Headwaters Summer 2006: Groundwater

C o l o r a d o F o u n d at i o n F o r W at e r e d u C at i o n | S u m m e r 2 0 0 6

South Platte Well Owners in Crisis

The Republican: A River in Debt

Sustaining the San Luis Valley

Denver Basin Aquifers

TheGroundwater

Puzzle

Colorado Foundation for Water Education1580 Logan St., Suite 410 • Denver, CO 80203

303-377-4433 • www.cfwe.org

Mission Statement

The mission of the Colorado Foundation for Water Education is to promote better under-standing of water resources through education and information. The Foundation does not take an advocacy position on any water issue.

Staff

Don GlaserExecutive Director

Karla A. BrownExecutive Director Emeritus

Jeannine TompkinsOffice Coordinator

Officers

PresidentDiane Hoppe

State Representative

1st Vice PresidentJustice Gregory J. Hobbs, Jr.

Colorado Supreme Court

2nd Vice PresidentMatt Cook

Coors Brewing Company

Acting SecretaryWendy Hanophy

Division of Wildlife

TreasurerTom Long

Summit County Commissioner

Assistant TreasurerChris Rowe

Division of Minerals & Geology

At LargeTaylor Hawes

Colorado River Water Conservation District

Rod KuharichColorado Water Conservation Board

Becky BrooksColorado Water Congress

Trustees

Steve Acquafresca, Mesa Land Trust

Rita Crumpton, Orchard Mesa Irrigation District

Kathleen Curry, State Representative

Lynn Herkenhoff, Southwestern Water Conservation District

Jim Isgar, State Senator

Ken Lykens, MWH Americas, Inc.

Frank McNulty, Colorado Dept. of Natural Resources

John Porter, Colorado Water Congress

John Redifer, Colorado Water Conservation Board

Rick Sackbauer, Eagle River Water & Sanitation District

Robert Sakata, Sakata Farms

Gerry Saunders, University of Northern Colorado

Reagan Waskom, Colorado State University

Headwaters is a quarterly magazine designed to provide Colorado citizens with balanced and accurate information on a variety of subjects related to water resources. Copyright 2006 by the Colorado Foundation for Water Education. ISSN: 1546-0584Lori Ozzello Managing Editor | Design by Emmett Jordan

AcknowledgementsThe Colorado Foundation for Water Education thanks the people and organizations who provided review, comment and assistance in the development of this issue.

Letter from the Editor ......................................................... 1

Legal Brief ........................................................................... 2

In the News ........................................................................ 3

A River in Debt .................................................................... 4

San Luis Valley Waits for Judicial Ruling ........................ 11

Denver Basin Aquifers ...................................................... 14

South Platte Well Owners in Crisis .................................. 18

Colorado Ground Water Commission ............................... 23

CFWE Highlights ............................................................... 25

River of Words Poetry Winners ........................................ 28

Thank You to Our Members .............................................. 30

Order Form ....................................................................... 32

C o l o r a d o F o u n d at i o n F o r W at e r e d u C at i o n | S u m m e r 2 0 0 6

South Platte Well Owners in Crisis

The Republican: A River in Debt

Sustaining the San Luis Valley


TheGroundwater

Puzzle

On the Cover: Colorado groundwater management

is a multi-layered puzzle. The snag is that the pieces are from several

water puzzles and no one knows for sure how they all fit together.

HEADWATERS | SummER 2006 Wa†ermarks

Reflecting dry conditions in eastern Colorado, dust hangs in the air on a Yuma county road. Photo by Michael Lewis

Wa†ermarks

H e a d wat e r s | s u m m e r 2 0 0 6 �

If there is one thing I took away from this groundwater-themed issue, it is that managing water underground isn’t easy.

Of course it’s a challenge. We have deep groundwater and shallow groundwater, groundwater connected to rivers, some not, some sort of connected. We have arte-sian pressure, gravels, sandstones and designated areas where one can pump this much but not that much.

Yet for all our difficulties, inconsistencies and litigation, Colorado is still leading the way nationwide in the sophistication and complexity of our groundwater manage-ment. Few other states regulate groundwater as closely as we do.

Unfortunately, the complexity of this subject may scare away the average reader. I hope that isn’t the case. We cannot afford to abandon these issues to the sole discre-tion of specialists, experts and technocrats.

Deciphering the complexities of water management in this state has been a large part of my job in the last three years. And, I feel, it is certainly the role of Headwaters magazine. In this Foundation I wanted to create something different—to share water resource information and stories that everyone could understand.

Thank you to all those who have supported me and this endeavor.

Best wishes,

Karla BrownEditor and Executive Director Emeritus

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2 C o lo r a d o f o u n dat i o n f o r wat e r e d u C at i o n

lEgiSlATivE uPDATE

The 2006 session of the Colorado General Assembly pro-duced nine water bills that became law. Highlights of the new laws include:

Senate Bill 06-034: Appoints one new member to the Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority Board who is experienced in drinking water or water quality matters.

Senate Bill 06-037: Amends and clarifies legal procedures and definitions related to recreational in-channel diversions. For example, it requires that the Colorado Water Conservation Board make findings of fact and recommendations on only three major factors in RICD applications: maximum utiliza-tion of the state’s water resources, ability to meet the state’s compact obligations, and injury to instream flow water rights. It further went on to define “control structures,” “a reasonable recreational experience,” and an RICD as the minimum amount of stream flow placed to beneficial use between specific points defined by control structures, for a reasonable recreational experience from April 1 to Labor Day. Among other provisions, it helps define “material injury” to other water rights, discusses how reasonable flow rates over specified time periods should be assessed, and provides additional instruction to the water courts for their review of such applications.

Senate Bill 06-193: Directs the Colorado Water Conservation Board to conduct a study of the most economically feasible, technically and ecologically sound underground storage sites located in the South Platte and Arkansas river basins.

House Bill 06-1031: Authorizes the reimbursement of non-travel related expenses for directors of the Southwestern Water Conservation District while engaged in district business.

House Bill 06-1032: Provides for inflation adjustments for board members of irrigation districts for non-travel expenses while attending meetings on behalf of the district in addi-tion to reimbursement for actual and necessary expenses while engaged in official business. It also adjusts for infla-tion certain monetary thresholds for the award of contracts by irrigation districts.

House Bill 06-1313: Authorizes Colorado Water Conservation Board financing that includes:

• $250,000 for satellite monitoring and data collection efforts for in-stream flow monitoring, compact protec-tion, decision support systems, and flood forecasting and warning projects;

• $350,000 for renovation of existing gauging stations, replacement of outdated collection platforms, and upgrading of transmission components of the satellite monitoring systems;

• $100,000 for engineering support services necessary for the appropriation, acquisition and protection of in-stream flow water rights;

• $75,000 to assist water conservation districts, con-servancy districts and other water providers with the development of cloud seeding programs;

• $150,000 for planning and engineering implementation studies to address watershed restoration and flood mitigation projects;

• $2 million to continue development of the South Platte decision support system;

• $500,000 to continue to assist with the modernization and improvement of floodplain studies and maps;

• $100,000 to continue collaborating with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on modeling of snowpack data to benefit all water planners and managers;

• $48,000 to collaborate with the U.S. Geological Survey on a pilot study to improve predictions of snowmelt runoff and the corresponding flood potential in small watersheds in the Gunnison River Basin;

• $133,555 to participate with the San Luis Valley Irrigation District in the Rio Grande reservoir multi-use enlargement study; and,

• $100,000 to participate with the South Platte Ditch Company in a demonstration project to evaluate the effectiveness of innovative electronic flow measure-ment and ditch operation control equipment.

House Bill 06-1124: Provides direction for the adjudication of rotational crop management contracts, and their related water appropriations. A rotational crop management con-tract allows the owner(s) of irrigation water rights to imple-ment a change of water rights to a new use by foregoing irrigation of a portion of their historically irrigated lands.

House Bill 06-1293: Allows for the collection of fees for the review of water plans to replace depletions caused by evaporation of groundwater to the atmosphere during open sand and gravel mining.

