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Water Talks: Nestle Waters & Augmentation

7/15/2020

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WATER RIGHTS PROTECTIONS & NESTLE WATER’S 
RUBY MOUNTAIN SPRINGS AUGMENTATION

BY: Ralph “Terry” Scanga, General Manger, UAWCD

Over the past 20 plus years I have written many articles on water rights and water allocation in Colorado.  However, since so much of our current population is relatively new and therefore unfamiliar with Colorado’s water Doctrine, it may serve the District and all of us well to review that Doctrine and especially with the Nestle Water’s 1041 renewal permit approval pending in Chaffee County.
 
The Colorado Doctrine is quite simple.  The waters of the State belong to the people subject however to appropriation by individuals or entities for beneficial use.  Beneficial use is municipal (drinking), irrigation of crops, industrial uses, recreation, and environmental.  Recreational and environmental uses can only be appropriated by specific public entities and are a relatively new addition to the types of recognized beneficial uses.  Since Colorado and especially the Arkansas Basin is an arid State and Basin adjudicated water rights each have a priority date based upon the first date of diversion.  That is “First in Time is First in Right”.  However, since 1969 when tributary ground water was integrated under this system, like surface water has been since statehood, one could divert or pump ground water only if he replaced the water used-up at a location above the shorted water right.  There are some exemptions to this law, but they relate primarily to historic residential/home uses.  This replacement practice and plan also must be adjudicated by the water court and undergo extensive scrutiny before being approved.  These plans are called “Augmentation Plans”.
 
Nestle Water’s Ruby Mountain Springs’ wells have operated pursuant to the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District’s umbrella augmentation plans since 2015.  All the water used-up by Nestle has been replaced in the Arkansas River under this plan and by new water brought into the basin from the Western Slope of Colorado.  There have been no negative impacts or injury to the flows or water rights by the Nestle well pumping and use.  In fact, due to the Chaffee County 1041 permit conditions and terms, Nestle water replacements have enhanced flows in the Upper Arkansas river.  Under State water administration rules and laws water depleted in an augmentation plan must only be replaced above the shorted water right.  In the case of Nestle depletions, the replacement water does not have to be new trans-basin water and could be replaced out of Pueblo Reservoir, thus bypassing the Upper Arkansas portion of the River.
 
The former owner of Nestle Water’s Ruby Mountain Springs was impounding water for fish propagation under a decree that was non-consumptive.  However, the water impoundments were causing depletions to the river and injured water rights.  Today the Division of Water Resources is scrutinizing out of priority uses that are causing injury to river flows and water rights in the Upper Arkansas area.  These uses are primarily illegally filled catchments such as ponds built for fish propagation and aesthetics.  The amount of annual depletions is large.  More importantly, the major portion of these unsanctioned depletions occur during summer irrigation months of July and August.  Each acre of surface in these open-water ponds can create more than 3-acre feet of annual evaporation.  It is entirely possible that more than 1000 surface acres of illegally filled ponds exist in the Upper Arkansas Basin.  If so, this would equate to more than 3000-acre feet of injury to water rights annually.  Injury to Arkansas River flows and water rights do not occur when entities or individuals appropriate water in priority or if out of priority make ​​replacements under existing laws through court decreed augmentation plans.  The problem occurs when entities or individuals take water out of priority without making replacements to the River.
 


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River Diversion Will Eliminate Portaging

11/27/2019

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A river project, partially funded by the CWCB on the Arkansas River at Granite. The project was removing a river-wide diversion structure and replacing it with a new diversion structure that will allow unimpeded boating through Granite. Photo credit: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

From The Chaffee County Times (Max R. Smith) via The Leadville Herald:

In the mid-1960s, a partnership between the cities of Colorado Springs and Aurora installed a diversion dam in the Arkansas River south of Granite near Clear Creek Reservoir as part of a pipeline system bringing water from the western slope of the Continental Divide to the Front Range.

The presence of the diversion dam caused that portion of the river to be non-navigable, requiring portaging of one’s raft or kayak.

By the end of this year, however, Colorado Springs Utilities is on schedule to complete a three-year project to build a new river diversion that will allow boaters to float right through, meaning that the 2020 rafting season will be the first in over 50 years in which the entirety of the Arkansas can be traveled without portage.

“We’ll see how the snow treats us over the next couple weeks, but we’re really down to some final boulder work in the river and general site cleanup at this point,” said CSU project manager Brian McCormick.

