Ridenbaugh Press/Water Rights

The Arkansas River Compact Administration will hold its annual meeting December 6 in Garden City, Kansas.

ARCA administers provisions of the Kansas-Colorado Arkansas River Compact, including operations of the John Martin Reservoir. Topics to be discussed at the annual meeting include a review of John Martin Reservoir operations, a compliance update, committee reports, and updates from state and federal agencies.

Kansas has three representatives serving on ARCA, including David Barfield, chief engineer of the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Division of Water Resources; David Brenn, Garden City; and Randy Hayzlett, Lakin.

ARCA’s Operations, Administrative and Legal, and Engineering committees will meet on Wednesday, Dec. 5, at 1:30 p.m. CST (12:30 p.m. MST) at the Clarion Inn Conference Center.

The annual and committee meetings are open to the public. Individuals who require special accommodation should notify Stephanie Gonzales at (719) 734-5102 at least three days prior to the meetings. The annual meeting agenda is posted on the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s website.

The Kansas-Colorado Arkansas River Compact was negotiated in 1948 between Kansas and Colorado with participation by the federal government. Its stated purposes are to settle existing disputes and remove causes of future controversy between Colorado and Kansas regarding Arkansas River water and to equitably divide and apportion the water between Colorado and Kansas, including benefits arising from John Martin Reservoir.

The annual meeting of the Arkansas River Compact Administration will take place at 8:30 a.m. MST (9:30 a.m. CST), on Thursday, Dec. 8, in the Lamar Community Building, 610 S. Sixth St., Lamar, Colo.

The Arkansas River Compact Administration administers provisions of the Kansas-Colorado Arkansas River Compact, including the operation of John Martin Reservoir. Topics to be covered at the annual meeting include a review of John Martin Reservoir operations, compliance update, committee reports, and updates from state and federal agencies.

The full meeting agenda is posted on the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s website at http://www.ksda.gov/interstate_water_issues/content/143.

The Kansas-Colorado Arkansas River Compact was negotiated in 1948 between Kansas and Colorado with participation by the federal government. Its stated purposes are to settle existing disputes and remove causes of future controversy between Colorado and Kansas over Arkansas River water and to equitably divide and apportion the water between Colorado and Kansas, including benefits arising from John Martin Reservoir.

Kansas has three representatives on the Administration. They are David Barfield, chief engineer of the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Division of Water Resources, David Brenn of Garden City, and Randy Hayzlett of Lakin.

The Administration’s engineering, operations, and administrative and legal committees will meet starting at 1:30 p.m. MST (2:30 pm CST) on Wednesday, Dec. 7. Those meetings will also take place at the Lamar Community Building.

In an extensive analysis, the Pueblo (Colorado) Chieftain on September 26 said that the amount of irrigated land – and presumably the amount of water used for irrigation – is dropping in the Arkansas River basin in Colorado.

Part of the reason, the paper said, is a series of water transfers out of the basin, often to more urban areas. “Transfers from 1950 to the present could take water off one-third of historically irrigated land in the Arkansas River basin — nearly 150,000 of 450,000 acres,” the paper said. And it indicated that state studies suggest the number could go even higher.

It also said, “In The Chieftain’s study, the 150,000 acres of land potentially removed since 1950 includes land that could be dried up either through direct sales of water rights to cities, towns, speculators or power companies; by loss of storage once used by irrigators; or by decreasing the use of well water either through shutdowns or augmentation.”

The Woodmoor Water and Sanitation District is just one of the many Front Range Colorado entities that seeks to buy water from the low-population (but not exactly drenched) Lower Arkansas Valley. It is finding that proposition increasingly difficult.

The Woodmoor district is located between Denver and Colorado Springs, in El Paso County.

On June 14, the Board of Directors of the Woodmoor Water and Sanitation District No. 1 completed contracts for additional water rights along the Lower Arkansas River.

The district’s board approved seven contracts for Holbrook Canal water, representing approximately 800 acre feet of water. This will be added to the 46.6 shares of Rocky Ford Highline that were put under contract by the board during previous meetings.

Woodmoor continues to fill in the pieces of its Renewable Water Plan to move the district away from dependence on Denver Basin aquifer water. On Dec. 30, 2009, Woodmoor filed in Water Court an application for approval of a plan to move water upstream from the lower Arkansas River to the district service area via exchange through a system of storage facilities. At its last meeting, the district contracted for a portion of the Stonewall Springs Reservoir site near Pueblo.

This plan will eventually replace the district’s current reliance on Denver Basin aquifers for most of its water. These aquifers for decades have provided plenty of water, but now far too many communities along the Front Range are draining this resource.

Not everyone is in favor, however. Objections have been filed from ditches that Woodland has previously contracted (in contracts worth about $4 million, producing about 1,800 acre-feet) for water rights: the High Line, Holbrook and Excelsior ditch systems. They companies have been pass-throughs, since individual operators have been the contractors.

Shortly after Woodmoor sought its transfers from the Lower Arkansas, the objections began to show up in water court.

One from attorney Stephen Leonhardt, representing the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District, said that “The application is speculative, and is inconsistent with statutory and case law requirements for appropriative rights of exchange.”

[see also the Pueblo Chieftain, June 23]

The Lower Arkansas Valley Super Ditch Company, a bargaining agent for irrigators seeking to lease water for temporary use, has drawn some more concern, this time from the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District board which has filed opposition to a Super Ditch application Water Court 2.

A conservancy spokesman said that it has issues with “the use of winter water and the Fryingpan-Arkansas facilities.” That filing in opposition could signal the beginning of negotiations rather than an outright fight.