House Bill 06-1400: Approves the Interbasin Compact Charter

as submitted to the General Assembly on April 6, 2006 and requires the charter to be published in the full text in the Colorado Revised Statutes. It also adjusts the boundaries of certain basin roundtables.

2006 Colorado General Assembly


in THE nEWS

DENVER—Great Western Institute, together with the Colorado WaterWise Council and Western Resource Advocates, are conducting technical workshops and forums promoting water conservation and water use efficiency. A water efficiency grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board makes the summer workshops possible.

The programs are intended for water utility managers; elected and appointed

officials, water resource managers, spe-cial districts and home owners asso-ciation directors, consultants, Statewide Water Supply Initiative and Interbasin Basin Roundtable members, as well as anyone with a strong interest in water conservation.

Great Western Institute is a Highlands Ranch based nonprofit. Its mission is to promote water resource conservation through education, research and policy. The Colorado WaterWise Council is a professional organization whose goal is to promote the efficient use of Colorado’s water. Western Resource Advocates, based in Boulder, has worked to pro-tect and restore the land, air and water resources of the Rocky Mountain states.

Dates and Places:

Alamosa—July 10-11, Adams State College

Gunnison—July 24- 25, Western State College of Colorado

Glenwood Springs—Aug. 7-8, Glenwood Springs Community Center

The two-day sessions are free. Topics include:

• Nine steps for water conserva-tion planning;

• Colorado Water Conservation Board Water Conservation Planning and Guidance docu-ments;

• A review of the CWCB grant programs; and

• Presentations by regional researchers and practitioners about the dollars and sense of water conservation.

For details or to participate, contact Tracy Bouvette at the Great Western Institute 303-355-4057 or [email protected]

Agencies Collaborate to Offer Free Technical Workshops,Forums to Promote Water Conservation and Efficiency

DENVER—Imagine needing data on a river and having one loca-tion to get what you need. Imagine expanding effectiveness because your data is available to many more decision makers.

The Colorado Water Quality Monitoring Council is making it happen with its Data Sharing Network Project which kicked off this spring. The comprehensive project aims to provide a one-stop source for watershed data of all kinds, including:

• Aquatic ecosystem, chemical, physical habitat or bio-logical data for watershed management, planning or resource decision making;

• Access to other data or as a mechanism for others to access your data; or

• An avenue for reporting your data to the EPA’s STORET database.

The council’s goal is to become a statewide water qual-ity monitoring and assessment voice for each participant in the network. Training on how to organize data and employ the data sharing system are being planned in 12 cities statewide over the next few years.

The council will also host “data swaps” with monitoring groups in your watershed. They will be scheduled statewide to coincide with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Triennial Basin Review Schedule—starting with the upper and lower Colorado River Basin in fall 2006.

To learn more about the project, or find out when Water Quality Monitoring Council representatives will be in your area, call 970-382-6667.

Sharing Water Quality Data – It Can Really Happen

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Story by Erin McIntyre Photos by Michael Lewis

Gary Earl prepares to plant dryland sorghum in what was an irrigated field near Wray.

� C o lo r a d o f o u n dat i o n f o r wat e r e d u C at i o n


At 67 years old, Gary Earl talks about “slowing down a little” and giving dry-

land farming a try on some 300 acres near Wray. He’s actually look-

ing forward to it. For the first time in his farming and ranching career, he’ll watch up to

3,500 gallons of water per minute from his wells go downstream, to help his neighbors

keep their center pivots running and help Colorado meet its water delivery obligations

to downstream states.

A River in Debt


Shutting down wells in the Republican Basin

6 C o lo r a d o f o u n dat i o n f o r wat e r e d u C at i o n

Earl’s fields, nestled in the rolling grasslands the locals call the Sand Hills, are where Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas meet. Most people in the area rely on groundwater wells for their homes, farms and businesses, and tap into the Ogallala aquifer, also called the High Plains aquifer, a once-bountiful aquifer now plagued by pollution concerns and dropping water levels.

One of Earl’s pastures borders Kansas, the state that recently settled a lawsuit with Colorado and Nebraska over neighboring states’ wells depleting water from the already marginal flows of the Arikaree and Republican rivers.

Kansas originally accused Nebraska of over-pumping its wells. In 2000, Kansas and Nebraska dragged Colorado into the suit because it was party to the original compact dividing the river. A compact settlement reached in 2003 determined

Colorado needed to find ways to put water back into the Republican and Arikaree rivers, and send it downstream to Kansas.

To contribute water to the Republican and Arikaree rivers, the 2004 state leg-islature created the Republican River Water Conservation District—a tax-fund-ed entity designed to work with irrigators to voluntarily shut down wells. The first year, it will pay Earl $120 for each acre he does not irrigate with his three wells. If the experiment works, next year Earl will receive $150 per non-irrigated acre. Receiving a guaranteed income isn’t so bad when you’re in a job where you live day to day, and even on the best days you don’t make much.

In fact, Earl approached the district with the offer.

“It’s a good deal for me,” Earl says, noting he still has two other wells to water

his livestock and he’ll have enough water to grow feed for his cattle; he just won’t have any extra feed to sell anymore.

Instead, the water from Earl’s wells will contribute to the Arikaree River less than a half-mile from the stream gauge that measures Colorado’s water credited to the compact.

So far the program is voluntary, with some farmers seizing the opportunity to receive compensation for poorly perform-ing wells. Others hope shutting down for a while will increase flows enough to sat-isfy the compact requirements.

“I just hope they won’t come in here and say everybody’s going to shut their wells down,” Earl says. “I hope this works.”

Paying off the debt of water to anoth-er state is only one of the hardships communities like Wray and Yuma face. A rift between those fortunate enough to own surface-water rights and those who

“We had to keep reminding everyone that this is not some esoteric situation. This is real life-and-blood type stuff.”

—Chief Deputy State Engineer Ken Knox


use groundwater is growing, fueled by decades of division and a lawsuit filed last year.

KANSAS VS. NEBRASKA AND COLORADOKansas’ lawsuit spurred experts in all

three states to examine how water was being used in the Republican River Basin.

That’s when Chief Deputy State Engineer Ken Knox got involved.

“We thought there was a better way of doing this than an 18-year lawsuit,” Knox says. “We’re fussing over water, Kansas is saying they’ve been deprived of water, and we needed to find out how to measure what is going on.”

The individual states formed their own technical teams and embarked on the formation of a groundwater model, a tool used to understand the way water moves underground.

At times it was grueling. Knox com-

pares it to President Kennedy asking NASA officials to make it to the moon on a deadline, and he’s not kidding.

“The U.S. Geological Survey had tried to do this, and they worked on it for seven years and were unsuccessful,” he explains. “We did it in 14 months.”

The meeting of academia, science and bureaucrats made for an interesting sequestration.

“Believe me, there was no lack of self-esteem,” says Knox. “There was a room full of PhD’s talking about high-end mathematics.”

During negotiations, he always tried to keep the individual farmers in mind—the people whose livelihoods depend on whether they can plant their fields.

“We had to keep reminding everyone that this is not some esoteric situation,” Knox says. “This is real life-and-blood type stuff.”

The groundwater model the three states agreed upon uses complicated mathematics to figure depletions from the Arikaree and Republican rivers, caused by water pumped from wells.

If left undisturbed, groundwater sits in aquifers composed of variable sands and rocks hundreds or thousands of feet below ground. While some aquifers are not connected to surface streams, others such as the High Plains aquifer are connected, and can add or subtract water from local rivers. In a system of give and take, these aquifers are then recharged by precipitation or seepage from streams. Some water also comes back to the groundwater system from irrigation return flows.

But the cause and effect of ground-water pumping is by no means straight-forward. Water molecules follow a cir-cuitous underground path and can take

“We had to keep reminding everyone that this is not some esoteric situation. This is real life-and-blood type stuff.”

—Chief Deputy State Engineer Ken Knox


After shutting down a portion of his wells, Earl will still maintain two wells to water his livestock and grow sufficient hay to feed his own cattle.

decades to travel from one place to another, making it difficult to track which wells are depriving a stream of its flow.

Experts used streamflow records from the 24,900-square-mile basin and water-level measurements from about 10,000 wells dating back to the 1930s to help build a database. These tools help calculate the consumptive use of a well and its effect on a stream.