The intake that pumped water out of the Arkansas (which, legally speaking, comes from the Eagle River Basin as part of the Homestake Project), destined for Aurora and Colorado Springs, “as with anything in the river for 50-plus years, it took some wear and tear,” McCormick said. “By about the mid-2000s, the cities recognized we needed to rehabilitate this structure to keep it as a reliable facility and ensure safety of the river users.”

Construction on the new $9.1 million diversion project began in 2016 after a number of years of planning, budgeting, and engineering. Support for the project included $1.2 million in grant funding from the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area, Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Colorado Water Conservation Board…

Significant to water consumers in Colorado Springs and Aurora, the project utilizes a new intake and piping structure to send water to the Otero pump station, he said.

Significant to boaters is a chute constructed of boulders and mortar with six two-foot drops that will allow them to pass the intake facility without exiting the river. McCormick said that CSU put the call out to members of Colorado’s river recreation community to participate in a trial run down the chute in November, testing the Arkansas’s newest whitewater feature…

Significant to the scaled, Omega-3 rich denizens of the Arkansas who swim upstream to spawn every year, the new diversion also features a fish ladder: a sequence of weirs and pools that give brown and rainbow trout a route to move up the river to their spawning grounds.
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Water Talks - Colorado Water Rights as Private Property Rights

6/25/2019

1 Comment

 

By Ralph "Terry" Scanga, General Manager

The misreading of Section 5, Article 16 of the Colorado Constitution has led many citizens to mistakenly assume that all the water of the state belongs exclusively to the public.  This section states:

“The water of every natural stream, not heretofore appropriated, within the state of Colorado, is hereby declared to be the property of the public, and the same is dedicated to the use of the people of the state, subject to appropriation as hereinafter provided.”

Essentially the waters are the property of the public for appropriation to beneficial use.  The ownership of the water by the public is conditioned upon it not being appropriated.  Further the water is dedicated to the people for appropriation for beneficial use.  In the Arkansas Basin every drop of water in the natural streams is appropriated and thereby owned by individual entities, private and public.

Due to the above misreading and misunderstanding of ownership a tension between private rights and public rights to water has existed.  Importantly, Colorado is not a public trust state.  Thus, the waters of the state are not “held in trust” for the public, rather, they are dedicated to the people of the state for appropriation and use.  The statute therein creates the ability for individuals to acquire a private ownership of water—a water right confirmed by court decree through a priority of use date. 

Some incorrectly argue that a water right is a usufructuary right, which is technically correct.  A usufructuary right refers to one individual’s right to use the property of another provided that the right is not altered or impaired.  A Colorado water right is different, it is alienable.  That is, it may be changed and transferred to another type of use, place of use, or manner of use.  The priority of use has historically been viewed as a private property right that can be separated from the land upon which it is used.  The water right itself can be separated and transferred from the land upon which it was historically used and may be purchased separately from the land.  Although water rights are property rights and are considered realty, they can be abandoned, thus they are a possessory right.

For nearly 150 years water in Colorado has been allocated by prior appropriation.  Especially in the arid Western half of the USA this system that establishes these property rights is called the “Colorado Doctrine”.  When the interior of the Western United States was developed Colorado was the trailblazer on water appropriation.  The West needed miners, ranchers, and farmers to develop its resources and build a viable economy through hard work.  During this early development period the average citizen mistrusted government and large monopolistic enterprises and feared the creation of a system that would facilitate collusion between government and these corporations.  To best use the water resources of Colorado the prior appropriation doctrine was adopted to create the incentive for resourceful individuals to divert waters of the state and place them to uses that would develop vibrant economies.  The system that was adopted prevented wealth speculators from hoarding water and creating a windfall profit.  The language in the Colorado Constitution does just that.  Public refers to the people individually given the right to appropriate water and place it to beneficial use and thereby creating a private property right. 
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By law the amount of water so appropriated must be beneficially used without waste.  Irrigation water rights are allocated by a ratio of a volume or rate of water to a specific amount of acreage.  This is termed the “duty of the water right”.  From this ratio and historic practice is derived the specific amount of water that an individual water right owner owns, stated in acre feet.  The number of acre feet owned is what can be transferred for use in different locations or transferred to a different type or manner of use.  In order to protect other vested water rights a transfer must be confirmed by the water court and a new or a change decree issued.  Through the water allocation and use mechanisms developed in the Colorado Doctrine, Colorado citizens have been able to optimize the use of incalculable value in an arid region of the United States.
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Awesome Aquifers

5/21/2019

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On Monday, May 6th the Upper Ark partnered with Canon City Exploratory School and several other organizations to bring a day of water activities and education to approximately 90 enthusiastic 3rd and 4th grade students. Partners included the USFS, BLM, AHRA, Canon City High School, City of Canon City, Raft Masters, and Fremont Adventure Recreation. Special thanks to Dominique Naccarato, Executive Director for the Greater Arkansas River Nature Association (GARNA) for co-leading the Awesome Aquifers activity with the District. Students learned about the interaction between groundwater and surface water and got to build their own aquifer model. 