Super Ditch was formed in 2008 as a cooperative effort: “Shareholders of six major ditch companies from Pueblo County to Kansas today incorporated the Lower Arkansas Valley Super Ditch Company. The so-called super ditch company is actually a bargaining agent for irrigators who are interested in leasing water for temporary use by thirsty cities, water districts, and other water users while retaining water ownership and irrigation in the Valley. John Schweitzer, an incorporator and board member stated that “incorporation of the Super Ditch is a major step by valley irrigators to work together for everyone’s benefit.” Leasing water is expected to be an attractive alternative to municipalities for drought proofing, drought recovery, ground water recharge, and insurance against interstate compact calls. Municipalities and water agencies from Pueblo to metropolitan Denver have expressed interest in leasing water from the Super Ditch Company. The company already has two letters of intent to lease a total of 15,000 acre-feet per year.”

A seventh participant later joined.

One of the problems long bedeviling the water users of the Lower Arkansas River area in Colorado has been the splintered jurisdiction, the many water districts in the area – 26 in Otero County – which aren’t always lined up the same way.

On June 17, with that in mind, the board of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District agreed unanimously to spend as much as $14,000 toward setting up a comprehensive water authority for the area.

Much of the immediate impetus for acting centers around water quality issues and the need to upgrade infrastructure. But water supply and rights issues also easily could come into play as well.

[see Pueblo (CO) Chieftain, June 17]

The water that’s used for bottled water has been a bigger topic of dispute in the Great Lakes area, but the debate is moving west: Specifically to the dry area around Salida, Colorado.

Chafee County residents are arguing against a proposal by Nestle Waters North America, which is planning to divert spring water, near the community of Nathrop, which has been feeding the hard-pressed Arkansas River, itself the subject of many disputes. The withdrawal amount could run as high as 65 million gallons per year.

There would be some compensation for that, in the form of an agreement with the city of Aurora, which would release some of its water for the river’s flow.

Nestle Waters is owner of the land and the appurtenant rights. The water would be used in its Arrowhead brand water.

The Colorado Springs Gazette noted on May 1, “At the heart of the debate is whether a community benefits when a company takes water from its springs to sell on grocery store shelves. Some communities have fought such efforts – with mixed results – and the conflict in Salida could presage fights elsewhere in Colorado. Nestle has plans to tap springs in three or four more locations in the state.”

No, it turns out Colorado won’t have to pay what was estimated at $9 million in legal costs in a long-running water rights case over the Arkansas River. Kansas, which had prevailed on the water rights issues, had asked for legal costs in pursuit of the case. The case overall has been ongoing through the courts for 22 years.

The U.S. Supreme Court made the ruling earlier today.

Instead, Colorado will be asked to pay a much smaller amount for some expert advice – about $163,000.

Attorneys for the states of Kansas and Colorado were back at the U.S. Supreme Court on December 1, the battle this time not specifically over water rights but rather over the outgrowth of the extensive litigation over them: Attorneys fees and legal costs.

Kansas is looking for about $9 million in expert witness fees and other costs, which apparently were limited to less than $200,000 under an earlier special master’s ruling. The decision could have substantial impact on payment for expert witnesses, which could have a range of effects through a variety of legal cases.

The original case, which Kansas won, concerned water rights at the Arkansas River, which flow through both states.

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on September 11 approved several key Colorado land and water bills that United States Senator Ken Salazar has been championing. The Committee, of which Senator Salazar is a member, approved legislation to rehabilitate the Jackson Gulch Irrigation Canal in Montezuma County, authorize construction of the Arkansas Valley Conduit in southeastern Colorado, designate lands in Mesa, Montrose and Delta Counties as the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area and Wilderness, and protect open space in and around the Arapahoe-Roosevelt National Forest in northern Colorado.
“In Colorado, the protection of our land and water is fundamental to our way of life,” said Senator Salazar. “I appreciate the support of my colleagues on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee who helped us advance bills that are vital to communities across the Colorado. These bills will help farmers, ranchers and local communities in southeastern and southwestern Colorado have reliable access to clean water, help communities along the Front Range protect open space, and preserve, for the enjoyment of generations to come, one of the signature landscapes of the Western Slope.”
A summary of the Colorado bills:
Arkansas Valley Region: S. 2974 – THE ARKANSAS VALLEY CONDUIT ACT (Introduced by Senator Wayne Allard, co-sponsored by Sen. Salazar) Establishes a 35% federal cost share for the construction of he Arkansas Valley Conduit, a proposed 130-mile water delivery system from Pueblo Dam to communities throughout the Arkansas River Valley. The Conduit was originally authorized in 1962 as part of the Fryingpan-Arkansas project.
Four Corners Region: S. 1477 – THE JACKSON GULCH REHABILITATION ACT (Introduced by Sen. Salazar, co-sponsored by Senator Wayne Allard):
Would authorize federal funding to rehabilitate the Jackson Gulch irrigation canal, which delivers water from Jackson Gulch Dam to residents, farms and businesses in Montezuma County. In addition to providing supplemental agricultural water for about 8,650 irrigated acres and a domestic water supply for the Mesa Verde National Park, the Mancos Project also delivers water to the more than 500 members of the Mancos Rural Water Company, the Town of Mancos and at least 237 agricultural businesses.
These bills will now move to the floor for consideration by the full Senate.
U.S. Senator Ken Salazar Contact: Michael Amodeo – 303-249-5286; Matt Lee-Ashley – 202-228-5905