Overall, experts estimate 30,000 acres of the 565,000-acre area will need to be fallowed before Colorado can live within its compact allocation. But ongo-ing drought and continued pumping of the 3,967 wells in the basin have kept Colorado owing water toward the com-pact, which has a compliance deadline of the last day of 2007.

RETIRING WELLS“We know we have to retire existing

wells,” says Knox. “So we’re trying to identify which ones are the most advanta-geous to retire for compact compliance.”

In other words, experts try to deter-mine which wells are pumping the most water that would have reached the stream if they didn’t exist. Each well’s proximity to the river is a clue.

Wells located nearer to the river are worth more compensation if they shut down, like Earl’s well near the Arikaree River. But it’s not that easy.

“It is kind of shutting down part of the economy when you shut down a well,”

says Stan Murphy, Republican River Water Conservation District manager. The rural economy relies on everything from feed lots to fertilizer companies.

Officials are trying to keep the liveli-hoods of the communities in mind, said Knox. They would prefer to scatter the curtailment of wells rather than heavy-handedly shut down one area.

“From an engineering point of view, I could target 40 wells all in the same area within a mile of the stream and it might solve our problem,” Knox says. “But it would completely decimate 75 percent of the gross crop revenues in that county.”

“We need to spread the wealth as well as spread the pain.”

For every irrigated acre in Colorado’s portion of the Republican River Basin, approximately $495 is generated in eco-nomic activity for the community, said James Pritchett, an assistant professor at Colorado State University, who conduct-ed a regional economic study to look at how money is spent inside and outside the region. The study included all of Yuma and Phillips counties, and portions of Kit Carson, Sedgwick, Lincoln, Logan and Washington counties.

He estimates only one-third of the land is suitable for dryland farming; the highest-dollar crops require irrigation. Seventy percent of the irrigated crops in the region are corn. In a region where 37 percent of the gross-domestic product

comes from direct sales from farm pro-ducers, shutting down irrigated agricul-ture would be devastating.

Rather than descending upon the rural communities with curtailment orders, the state engineer’s office decided to work with the newly formed conservation dis-trict to voluntarily shut down wells.

With federal grants to leverage the district’s dollars, people who own wells located within three miles of the north and south forks of the Republican River and the Arikaree River can receive com-pensation for fallowing, or others within the district can receive money for con-verting their fields to native grasslands for 15 years.

So far, farmers have agreed to per-manently retire 35 wells. One agreed to retire a well for five years, and three signed up to temporarily curtail use for three years. Those 39 wells service near-ly 5,000 acres. Though these contracts were signed in 2006, some agreements will allow farmers to use wells for one last summer, said Murphy. The district also potentially has 16 one-year leases to take wells temporarily out of use.

For some, the programs provide the opportunity to retire wells that are drying up anyway. For others, programs com-pensating them for well curtailment are worth more than crops.

Dennis Kaan, CSU agriculture and business management special-ist, crunched the numbers to find out

� C o lo r a d o f o u n dat i o n f o r wat e r e d u C at i o n

“It is kind of shutting down part of the economy when you shut down a well,”

— Republican River Water Conservation District manager Stan Murphy

exactly how much profit local farmers made in 2004 raising corn in northeast-ern Colorado.

Figuring everything from the price of seed to diesel fuel, fertilizer and real-estate taxes, Kaan determined it costs, on average, $445 to produce an acre of corn. At $2.15 per bushel and an aver-age yield of 215.75 bushels per acre, the farmer can sell it for $463.86 per acre. In the end, that acre of corn nets the grower a mere $18.86.

For people like Gary Earl who are close to retirement, or for those strug-gling financially, the opportunity to receive a steady $120 to $150 per acre seems like a good opportunity.

“It’s their chance,” says Knox. “We’ve had people tell us that if we offered 100,000 (possible acres to lease) it would all go. We’re having to put protections in place so one person doesn’t come in and take it all.”

The potential one-year leases to shut down 16 wells for the 2006 irrigation season would take 1,845 acres out of irrigation, but those lands could still be dryland farmed. Participants had until mid-June to sign up for the program.

When the dust has cleared and the land is fallowed, Pritchett predicts there will be fewer farms in the region over-all, but the farms will be larger because they will need more acreage to produce the same amount of crops with dryland farming than they did when they were irrigated. He believes agriculture will be economically viable in the area for at least the next 30 to 50 years, but, “This

compact is probably the tip of the iceberg as far as the problems that will come as we deplete the Ogallala aquifer,” Pritchett said, referring to the large underground network the irrigation wells tap into.

The Ogallala aquifer stretches under eight states, from South Dakota to Texas. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 30 percent of the groundwater used for irrigation in the United States is pumped from the Ogallala.

COMMUNITIES TORN APARTAs communities such as Wray, Laird

and Beecher Island brace for the fall-out from the compact settlement with Kansas and scramble to come into com-pliance, the rift between surface-water users and well owners has deepened.

The Pioneer Irrigation District strad-dles the Nebraska state line and serves irrigators in both Colorado and Nebraska. In 2005 the district, as well as all but one of the Laird Ditch owners, filed a lawsuit claiming the unchecked well pumping was depleting the stream and injuring their water rights.

Those irrigators own coveted sur-face-water rights dating to the late 1800s, in an area where the majority of water users rely on groundwater. They asked the Colorado Ground Water Commission to end the Northern High Plains Designated Ground Water Basin‘s designation, which would make all wells in the area subject to prior appropriation laws. Under state law, groundwater dis-putes in the designated basins are heard by the Ground Water Commission, not

the water courts.The plantiffs were also asking the state

engineer to curtail well usage and require augmentation plans for the 4,100 water supply wells in the basin, claiming that new information provided by the ground-water model in the Kansas vs. Nebraska and Colorado case proved that wells in the basin were tributary to streams.

But in a landscape where rivers are often ankle-deep to non-existent, buy-ing surface water rights for augmenta-tion plans could be like finding snow in the Caribbean. Anne Castle, an attorney representing Five Rivers Cattle Feeding LLC, which has 125,000 cattle, says that her client would have to shut down if the wells were declared tributary.

“There’s no augmentation water to acquire,” she says.

The suit could have wide-reach-ing implications, overturning 40 years of water administration in the basin, if the basin is undesignated. The small-er groundwater management districts would not exist and the Republican River Water Conservation District would dis-solve as well.

The plaintiffs also asked that two members of the Ground Water Commission be disqualified from vot-ing, because they have personal inter-ests at stake in the lawsuit.

At a hearing of the matter in front of the Ground Water Commission May 19, attorney Steve Bushong representing the irrigation district and the ditch company, told the commission that fellow members Grant Bledsoe and Dennis Coryell, who


AuGmEntAtiOn PlAn: A court-approved engineered plan designed to protect

senior water rights, while allowing junior water rights to divert water out-of-prior-

ity. The plan identifies how and when the replacement water will be supplied,

among other conditions.

DESiGnAtED GrOunDWAtEr: Groundwater that under natural condi-tions would not be used to recharge or supplement continuously flowing surface streams. It is specific to deep groundwater underlying the eight “des-ignated basin” areas created by the Colorado Ground Water Commission, located on Colorado’s eastern plains.

own wells in the basin, should be recused from the hearing since they have a vested interest in the issue.

“It’s tough to believe that resident farm-ers are required to be on the commis-sion, but can be disqualified for having an interest,” says attorney Mike Shimmin, representing the seven groundwater man-agement districts opposing the suit. “Six-tenths of your voting membership would be disqualified every time” a rule-making hearing is held.

Bledsoe and Coryell refused to recuse themselves. In the end, they ended up vot-ing against each other.

As a result of the May 19 hearing, the commission voted 6-3 to dismiss the peti-tioners’ request. But the fight isn’t over, says Bushong. If appealed, state law will direct this case to the Yuma County District Court. The judge could make a variety of decisions ranging from upholding the commission’s decision to sending the case back for more consideration.

“We will definitely appeal,” says Bushong. “We’ll be looking to see if there’s a way to file a writ directly in the Supreme Court.”