The District also had the opportunity this month to lead an aquifer station for GARNA's annual 6th grade field trip. We always have fun leading this activity, teaching kids about aquifers and the potential for alluvial storage. It's great to use interactive and hands on activities to break apart complex water topics and get down to the basics- everyone learns something!
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Thoughts on Snowpack

4/8/2019

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Check out this recent article published in the Ark Valley Voice with comments by Manager Scanga. Special thanks to Henry John DeKam for reaching out to the Upper Ark and for providing important and relevant information to the community.
Colorado Snow Pack Article
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Water Talks - Current and Future Challenges to Upper Arkansas Basin Water Supplies

3/18/2019

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This is part one of a two-part series by General Manager, Ralph "Terry" Scanga

Most discussions involving water supply or quality require a good examination of historical perspective of water development.  For this reason, understanding the system by which water is and has been allocated in Colorado since statehood is a good starting point.  

Water in Colorado is allocated as a private property right through a system referred to as the Appropriation Doctrine.  It is the only arid Western state that utilizes a pure form of this doctrine called the “Colorado Doctrine”.  This doctrine is enshrined in the State’s constitution.  It is a constitutional right for the citizens of Colorado to an appropriation of water based on its beneficial use.  Although many legislative statutes deal with water appropriation and use these all rely upon and must comport with the basic constitutional right granted the citizens of the state.  This article is not intended to delve into the Doctrine except to point out that water rights and decrees are granted as a private property right.  In fact, this system is automatically designed to apportion available water supply without undue interference from government except for the administration of the existing water decrees or through the water court.
 
In 2005 legislation was passed creating the inter-basin compact committee and the nine basin roundtables.  The basins utilized the Statewide Water Supply Initiative (A project to calculate the available water supply compared to demand --a needs assessment) to identify the projects and processes needed to address any water supply gap out to the year 2050 for all uses- municipal, industrial, irrigation (agricultural), environmental and recreational.  Water entities and individuals were involved in each basin throughout the state to develop these plans.  Projects were identified and some were funded in part with grants from the state’s Colorado Water Conservation Board.  The Colorado Water Plan was developed from these plans and processes.  These projects have gone a long way to make available the necessary water supplies for the future.  Many of the projects are ongoing and more will be needed to meet future needs.
 
Colorado is an arid state with future shortages forecast in the higher growth regions.  In the Arkansas Basin many junior water rights were established during high precipitation periods.  Due to this the Arkansas Basin today is considered an over-appropriated basin; meaning that on average there are more decreed water rights than water available.  Most of these junior water rights are decreed for irrigation use in agriculture.  In the Arkansas Basin shortages are forecast for all water uses.
 
The Colorado Water Plan is a collection of the ideas and projects on how we can meet future water demands. Meeting the future need revolves around developing new Colorado River Supplies and Alternative Agricultural Transfers coupled with storage.  The Colorado River normally has water that is unused and could be utilized to fill the gaps in the higher growth regions.  Presently Colorado is well ahead in meeting its Compact obligations on the Colorado River despite unsubstantiated claims from some state politicians and the administration that Colorado may be unable to meet its obligations.  Agricultural irrigation uses 80 percent or more of the available supply statewide.  Some of these uses could be temporarily interrupted through court approved Lease-Fallowing agreements, and the water owner compensated, to meet shortages in drier years.  In wet years existing storage and new storage could be utilized to save the excess for drier times.  Storage projects including alluvial storage need to be built to meet the future needs.  Through the existing Appropriation System, the above plans and others are underway to meet this future need.  Water storage operations could be adapted to meet multiple uses for stream management to meet increased demands for the environment and recreation.  All this can and should be completed through the Colorado Doctrine of Appropriation, a strong legal framework to guarantee the security, reliability and flexibility in the development and protection of water resources.
 
In our next “Water Talks” article we will explore the various threats to our water supply.

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March 2019 - Colorado Legislative Update

3/15/2019

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By Ken Baker - Board Consultant

The Colorado General Assembly is in session and the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District is closely monitoring water-related legislation. In our March legislative update I have highlighted some of the issues we are closely following.

