We had a great WWP staff retreat in Wyoming, with: a guest presentation on how the media in the Rockies report on climate change and water; a field trip and slide shows of WY restore/reconnect projects; good discussions about strategic issues as well as upcoming grant applications and reports; a cancelled telemetry tagging opportunity due to high, muddy water conditions (which also meant "challenging" fishing that resulted in two rods broken); and inspiring camaraderie with hard working folks who love their jobs.
We attended and spoke at the Natural Resources Law Center's Annual water law conference.
The Denver Post published an oped commentary by the WWP Director about why the Clean Water Restoration Act matters for Colorado: http://www.denverpost.com/guestcommentary/ci_12736157
We have been working several other conservation groups on an analysis of the gap between water supply and demand on Colorado’s Front Range. We hope to offer an alternative to a future, additional diversion of water from Colorado’s Western Slope.
The water judge referred Shell’s water rights application to a water referee to preside over preliminary, informal proceedings in the case. The first status conference before the referee will be held mid July.
TU’s Dry Gulch oral argument to the Colorado Supreme Court was held in June. We await a decision from the Court.
Scoping comments on the forthcoming environmental impact statement for Aaron Million’s proposed Flaming Gorge Pipeline project are due to the Army Corps of Engineers at the end of July.
We are performing an analysis of barriers to Colorado River cutthroat trout in the Yampa basin. An aerial survey of barriers was made last week, identifying nearly 400 potential barriers. The next phase of the effort is to narrow our focus to a more workable number of barriers and then perform ground-level surveys.