Bushong said there are bigger issues than just his clients’ water at stake—big-ger issues regarding the depletion of the Ogallala aquifer and the need to meet com-pact requirements.

“We’re on the verge of a train wreck,” says Bushong. “Wells are pumping as if there’s no tomorrow.”

DEADLINESLawsuits, drought and a complex

groundwater system are making it hard for Colorado to get enough water back into the Arikaree and Republican rivers. And, if Colorado does not come into compli-ance with the compact by the end of 2007, Kansas and Nebraska could file a new law-suit or they could extend the deadline.

Stan Murphy, manager of the Republican River Water Conservation District said the “Worst-case scenario is: The order comes down from the U.S. Supreme Court-appointed special master and the state of Colorado has to come out and shut down water rights, surface rights and wells and everything, to come into compliance.”

“As far as the compact is concerned, if we can do this voluntarily, I think we’ll recover and people will be OK,” says Kim Killin, a Republican River Water Conservation District board member who lives in Holyoke. “But I don’t think the sting from this (lawsuit) will ever go away. It’s just too long-term.” q

the Arikaree river pictured just east of the Colorado-nebraska state line.

H e a d wat e r s | s u m m e r 2 0 0 6 � �

San Luis Valley Waits for Judicial Ruling and

Mother Nature

COURT RULING MAY TAKE TIMENo deadline is set for a ruling in the

Colorado Division of Water Resources’ San Luis Valley confined aquifer rules case. The nearly six-week trial was argued by a dozen attorneys earlier this year.

At issue is how much water, if any, is available to pump from the deep aquifers underlying the valley. And, if that water is pumped, how much should be returned to the system to prevent exhaustion of the aquifers over time.

Attorneys presented final arguments to the judge on March 24. Kuenhold gave each side until the first of May to file proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, and he has since granted several extensions. The judge has not set a deadline for his own decision in the case. “It will take some time,” he says.

The issue started building when the Colorado General Assembly passed

House Bill 1011 in 1998 and Senate Bill 222 in 2004, recognizing the valley’s unique hydrology, the need to protect existing water rights and the state’s Rio Grande Compact delivery obligations to downstream states.

In response, Colorado Division of Water Resources State Engineer Hal Simpson promulgated rules on June 30, 2004, governing new groundwater with-drawals from the valley.

Arguing in favor of the state’s rules at trial were attorneys from the Attorney General’s office, Rio Grande Water Conservation District, Conejos Water Conservancy District and Rio Grande Water Users Association.

Objectors were led by attorneys rep-resenting Cotton Creek Circles, San Luis Valley Water Company and Colorado Association of Home Builders.

The proposed rules govern new ground-water withdrawals from the confined or

By Ruth HeidePhotos by Cynthia Hunter

San Luis Valley residents are waiting and hoping.They are waiting for a decision from District Judge O. John Kuenhold

regarding proposed state rules governing new groundwater

withdrawals in the Rio Grande Basin.

And they are hoping—for moisture.

� 2 C o lo r a d o f o u n dat i o n f o r wat e r e d u C at i o n

deep aquifer system in the San Luis Valley. The rules are premised on the state engineer’s conclusion that the Rio Grande Basin is over appropriated and new groundwater withdrawals will be detrimental to senior water rights and Rio Grande Compact deliveries.

Under the proposed rules, any new groundwater withdrawals should not cause fluctuations in the artesian pressure greater than the ranges which occurred between 1978-2000, a relatively stable period for the aquifer. Well pumping will only be permitted if an existing surface or groundwater water right equal to the amount requested is permanently retired or diverted. In other words, someone wanting to drill a new well under these rules would have to take an existing well out of production.

Rio Grande Water Conservation District Manager Steve Vandiver, RGWCD engineer Allen Davey, and hydro-geolo-gy expert James Slattery testified during the confined aquifer rules trial that the valley’s water supply is overappropriat-ed and the current level of groundwater use unsustainable.

Davey testified his studies reveal a long-term decline in the San Luis Valley’s confined aquifer. Hydrologist Charles Brendecke testified that the aqui-fer declined at an average rate of 58,387 acre-feet per year from 1970 to 2002.

Peter Ampe, the attorney general’s lead counsel, told Judge Kuenhold that Senate Bill 222 was enacted because the San Luis Valley aquifer systems are unique.

Like a great bowl, over geologic time, the San Luis Valley accumulated thou-sands of feet of what are called basin-fill deposits. The deposits form the valley’s aquifer system.

In the northern portion of the basin, all streams flow into a closed basin, an internal drainage encompassing approxi-mately two-thirds of the valley. In this area, streams such as the La Garita, Carnero, Saguache and San Luis flow into the closed basin and do not have a natural outlet to the Rio Grande.

Five main geological layers exist beneath the valley’s surface, explained William Schreüder, the state’s computer modeler. The unconfined or shallow aqui-fer lies in the first layer. Beneath a blue

clay layer, which may be hundreds of feet thick in some places, are the deeper lay-ers that make up the confined aquifer.

Attorneys protesting the rules argued that the San Luis Valley is not geologi-cally or hydrologically unique; and the rules interfere with individuals’ con-stitutional rights to appropriate water. They said that the rules are unnecessary because an ample supply of water is available. They argued the Rio Grande Basin inflow of 1.15 million acre-feet from precipitation and irrigation seep-age greatly exceeds total pumping of 640,000 acre feet, and therefore the aquifer is not in danger.

Steven Bushong, one of the objec-tors’ attorneys, told the judge the San Luis Valley’s confined aquifer contains an estimated 1 billion acre-feet of water. If that is the case, he argued, the 1.5 mil-lion acre foot loss in the aquifer recorded by Davey in the last 30 years would still leave 99.8 percent of the water.

The objectors’ computer modeling witness Bill Hahn said the effect of new withdrawals of 10,000 acre-feet per year over 100 years would be minimal.

The Sangre de Cristo range provides a backdrop for center pivot irrigation of a potato field near Alamosa


Objectors’ expert witness Bruce Lytle testified water can be appropriated in the confined aquifer without replacing 100 percent of new withdrawals if standard plans for augmentation are prepared to ensure sufficient water is available to fulfill senior surface water rights, or out-of-priority depletions.

The state plans to administer its proposed rules using the Rio Grande Decision Support System, a complex computer model developed under the authority of House Bill 1011 approved in 1998. The validity and accuracy of the RGDSS model was extensively argued throughout the six-week trial.

Hahn and expert hydrogeology wit-ness Charles Norris testified the RGDSS is unreliable, poorly calibrated and unac-ceptable for predictive purposes.

Schreüder, who was responsible for developing the RGDSS and spent four days at trial defending it, testified the model is accurate and reliable for predictive purposes and can evaluate impacts of new withdrawals from the confined aquifer.

When Judge Kuenhold makes a

decision, he may approve the state’s proposed rules, modify them or send them back to the drawing board.

THE LOCAL APPROACHChief Deputy State Engineer Ken

Knox testified the state will likely also develop rules for the valley’s shallow or unconfined aquifers in the future. But, he testified, the state is first trying to work with irrigators.

The idea is to create groundwater management subdistricts to enable irri-gators to reduce groundwater use in an organized manner, without state inter-ference, while protecting senior water rights and other obligations. Landowners within the subdistricts may agree to fal-low a certain amount of land.

Farmers who voluntarily take land out of production are then compen-sated by programs such as the federal Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. In the end, this will help replen-ish the shallow aquifers, and protect those who have surface water rights.

Vandiver says five San Luis Valley subdistricts are currently in one phase or

another of development. To be included, a simple majority of subdistrict landown-ers must sign petitions and present them to the Rio Grande Water Conservation District, the state engineer and the water court for approval.

Landowners participating in the Groundwater Management Sub-District #1, the closed basin sub-district, account for some 134,000 acres of farmland. Groundwater Management Sub-District #2, which is on its way to water court for approval, will encompass approximately 30,000 acres in the unconfined aquifer south of the Rio Grande.