Change in Republican River District Boundaries 
HB19-1029 will require a larger number of water users to pay for well pumping in the newly enlarged district. 

Water Loans for Stream Use 
HB19-1218 will amend the existing statute that grants authority to the Colorado Water Conservation Board for loaning water for in-stream purposes. Provisions state that the loaned water is to be used for preserving the natural environment of a stream reach that is subject to a decreed in-stream flow right and preserving or improving the natural environment to a reasonable degree for a stream reach for which the Colorado Water Conservation Board does not hold a decreed in-stream right. The bill would increase the number of years of the loan from three years to five years of a ten-year period. ​


Study of Blockchain Technology in Water Uses 
This bill, SB19-184, is in response to the rapidly emerging technology of blockchain. Governor Polis has announced a major long-term commitment by his administration to make Colorado a hub for the technology of blockchain. Blockchain technology most often associates with crypto-currency, but it has a vast array of uses with respect to asset management, inventory control, product safety, and other applications where security of interchanges is a high priority. SB19-184 authorizes the Colorado Water Institute to study potential uses of blockchain technology in various water applications such as recording and monitoring water rights, developing market exchanges of water, the creation and operation of water banks, aquifer storage retrieval and other applications. When the Institute has completed the study, it will report back to the General Assembly. 

Restructuring of State Regulations of Oil and Gas Exploration and Extraction 
HB19-181 proposes major restructuring of the regulatory treatment of the oil and natural gas exploration and extraction industry. 
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Concerning the Expansion of Agricultural Chemical Management Plans to Protect Surface Water 
SB19-186 is a plan that CSU has worked on with the Department of Agriculture. The word groundwater has been replaced with the term “state waters”. 
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Questions from the Classroom - UAWCD Responds

3/12/2019

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Education is tremendously important to us here at the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District and we consider it our responsibility to function as a pipeline for the delivery of accurate information about water to our community. When that pipeline reaches young people, whether through school programs or outreach events, there is a trickling down of knowledge through the generations. That’s why we were excited to participate and engage with the students from the Darren Patterson Christian Academy in Buena Vista. 

Earlier this year we received letters from several students sharing about their learning journey and asking for more information on various local water topics. Curious about those questions and how we responded? Check out the letters below! 

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Q & A With the UAWCD
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Water Education in the Upper Arkansas Valley

11/21/2018

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In 2017, the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District developed a comprehensive education plan to help us expand our outreach and education efforts. We, as your local water district, want to better engage the public through well-informed discourse regarding local water management and to offer educational programming and resources in the Upper Arkansas Basin. The Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District has served your communities for over 40 years andwe would like the opportunity to share with you what we have learned. We believe that education is the key to building successful projects for the future to effectively and efficiently manage our most precious resource - water. 

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In the last year, following the development of our education plan, the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District has built various education programs to assist in the education on water-relatedtopics in the community. We now offer a monthly educational column in regional newspapers. It is there that we talk about new projects, essentialfunding sources, and potential solutions to our water challenges. We’ve also created educational literature available at our office for pick-up and hosted water education events throughout the area including documentaries and our annual Water Fest, a family-friendly water education event in Buena Vista and Salida. 
 
Most recently, we have launched a new educational website full of information.  We provide many resources on the site including a water resource data section where visitors may view information related to stream discharge, reservoir contents, water temperature, and weather conditions. We also have a comprehensive listing of links and resources, a blog where we will continue to feature news related to local water issues, and information regarding water administration and storage projects.
 
You may view our new website at www.uawcd.com
 
In 2019, the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District will continue to build upon our water education programs and opportunities. An understanding of water history, law, and administration are essential to developing solutions to our future water challenges. We strive to provide the groundwork for this type of water education, in turn, building a more informed community. If you have any questions or if there is something, you’d like to learn more about, please contact Chelsey at 719.539.5425 and let us know.

​We’d enjoy hearing from you.
 
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2018 Upper Arkansas River Water Festivals, Aug 15 & 16

8/6/2018

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Join the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District for a two-day water festival.
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This great family-friendly (and fun!) water education event is sponsored by the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District, in partnership with the Foodshed Alliance and are held in conjunction with the Salida Farmers Market and the Buena Vista Farmers Market. Enjoy water education for children and adults as well as demonstration and exhibits.

Free and open to the public. 

--Saturday, August 25th - Salida @ the Farmers Market, Alpine Park
--Sunday, August 26th - Buena Vista @ the Farmers Market, South Main Square
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