A Sustainable Solution for Meeting Colorado’s Water Needs Through 2050

DENVER – Western Resource Advocates (WRA), Trout Unlimited (TU) and the Colorado Environmental Coalition (CEC) today released a plan that outlines how Colorado Front Range communities can meet projected human water demands through 2050 while keeping rivers healthy.  In the new report, “Filling the Gap: Commonsense Solutions for Meeting Front Range Water Needs,” the conservation groups detail an approach that relies on low-impact water supply projects, conservation, water reuse, and agricultural-urban water cooperation to meet Colorado’s growing water demands. Colorado is currently working through the Interbasin Compact Committee (IBCC) process to determine how the state’s river basins can meet their future water needs.  The IBCC is considering a number of new storage projects, transbasin diversions, and moving of water over long distances.  The “Filling the Gap” report offers an alternative plan showing how Front Range communities in the South Platte River Basin, home to some of Colorado’s largest municipalities including Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins, can meet  future needs without new major diversions of water from other river basins.  The plan outlined in the “Filling the Gap” report is designed to be less expensive than traditional water supply approaches.

PDF copies of the report can be found at: http://www.tu.org/sites/www.tu.org/files/documents/FillingTheGap.pdf

High Country trying to deal with Front Range water needs

Janice KurbjunSummit County Correspondent Post Independent

Front Range residents and industry are expected to need 1.06 million acre-feet of water annually by 2050 — an increase of 365,000 acre-feet over today's needs — and several conservation organizations think there are better ways to get it than by building transbasin diversions.

Conservation organizations Western Resource Advocates, Trout Unlimited and the Colorado Environmental Coalition released a report Tuesday that claims “Colorado can chart a new innovative path forward that protects our rivers, streams and local communities.”

Read the Article

New report offers alternative vision for state’s water needs

Summit County Citizens Voice

by Bob Berwyn

“Many of Colorado’s rivers and streams are depleted to the point that they no longer support robust fisheries or recreational opportunities,” said Drew Peternell, director of TU’s Colorado Water Project. “Additional diversions from these streams could be devastating.  ‘Filling the Gap’ charts a responsible path for meeting our water needs while protecting our state’s high quality of life.” http://summitcountyvoice.com/2011/03/02/new-report-offers-alternative-vision-for-states-water-needs/

Proposed Conservation Funding Cuts Could Devastate Fly Fishing Resources

I don't care what your political persuasion is...if you're a fly fisher, this should concern you, because any threat to habitat is a threat to opportunity. - Kirk Deeter, Field and Stream http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/flytalk/2011/02/proposed-conservation-funding-cuts-could-devastate-fly-fishing-resources

Shareholders Demand Fracking Risk Disclosure

From EnvironmentalLeader.com Investors have filed shareholder resolutions urging nine major oil and gas companies to disclose risks of their U.S. natural gas fracturing, or fracking, operations.

Five investment groups filed resolutions with ExxonMobil, Chevron, Ultra Petroleum, El Paso, Cabot Oil & Gas, Southwestern Energy, Energen, Anadarko and Carrizo Oil & Gas.

The proposals ask companies to disclose their policies for reducing environmental and financial risks from the use of chemicals, water impacts and other environmental issues associated with fracking.

The resolutions also request that companies start recycling and reusing waste waters, reduce the volume and toxicity of chemicals, and ensure the integrity of well cementing by using pressure testing and other methods.

The New York State comptroller’s office is one of the shareholders filing a resolution with Cabot Oil & Gas.

“Oil and gas firms are being too vague about how they will manage the environmental challenges resulting from fracking,” said comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. “The risks associated with unconventional shale gas extraction have the potential to negatively impact shareholder value.”

Other investors filing the resolutions include Domini Social Investments, Trillium Asset Management, Miller/Howard Investments, corporate accountability campaigners As You Sow and the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia.

The resolutions are being coordinated by the Investor Environmental Health Network and Green Century Capital Management.

Hydraulic fracturing uses water, particles and chemicals injected underground at high pressure to break up shale and release natural gas. The resolution sponsors say oil and gas companies are increasingly turning to the method as conventional natural gas supplies have dwindled.

Poor well construction can lead to drinking water contamination, well blowouts and gas leaks, the sponsors said.

ExxonMobil said on its website: “We support the disclosure of ingredients used, including disclosure on a site-specific basis, and we are working with industry associations on a comprehensive policy.”