Still in the process of collecting land-owner petitions is the Conejos Special District No. 1, a sub-district within the Conejos Water Conservancy District’s boundaries. Two additional subdistricts are still in their infancy: 1) a Saguache Creek drainage sub-district led by the Saguache Creek Well Owners; and 2) a subdistrict in an area between the Monte Vista and Alamosa Wildlife Refuges and between the Stanley Road on the north and Conejos Water Conservancy District on the south. q

� � C o lo r a d o f o u n dat i o n f o r wat e r e d u C at i o n

In the Denver Basin, deep

bedrock aquifers store water

in the pores of rocks more

than 50 million years old.

Studies show it takes tens of

thousands of years to recharge

the aquifers, and in places we are

drawing it down rapidly. Some

wells located along the western

flank of the basin can already

feel the effects of the aquifer’s

declining artesian pressure.

Denver Basin Aquifersin D

eclin

e

By Lori OzzelloPhotos by Brian Gadbery

Story by Lori Ozzello Photos by Brian Gadbery


“My well has an estimated 20 years of life left, but that’s not going to happen,” says Jack McCormick, a 20-year resident of Plum Valley Heights, a 29-home neigh-borhood tucked in the foothills between Sedalia and Highlands Ranch. “I don’t think it’ll go more than 10.”

McCormick and his neighbors rely on an aquifer in a marginal zone scientists predicted would be the first to show signs of the vast underground reserve’s limits. How quickly wells in other areas of the basin will drop, and how long it will be economically feasible to pump this resource is debatable.

UNDERSTANDING WHAT’S UNDERGROUND

The Denver Basin is a geologic formation that stretches from Greeley south to Colorado Springs and from Limon west to Jefferson County. Four aqui-fers—the Dawson, Denver, Arapahoe and Laramie-Fox Hills—hold its water reserves. They’re stacked and tilted like bowls.

While in some areas the aquifer can be recharged—surface water can seep back into tiny pore spaces within or between rocks–it may take thousands of years. That makes this resource, while immense, essentially nonrenewable.

Each year, groundwater measure-ments from select wells in the Denver Basin are published by the Colorado Division of Water Resources. The validity of these data is sometimes questioned. The wells measured are not dedicated to monitoring and vary significantly in age and how they are pumped, among other things.

Consistent annual trends indicate that depending on the location of the well, water levels in the Denver Basin aquifers are either relatively stable, declining, or even rising. It all depends on the aquifer and the location of the measurement well.

In the aquifers used predominately by the high-volume wells necessary for municipalities, specifically the Arapahoe and Laramie-Fox Hills, water level declines are significant.

Between 1990 and 2000, ground-water levels in the Arapahoe aquifer

declined from 100 to almost 300 feet. Municipalities relying almost exclusively on groundwater, such as Castle Rock or Parker, are concerned about how the aquifer will react and how long it will last, as pumping increases.

Rural water users with private domes-tic wells are also concerned. If their water supply fails, they do not have the water utility managers or paid water brokers readily-available to help them find other sources of water.

The issue becomes more complex as economics, water rights, legislation

and advances in technology and sci-ence are stirred into the mix. And then there’s growth: State projections fore-cast an additional 1.7 million people will call Colorado home by 2015 and more than 80 percent will live along the Front Range. They’ll need water.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATIONAlthough south metro municipal pro-

viders can anticipate decreased well pro-duction, this isn’t the case throughout the entire basin—a fact some well experts and water entrepreneurs like to reiterate.

Much of the problem with dropping Denver Basin aquifers depends on loca-tion. Water tightly held in sandstone does not move very far, and if it does, it may take thousands of years. In loca-tions where demand is modest and the resource large, such as the eastern plains, these aquifers should provide many years of adequate supply. Private domestic wells tapping the Denver Basin in these

areas may have little to worry about. Similarly, the shallower Dawson and

Denver aquifers which are more eas-ily recharged by irrigation and precipita-tion, remain steady or show water level increases in some areas. Homeowners with wells in those locations may not observe any decrease in well production for years, if ever.

But the situation is very different for areas in Douglas County where high volume pumping from the Arapahoe aquifer has caused dramatic declines. In some areas, 40 feet drops per year

have been recorded and it is anticipated well flow rates will diminish during the next decade.

AN ExHAUSTIBLE RESOURCE?Concern over the

amount of water being pumped from deep non-renewable aquifers started decades ago. After a vari-ety of groundwater-related legislation in the 1950s and 1960s, in 1973 Senate Bill 213 set out to allocate who could use Denver Basin groundwater, and in what quantity. The act determined that the Denver Basin aquifers could be pumped at rates that might

allow, based on the best available data, a minimum 100-year life. Landowners overlying the Denver Basin groundwater would have the right to withdraw that water at the rate of 1 percent per year.

Yet by the early 1980s, the population of south-Denver communities was grow-ing at a startling rate, accompanied by a spike in speculative groundwater claims. Developers were keen to pump the read-ily-available groundwater. Many people wanted to take advantage of the high-quality Denver Basin aquifers, but the state needed more guidance to ensure that the resource would be meted out fairly.

In 1985, complex legislation com-monly known as Senate Bill 5 developed specific rules and a basic legal frame-work of how Denver Basin groundwater should be allocated.

By enacting this legislation, the Colorado legislature agreed that it was acceptable to mine—or take out more water than is replaced—the Denver Basin


Jack McCormick is a 20-year resident of Plum Valley Heights. The 29-home community is between Sedalia and Highlands Ranch, on the western rim of the Denver Basin aquifers. As scientists predicted, groundwater levels in the area are dropping, necessitating new and deeper wells for homeowners, as well as the installation of cisterns.


aquifers. They knowingly allowed this even though, over time, some wells might be impaired.

Boulder attorneys Mike Shimmin and David Harrison were on the blue ribbon panel then-Gov. Richard Lamm appointed to map out a set of recom-mendations that would later form the basis for Senate Bill 5.

While imperfect, both agreed that the bill made a good attempt given the sci-ence and the political will at the time. But it does have its limitations. “I do not think Senate Bill 5 was intended as a ground-water management act,” said Harrison in a May 2006 interview. “It is a groundwater allocation act. There is no management of the Denver Basin right now.”

“Somewhere along the line,” says Harrison, “we will make an economic decision not to use it (nonrenewable groundwater) very much anymore, except in emer-gency situations…So we’ll come in for a soft land-ing, somewhere above exhausted, and the remain-der will (be) for (emergen-cies). But that soft landing assumes that you can find some surface water to sub-stitute—and how that will be done is still really, really unresolved right now.”

PREPARING FOR CHANGEWater resource manag-

ers have known for years a shortage of groundwater wouldn’t slow growth, and they have been studying their options.

Recently, Elbert, Adams, Weld and El Paso counties have started requiring that new developments show they can provide sufficient water supply to last at least 300 years.

Some groundwater-dependent cit-ies are shouldering the expense of drill-ing deeper, higher-production wells. Others are preparing themselves to relinquish their dependence on ground-water almost entirely.

Castle Rock, for instance, has already embarked on plans to convert its water supplies to more than 75 percent renew-able surface water sources by 2032. The central Douglas County town estimates that at build out, it will need 18,000 acre-feet of surface water each year to wean

itself from the aquifer.“It’s late in the game and we know

it’s going to cost,” says Ron Redd, Castle Rock’s water utilities director. “We’re collecting the fees now so we can get there.”

Among Castle Rock’s options—buy-ing river water from Sterling, 150 miles to the north and east; drawing it from the Arkansas River; forming a partnership with East Cherry Creek; or buying into Denver Water’s Green Mountain pump-back plan—each scenario is estimated to cost around $300 million. “We’re consid-ering two dozen alternatives for renew-able sources,” says Redd.

But plans like Castle Rock’s aren’t going to help places like Plum Valley, the small cluster of homes dependent on

the Denver Basin aquifers. As predicted, the Denver Basin’s west rim, over which Plum Valley sits, was the first to drop as pumping increased.

Plum Valley resident Jack McCormick’s first well was drilled 408 feet into the shallow Dawson aqui-fer. It initially produced 5 gallons a minute, but finally dropped to a point where it was no longer useful. Next, McCormick drilled a new well into the lower Arapahoe aquifer. Since 1987, the well’s static level has dropped 7-10 feet a year. Four times since then the pump’s been lowered, chasing the dropping water table. He estimates the well’s life may be only 10-15 more years, depend-ing on technology.

