September 2008 We continued to participate in the "visioning" exercise that Colorado's Inter-Basin Compact Committee is doing around what the state's water future will look like. http://ibcc.state.co.us/ The first printed copies of the WWP's 10th Anniversary Report, Water, People, Fish arrived in time for us to distribute to Board and annual meeting attendees. Additional copies will arrive soon and information will be available on CTU’s website and National’s Western Water conservation page. http://www.tu.org/site/c.kkLRJ7MSKtH/b.3022975/ We completed the white paper about the next generation of TU’s Conservation Success Index (CSI) and made a presentation with the task force's recommendations to TU’s Board of Directors. More information on this will be forthcoming and expect to see some changes on the CSI website as a result of this effort as well. http://www.tu.org/site/c.kkLRJ7MSKtH/b.4347959/ Excellent news on the hiring front! The Colorado Water Project hired Greg Espegren to be its aquatic specialist. Formerly, Greg was with the Colorado Division of Wildlife and the Colorado Water Conservation Board. And, after a thorough search of an excellent pool of candidates, we've filled the WWP Communications Director position with Randy Scholfield, the editorial writer for the Wichita Eagle newspaper and an avid TU member and angler, who was previously an organizer with the Great Plains Earth Institute and a teacher after having been awarded a PhD in English. TU and the other parties to the Colorado water court proceedings to quantify the Black Canyon reserved water right are engaged in mediation. The lawyers have reached agreement on a proposed decree. The parties’ principals are now reviewing. We met with the proponents of expanding Rio Grande Reservoir. The proponents claim that expanded storage capacity could be used to improve late season flows in the Rio Grande River. We are evaluating the expansion and will be providing input. http://www.wildernet.com/pages/area.cfm?areaID=CORSRG&CU_ID=1 The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) has released its Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on Colorado Springs’ Southern Delivery System (SDS). We have prepared draft comments on the EIS. We have also been discussing mitigation measures with the BOR and Colorado Springs: http://www.sdseis.com/ The Army Corps of Engineers released its Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the Northern District’s Northern Integrated Supply Project (NISP). We submitted comments on the EIS in September. http://www.ncwcd.org/project_features/nisp_main.asp
We will be reviewing Denver’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license application related to expanding Gross Reservoir on South Boulder Creek. Comments are due at the end of September.