It said its hydraulic fracturing fluid is typically 98 to 99.5 percent water and sand, “with the balance consisting of additional ingredients that make the process more effective by reducing friction and preventing pipe corrosion and bacteria growth.”

ExxonMobil added: “State, federal, and independent analyses have found that the hydraulic fracturing process poses no risk to groundwater supplies.”

Last autumn, just days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a subpoena to Halliburton to force the company to share information about its hydraulic fracturing process, Halliburton announced the launch of a new microsite that discloses the materials content of its hydraulic fracturing fluids.

In November Wyoming implemented new rules requiring natural gas drillers to disclose chemicals used in fracking, but citizen groups said the rules fall short of full transparency.

Blue is the New Green

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV3ZjORGwoI&fs=1&hl=en_US] A cool concept from Montana...check it out.

Fish the Arkansas with Guides that Care August 30th

On Monday, August 30th come out to fish the Arkansas River with guides that care. Cost for 2 people for a full day float is $375 or $315 for 1 person. Walk and wade for 2 people is $335 and $275 for 1 person. Half day rates available for both float and walk and wade.

All proceeds will be donated to the Land Trust for the Upper Arkansas, a nonprofit organization that protects important natural, agricultural, scenic, and historical lands in Lake, Chaffee, and Fremont Counties that the Arkansas River flows through.

Space is limited so RSVP by calling ArkAnglers 719-539-4223 or contact Hayden Mellsop hmellsop@pinonrealestate.com

Group calls Upper Colorado River ‘endangered'

Julie SutorSummit County Correspondent Post Independent

SUMMIT COUNTY, Colorado — New water diversions could sap the life from the Upper Colorado River Basin, according to American Rivers, a national conservation group.

The organization declared the Upper Colorado America's sixth most endangered river earlier this month in its annual survey of the health of the nation's rivers.

“We can't continue to take and take water from the Upper Colorado without accounting for the serious impacts to fish and wildlife habitat,” said Ken Neubecker of Colorado Trout Unlimited. “This river is on the brink. A vibrant, healthy river system in the Upper Colorado is every bit as important to the future of Colorado as the water it supplies to our farms and cities.”

http://www.postindependent.com/article/20100630/VALLEYNEWS/100629860/1083&ParentProfile=1074

Sportsman's watchman

A tribute to outdoorsman/journalist charlie meyers

By Karl Licis Special to The Denver Post

On Saturday, the property through which the Dream Stream flows will be dedicated as the Charlie Meyers State Wildlife Area in his honor.

Following, in random order, are some shared thoughts from people with a connection to the stream of dreams.

* * *

"Completely sated." Roger Hill is an expert angler, innovator and author of "Fly Fishing the South Platte River: an Angler's Guide," the first insightful book addressing the Dream Stream. He lives in Colorado Springs and is credited with procuring 12 miles of barbed wire for the Cheyenne Mountain chapter of Trout Unlimited for fencing the property in order to keep out the cattle.

"It's always been a challenge, but also very rewarding. It's had great hatches and demanding fish, but when you were on them it was incredibly good. I have many fond memories of days when the fishing was so good I would leave the river completely sated by the early afternoon."

* * *

For future generations. Sinjin Eberle is board president for Colorado Trout Unlimited, which has been involved in every aspect of making the Dream Stream what it has become. Eberle has limited Dream Stream experience, but he coordinated CTU's Buffalo Peaks project in the upper South Platte drainage. There he met Meyers.

"I was telling him all about the project and he was listening, but he also was observing every mayfly and every rising trout. He was fully in tune with every bit of the nature that was all around him, and that really drove home the point to me about why we're doing these things — the need to pass it on for future generations.

"The Dream Stream, along with two or three other rivers in Colorado, is widely known nationally and internationally, and he was a big part of making it what it is."

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15236345

West Slope questions Denver Water plan

By Bob Berwyn

Summit County Citizens Voice

Similar concerns were repeated by Erica Stock, an outreach coordinator with Colorado Trout Unlimited.The fisheries conservation group has specific ecological concerns related to lower flows, including warmer water that harms fish and higher concentrations of toxic metals. All those issues need to be addressed in the environmental study, she said. “We need minimum flows, flushing flows, adaptive management and monitoring. If we see the river is starting to collapse, we need to stop doing what we’re doing,” she concluded.

Check out the TU action page on the project for more information on how to comment before the March 17 deadline.

http://summitcountyvoice.com/2010/03/09/west-slope-raises-more-questions-about-denver-water-plan/