“Less than a half mile away, one of

my neighbors has his pump as low as it can go,” McCormick says. “These folks up here,” he says pointing to a small enclave north of his property. “They’ve been hauling water for years.

“One of the things we need for cer-tain is a remedy. I’d be hard pressed to prove Highlands Ranch is pumping our water. We need legislation that adequate-ly defines injury.”

McCormick and his neighbors have been “working the issue.”

They aren’t rookies. The residents of Plum Valley and the surrounding com-munities have been talking to county commissioners, lobbying for legislation, searching for renewable water sources in conjunction with new developers, and teaming up with their rural neighbors in

Louviers, Chatfield Basin and Meridian to bring in a surface water supply.

Plum Valley, McCormick says, is hanging some hopes on developers who are mulling plans for Sterling Ranch, a 2,000-acre tract immediately to the west. If the area is developed for housing, Plum Valley and its neigh-bors could tap into its infra-structure for surface water. They’re already saving money for the possibility.

“We’re not looking for others to solve our prob-lems,” McCormick says. “We want to come to the table and participate.” q

In its latest publication, a Citizen’s Guide to the Denver Basin Aquifers, the Colorado Foundation for Water Education delves into the conflicting stories about this contested resource. Authors Ralf Topper with the Colorado Geological Survey, and Bob Raynolds with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, provide fresh analysis of the water level data from the Denver Basin, and summarize it into concepts acces-sible to non-geologists.

Attorneys David Harrison (left) and Mike Shimmin served on a 1985 committee appointed by then-Gov. Richard Lamm. Lamm charged the panel with making rec-ommendations on how to allocate and possibly manage the Denver Basin aquifers. Both say the law has limitations and was never meant to be a long-term solution.


“It’s late in the game and we

know it’s going to cost. We’re

collecting the fees now so we

can get there.”—Ron Redd, Castle Rock’s water

utilities director

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South Platte Well Owners

in CrisisStory by lori ozzello

Photos by michael lewis

Don Jones inspects stunted winter wheat in a field west of Fort Morgan. His well was

one of more than 400 shut down in May.


SSince Colorado was first settled, water has been a contentious issue. The May shutdown of more than 400 South Platte irrigation wells exemplifies the ongoing battle between Colorado’s historic agricultural base and the drive for growth and development along the Front Range.

When drought hit in 2002, it revealed a complex crisis that had been building at least since 1969, when the legislature attempted to incorporate groundwater man-agement into the prior appropriation system governing surface water rights.

After the 1969 Water Rights and Administration Act became law, the state enjoyed decades of some of the wettest weather in a century. This precipitation coincided with the beginnings of unconstrained Front Range growth and the multiplication of irrigation wells along the South Platte River.

The difficult balance between growth and drought was made more complicated in 2001, when the state supreme court ruled in Empire Lodge Homeowners Association v. Moyer, limiting the ability of the state engineer to approve short-term substitute water supply plans. In response to Empire, the legislature allowed until 2006 for all well users to file for long-term augmentation plans which must be approved in water court.

Augmentation plans are detailed, engineered plans that allow junior water rights holders, such as well users, to pump water out of priority. The plans define how, when and in what quantity they will replace to the river the water they consume, so that other water rights holders will not be injured.

Under pressure to comply with this new state law and in the midst of a serious drought, well owners faced scrutiny from dozens of junior and senior South Platte River water rights holders. If any objections from these rights holders held up in court, their plans couldn’t be approved, and their wells would not be allowed to pump. The well users felt cornered, and agreed to most of the required conditions. They also formed groundwater subdistricts to address the substantial costs, bureaucracy and complexity of getting these plans through water court.

Earlier this year, members of Central Colorado Water Conservancy District’s Well Augmentation Subdistrict, concerned about the recent failure of a water lease critical to their augmenta-tion plan, withdrew their application and postponed until February 2007 a water court review to certify the plan.

Then on May 5, State Engineer Hal Simpson, in a

painful but straightforward decision, was forced to shut down their wells. Most were used for farm irrigation from Brighton to Fort Morgan.

“In April, (well users) thought they’d be OK,” explains Simpson. “They were waiting for leases from Longmont and Fort Collins. Then, the first of May, we got the runoff information. Snow pack was down to 84 percent of average. Fort Collins pulled 5,000 acre feet out of the mix.”

Simpson had no choice. Without water to substitute deple-tions from the South Platte River caused by their wells, legally the well users could not be allowed to pump. If they did, it could injure other water rights entitled to that water.

Central’s manager, Tom Cech, was on the phone day and night to water lawyers, water engineers and water managers. He met with objectors, answered questions, and hoped for a compromise.

The farmers already had an estimated $1 million worth of crops planted and no way to prevent them from baking to a crisp in the late spring heat. They had planted, believing they’d be allowed to pump a 15 percent quota during the 2006 growing season.

Almost immediately, government officials, some Front Range cities and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District rushed to aid farmers. For $1 million, NCWCD agreed to lease 10,000 acre-feet of temporary augmentation water, including water from the Colorado-Big Thompson and Windy Gap projects.

This water, says Simpson, would have allowed many of the well owners to continue operating. It roughly equaled their 15 percent ration to which Central and three dozen objectors initially had agreed.

But the objectors balked at the new plan. They submitted questions and several took substantial time to consider the arrangement, while dry, sunny weather continued and well users estimated they had a week or 10 days before their crops were beyond saving. Finally, on June 2, nearly a month after Simpson shut off the wells, the objectors sent a letter saying the plan didn’t meet their approval.

The objectors said they would not accept the new plan unless the Well Augmentation Subdistrict could meet a call on the river, 365 days a year, for three consecutive years. This refusal effectively killed any hopes for reactivating the wells this year.

“(Well users) wanted the criteria for what they’d have to pay back to be less,” City of Boulder Water Resources Director Carol Ellinghouse says, referring to what Boulder claims is a debt of 14,000 acre-feet of water.

But those on the side of the well pumpers don’t think these objections tell the full story.

Says Central’s Cech: “It’s a sad state of affairs when Colorado water law is used to put good people out of business, in the guise of protecting senior water rights.”

Because the objectors would not accept the emergency terms, according to Cech, NCWCD’s 10,000 acre feet of water was delivered into a water account, “but never to farmers.”

Ironically, several of the entities on the list of objectors are

2 0

CCWCD Manager Tom Cech (left) talks with farmer and Central board member Gary Herman at a South Platte augmentation pond that is under construction. The pond is part of the well users’ plan to repay, or augment, water pumped.

also NCWCD members, prominently, Boulder and Sterling. Other signators on the objection to the emergency plan included attorneys for Henrylyn Irrigation District, Harmony Ditch Company, Centennial Water and Sanitation, South Adams County, and Ducommum Business Trust. Even some architects of the emergency plan, including Aurora and Greeley, joined the initial objectors after it became apparent that the wells would remain shut down.

Boulder’s official Web site states that the city considers itself harmed, and its water rights illegally infringed upon by the wells. Its Web site states that “Boulder has already had to release water to the South Platte on at least six days in April, resulting in a reduction to Boulder water supply.”

The requirement for junior well users to be able to meet a call on the river for 365 consecutive days, three years in a row, is not something new. The well owners agreed to the condition some three years ago, in response to demands from surface right holders.

Simpson says this agreement, the crux of objections, is a “pretty high standard,” and having a three-year-long call is a scenario that has only occurred twice since 1950. The first in the early 1950s, before the Colorado-Big Thompson Project was fully online, and the second between 2002-04, during years of intense drought.

“To acquire water for year-round use means farmers have to compete with cities,” Simpson says, something that indepen-dent farmers are generally unable to do economically.

But that shouldn’t change the playing field, say objectors.“The amount of water within their proposed plan wasn’t

enough,” says Ellinghouse. The well users “need to have suffi-cient water to meet the call. They didn’t have leases or water in storage. They just needed to show they could get it. The plans couldn’t show how they could for more than one year.”

A PERFECT STORMThis summer’s conflict has been building for years, but it

has hardly been unforeseen. In the early 1990s, a University of Arizona professor predicted the current situation.

