debated at forum

Water issues debated at forum

Sept. 23, 2000

BY JIM MIMIAGA
Journal Staff Writer

A motley group of farmers, ranchers, rafters, environmentalists and regional water-management officials gathered Wednesday at the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores to discuss their water concerns with visiting members of the Colorado Water Conservation Board.

The public meeting was part of a series of seminars by the CWCB.

"In setting this up, I said to the board that we need to get out to the hinterlands to see what people think about water," said Don Schwindt, a CWCB board member and president of the Dolores Water Conservancy District.

The audience of about 40 focused mainly on the Dolores River water resource and the U.S. Forest Service’s ongoing effort to secure minimum-flow water rights from states for regional forests. Cooperation between often-competing groups regarding water use was also encouraged by the board.

Historically, water developers, boaters, anglers and the environmental community have often been at odds concerning the best use for waterways, lakes and reservoirs, but that is changing, said CWCB board member John Van Sciver, with more common ground being found.

"In one case on the Platte River, a diversion project intended to augment summer water flows for agriculture actually ended up creating wetlands also. That brought in significant funding from Ducks Unlimited and wetlands groups," he said. "People think that there is nothing in common, but there are examples of the water community reaching out to the environmental community in a cooperative way," to find solutions.

Such solutions are needed on the Dolores River in order to more fairly provide releases for recreational boating interests downstream of the McPhee dam, said Tom Klema, owner of Peregrine River Outfitters.

Dan Merriman, CWCB’s section chief for stream and lake protection, reported that recreational water rights are becoming a hot issue and would be debated beginning this fall by the board.

DWCD Manager John Porter admitted that DWCD long-term plans to dam Plateau Creek above McPhee would hurt rafters, but said the district will be participating in a cloud-seeding program this year that could produce an additional 24,000 acre-feet of water for the Dolores Basin, leading to more water spills for downstream boaters. The solution of cloud-seeding, which coaxes moisture to fall out of otherwise non-producing clouds by injecting them with silver iodide, drew skepticism.

"I think the board needs to conduct more empirical studies on cloud-seeding before they start throwing a lot of money at that," said Kevin Craig from the audience.

"We are not comfortable with mitigating any losses that (the rafting community) would sustain (from building Plateau Creek dam) through cloud-seeding until it is demonstrated that (additional water) would in fact happen," Klema added.

Perhaps the biggest issue looming for water-users is the U.S. Forest Service’s intention to claim water rights now held by states in order to sustain clean watersheds in national forests and protect headwater stream-flows needed for healthy ecosystems. Laws dating back to 1897 show forest reserves are to protect water supplies, but those water resources have never been legally secured as such by the federal government.

About 80 percent of the nation’s freshwater resources originate in forests. Currently in-stream flow rights in national forests are controlled by the states.

Settlement negotiations for the Forest Service to obtain them have been ongoing since 1996, but how much water they will claim has yet to be determined pending the completion of stream-inventory studies.

"We know they are meeting, but nobody tells us what is happening," said Chester Tozer, president of the Southwest Colorado Landowners Association.

"We don’t want them to cut a deal without us knowing about it; it needs to be out in the open with more input from farmers and ranchers."

Merriman assured him that multiple state and federal representatives are involved in the federal court process, and that once the stream-by-stream analysis is done, the results will be presented to water-users in this region’s Division 7 for input. Then more negotiations will take place on how to resolve the newly claimed rights.

"If that is not successful, then there will be more litigation, which is to some degree why the discussions have been somewhat closed, because it is a matter of litigation now," Merriman said.

"The Forest Service is determining how much water they feel they need in these reserved water rights so that the water-users that exist and potential future users are part of that process. The process is still in the early technical-study stages."

Regarding the Endangered Species Act, Randy Seaholm, CWCB’s chief of water-supply protection, pointed out that it is the board’s job to make sure water sources in wildlife habitat are adequately preserved to prevent more species from getting on the endangered list, which would cause further restrictions.

"We try to address the water needs for water-dependent species so they don’t get listed," he said.