The situation with well users on the South Platte this year actually began with the state 1969 Water Rights and Administration Act, says Central’s Cech. Its purpose was to integrate the management of surface and groundwater rights. Under the act, tributary wells—those hydrologically connected to surface streams—must be managed according to the prior appropriation system. If wells take water away from or injure another water user, they must be curtailed or shut down, which is what gives the objectors, whether they have senior or junior rights, the basis to file their claims.

The 1969 law gave the state engineer authority to allow wells to bypass the priority system as long as well users rented or leased surface water to offset pumping. The intent was to ensure surface rights holders with higher priorities weren’t harmed. Substitute supply plans for renting, stor-ing or buying replacement water could be approved by the state engineer for defined periods. In contrast, augmenta-

2 �

“The amount of water within

their proposed plan wasn’t

enough. The well users need

to have sufficient

water to meet the call.”

—Carol EllinghouseCity of Boulder Water resources Director

The South Platte river, pictured near Fort Morgan, experienced below average flows this spring.

tion plans are long-term and must be approved by a water court.

If an extended drought had occurred sooner, the substitute supply plans’ shortcomings might have been exposed earlier. Simpson warned well users in the 1990s that they needed long-term plans.

But the storm clouds had already begun to gather. “The mismatch between the water laws and regulations and the goal of incorporating groundwater into the prior appropriation system became relatively clear very early on,” wrote Edella Schlager in an e-mail interview in May. She’s an associate professor in the University of Arizona’s School of Public Administration and Policy. “Strictly enforcing the prior appropriation doctrine against wells by requiring decreed plans of augmentation will not work.”

Although some groups of wells users, such as the now-defunct Groundwater Appropriators of the South Platte, tried to find stop-gap solutions, they failed according to Schlager’s research, because the “well problem is beyond the authority and ability of well associations or the state engineer.”

The storm began in December 2001, when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in Empire Lodge Homeowners Association v. Moyer, limiting the ability of the state engineer to approve short-term substitute water supply plans involving augmentation or changes of water rights. This meant well users, if they had not done so already, would have to apply for full-fledged augmentation plans.

Then came the drought. By May 2002, it was beyond anyone’s expecta-tions. Water lease prices skyrocketed to $600 per acre foot from $30, says Cech. Meanwhile, the cities kept grow-ing and searching for new water sup-

plies at a rapacious pace.In 2003, the Colorado Supreme Court

decided the state engineer lacked leg-islative permission to authorize annual substitute supply plans allowing junior groundwater wells to pump out-of prior-ity, if the well owners had not filed for court-decreed augmentation plans.

This decision applied specifically to tributary groundwater wells in the South Platte Basin, and not to groundwater depletions in the Arkansas Basin. This is because the General Assembly had already approved a set of rules govern-ing groundwater depletions in that area.

In the same week as the Supreme Court’s decision, Governor Bill Owens signed legislation authorizing the state engineer to approve temporary substi-tute supply plans for junior wells, if adequate replacement water could be found and supplied to the stream. This legislation gave South Platte well own-ers three years to file their augmentation plan applications in water court.

“It was a perfect storm,” says Cech. “Everything just lined up. If any one thing hadn’t, we would have just gone on the way we had been.”

Some think it’s been more of a slow downward spiral into water bankruptcy. The well users, Boulder’s Ellinghouse says, “have taken water, knowing they were incurring an obligation, racking up the equivalent of credit card debt, know-ingly” accumulating a debt of water they owed the surface rights holders.

“I’ve been working on this issue for more than a decade,” she says. “It had been simmering for years. The 2003 (law) gave them amnesty. The well owners got three years to get their act together.”

Getting their act together for the major-ity of well users has been like “starting from scratch” says Skyler Loeffler, a Central

board member and Weld County property owner. Groundwater subdistrict members had to purchase more water at escalating prices to keep their wells active.

Cech concedes the turn of events wasn’t unexpected. He says only some of the farmers will survive. “For a lot of (Central’s) members it’s like a death,” he says. “There’s shock, anger, frustration, grief. At some point, you have to move on and that’s what’s really hard. It is a death. It hurts.”

“It took a drought to show us what was going on, how important augmenta-tion plans are,” says John Rusch, a former Central board member who now serves on NCWCD’s board. A Morgan County farmer and resident, Rusch has wells and senior surface water rights, as well as friends on both sides of the issue. “We’re building these plans now, during a drought.”

Schlager believes that diverting the current chain of events from its ongoing path would require revisions to the state constitution, and major legislation.

“That means many people will have to be involved and a general consensus among citizens and public officials will have to develop,” she writes. “That is not an easy effort to undertake and usually is not done unless a major crisis strikes.”

But Schlager is hopeful. “There are reasons to be optimistic 10

and 20 years out,” she writes. “Colorado citizens, water users and elected officials have proven to be innovative problem solvers in the past and they will continue to be so. Colorado’s constitution, water laws and water administration encour-age and allow for considerable local gov-ernance and the development of local solutions to local problems.

“Long term solutions to the well crisis will require crafting different arrangements for different local water settings.” q

2 2 C o lo r a d o f o u n dat i o n f o r wat e r e d u C at i o n

Farmland near Fort Morgan lies fallow for want of irrigation water.

H e a d wat e r s | s u m m e r 2 0 0 6 2 �

PROFilE

Colorado Ground Water Commission Governs Wells on the Plains

Almost a quarter million groundwater wells in Colorado fall under a different set of rules than other wells or water rights for streams and rivers.

These wells are regulated by the Colorado Ground Water Commission, a 12-member panel created by the state legis-lature in 1957 to help address groundwater usage and water level declines in the Ogallala aquifer, underlying the state’s eastern plains.

At that time, state law said that all groundwater should be regulated like surface water, according to the prior appropria-tion system of “first in time, first in right.” But as scientists and water users understood more about the hydrology of water stored in underground rock formations, they realized perhaps not all groundwater was connected to rivers, and that not all should be regulated the same way.

This commission went on to establish “designated ground-water basins,” specifying regions in eastern Colorado where the principal reliable source of water supply is groundwater not hydraulically connected to surface water.

The eight designated groundwater basins, spread from the Wyoming to New Mexico state lines are Lost Creek, Kiowa-Bijou, Upper Big Sandy, Upper Black Squirrel Creek, Upper Crow Creek, Northern High Plains, Camp Creek and Southern High Plains.

REGULATING GROUNDWATER ON THE HIGH PLAINSThe commission, which functions with help from the Division

of Water Resources, has the state engineer as its executive director. It relies on local groundwater management districts to consult with the commission on groundwater use in the desig-nated basins. Currently 13 such districts exist in Colorado.

Inside the designated basins, the commission and districts have authority to issue large-capacity well permits, issue changes in water rights and replacement wells, and create rules and policies to govern groundwater use.

The commission holds hearings on disputes and views evidence in a courtroom-like environment, with attorneys

usually speaking on behalf of clients. If parties disagree with the commission’s decisions, they appeal to the district court located in the county where the well is located.

Rules adopted by the legislature in 1971 require the gover-nor to appoint nine of the commissioners, who are confirmed by the state senate. Six of the commissioners must represent agriculture in the basins, with no more than two from the same basin serving concurrently. State law also requires that one agricultural representative be from the Rio Grande basin and two members represent municipal or industrial water users. One commissioner must reside on the West Slope.

In addition, three ex-officio members sit on the commis-sion: the state engineer, executive director of the Department of Natural Resources and the director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Of those, only the Department of Natural Resources executive director can vote.

Commissioners serve four-year terms and many are appointed for at least two terms, says Marta Ahrens, the commission’s public information officer. Ahrens, who also has been the commission’s secretary for 13 years, says public inter-est in serving on the commission varies across the state. More applications usually come from areas where groundwater is a primary source of water.

Colorado Designated Groundwater Basins

The 12-member Colorado Ground Water Commission met May 19. On their agenda was a review of recent groundwater disputes in the Republican River Basin. The commission helps regulate groundwater in the eastern plains’ eight designated basins.

2 � C o lo r a d o f o u n dat i o n f o r wat e r e d u C at i o n

PROFilE cOlORADO gROunD WATER cOmmiSSiOn

Commissioners who represent agriculture:

—Max Smith, Southern High Plains;—Grant Bledsoe, Northern High Plains;—Dennis Coryell, Northern High Plains;—Doug Shriver, Rio Grande Basin;—Earnest Mikita, Upper Big Sandy;—Robert Loose, Kiowa-Bijou; and—Corey Huwa, Lost Creek.

Commissioners who represent municipal and industrial water users:

—Frank Jaeger, Front Range; and—Larry Clever, West Slope.

State law mandates that the commission must conduct public meetings at least four times per year. Attendance and public participation at the commission meetings depends on the agenda items. Regular meetings attract 30 to 40 partici-pants, and controversial issues can draw even more attendees, Ahrens says.

GROUNDWATER CATEGORIESGroundwater in Colorado is regulated depending on its

location and relationship to surface streams. Four main catego-ries are recognized by state law:

Tributary groundwater—Groundwater hydraulically connected to a surface stream that can influence the amount or direc-tion of flow of water in that stream. It is regulated by the prior appropriation system, like other surface water rights.

Non-tributary groundwater—Groundwater which in 100 years will not deplete the flow of a natural stream at an annual rate greater than 1/10th of 1 percent of the annual depletion from the well.

Designated basin groundwater—Groundwater that under natural conditions would not be used to recharge or supplement continuously flowing surface streams. It is specific to deep groundwater underlying the eight designated basins cre-ated by the Colorado Ground Water Commission, on the eastern plains.

Not non-tributary groundwater—Denver Basin groundwater, not in a designated basin, that is connected with surface streams or the deeper Denver Basin aquifers where they outcrop. If pumped, these withdrawals would deplete the flow of a natural stream at an annual rate greater than 1/10th of 1 percent, the annual rate of withdrawal. q

Max Smith Grant Bledsoe Dennis Coryell Doug Shriver Earnest Mikita

Robert Loose Corey Huwa Larry Clever Hal Simpson, Ex-Officio Russell George, Ex-Officio


SuRvEy RESulTS

Respondents to a recent survey iden-tified the general public, government offi-cials, politicians and the media—in that order—as those most in need of water-related education and information.

These results were part of an infor-mal spring 2006 survey conducted by the Colorado Foundation for Water Education. The foundation selected a set of more than 1,000 Coloradans, based on their interest in water issues, for the survey. More than 130 replied.

Even though the respondents said the media were in need of water-related educa-tion and information, slightly more than a third of respondents said they got most of their water-related information on a weekly basis from newspapers. Workshops/con-ferences and special interest organizations

came in a close second. The most common complaints about

existing water-related publications and programs were that they were not pro-gressive or innovative enough, or that they were too complicated and technical.

Asked what will be the biggest prob-lem in Colorado, 63 percent responded from a pre-determined list of options, that the state’s biggest problem will be that it won’t have enough water. In contrast, only 7 percent worry that the infrastructure is deteriorating.

When asked to rank the importance of a variety of different actions to help resolve Colorado’s water crisis, 82 per-cent ranked encouraging water conser-vation as very important. However, 41 percent also felt new water develop-

ment, e.g., reservoirs and pipelines, is very important. Transferring more water from agriculture to cities was consid-ered of lowest importance to 46 percent of respondents.

When asked if state and local agen-cies were devoting enough effort to water supply planning, 47 percent said no and 38 percent said somewhat.

Similarly, when asked if state and local agencies were devoting enough effort to water conservation planning, 67 percent said no, while 23 percent said somewhat.

Thank you to all those who took time to fill out the surveys. We will use the information to help inform the direction of the Foundation’s educational programs.

Survey Respondents Speak Up about State’s Water Issues, Information

On June 9, 2006 the Colorado Foundation for Water Education held its first inaugural golf tournament at Arrowhead Golf Club in Littleton. Attended by 96 players, the event was a sold-out success raising more than $9,000 to support the foundation.

In addition to the course’s challeng-ing fairways, players were given the opportunity to participate in putting contests, take their best shot at a hole-in-one give away to win an Audi A6, or compete in a shoot-out with the chance to win $100,000.

The foundation would like to thank all our sponsors for helping to make this such a successful event.

MWHCH2M HILLThe Applegate GroupAqua Engineering, Inc.Balcolm & Green, P.C.Brown and CaldwellColorado Water Resources & Power

Development AuthorityInterMountain Corporate AffairsJR EngineeringLeonard Rice EngineersNorth American Golf ExperiencePatton Boggs P.C.

96 Duffers Tee Off to Raise $9,000 for Foundation

With a shotgun start, foundation supporters teed off at 7:30 a.m. at the Robert Trent Jones-designed 18-hole Arrowhead course. MWH’s teams dominated the winners’ cir-cle. Its Americas Team No. 2 and Americas Team No. 1 placed first and second, respectively. Third was Black & Veatch and fourth, Stanek Constructors. Other standouts: clos-est to the pin, men, Jerry Pena and George Martin; closest to the pin, women, Tara Schutter; longest drive, men, Jason Wolfe; longest drive, women, Donna Alengi. There were no winners in the hole-in-one, putting contest or the shootout.

2 6 C o lo r a d o f o u n dat i o n f o r wat e r e d u C at i o n

cFWE HigHligHTS

An enthusiastic group of skiers and snowboarders known as the Snow Riders for Rivers gathered at A-Basin May 5 to help raise awareness about their impact on the water resources of mountain towns, resort communities and downstream water users.

Skiers and snowboarders solicited pledges for cruising down the slopes of A-Basin all afternoon. Tanya Holtz, a CFWE member who organized the event, also coordinated the pledges, a barbeque and free concert after the event.

More than $1,000 was raised through donations and pledges to provide a scholarship for a teacher to participate in the 2007 Colorado Foundation for Water Education Water Leaders Course. Thank you!

Ski-a-Thon Supports the Colorado Water Leaders Program

More than 70 participants toured high altitude Colorado June 16-17 as they made their way along the headwaters of the South Platte and Arkansas River basins. Members of the Legislative Interim Water Committee joined a diverse group of participants including water professionals, federal employees, real estate agents and educators for the journey.

Tour highlights included an in-depth tour of South Park featuring its forest management issues, rich history and unique environments. Rafting through Brown’s Canyon on the Arkansas River gave participants a chance to see the river up close and personal.

On the second day, tours of Fryingpan-Arkansas Project res-ervoirs illustrated the complexity and challenges of our water

supply infrastructure, with a stop at the Golden Burro in Leadville to refuel. Revegetation efforts and a look at Eagle Park Reservoir at the Climax Mine concluded the second day.

Thank you to the tour sponsors, the Coalition for the Upper South Platte, Leadership Program of the Rockies participants, and all our tour speakers.

Sponsored by MWHColorado Springs Utilities Phelps-Dodge (Climax Mine)Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District

Tour Highlights History, Headwaters

Teachers, water managers, attorneys, legislators, real estate agents and others fan out before the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District’s Ken Baker begins to discuss the river. Seventy participants made the high country trip with CFWE in mid June. At different points during the tour, guest speakers joined the group to talk about regional history, forest management and a range of water issues. Mt. Elbert and Mt. Elbert forebay are in the background.


cFWE HigHligHTS

One thing no one will say about Don Glaser’s career: that there’s not much to read about.

Glaser, Colorado Foundation for Water Education’s new executive direc-tor, has a resume packed with experi-ence in management, fundraising, and negotiating, and dealing with everyone from presidential cabinet members to tribal leaders to ranchers. Experience in the private sector? It’s there. Public service? Got it. Nonprofits? Yes.

The CFWE Board of Directors in May selected Glaser, a natural resource spe-cialist with more than 25 years experi-ence in western water and land issues, to succeed Karla Brown. Glaser worked with Brown in June before she resigned her position with the Foundation.

“Following Karla Brown’s very capable and successful leadership as the first exec-utive director of the CFWE, I am delighted that we were able to hire Don Glaser as her replacement,” said Diane Hoppe, President of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. “He brings a great deal of experience, talent and energy that will be a tremendous asset to the Foundation.”

For the past three years, Glaser served as the executive director for the Douglas Land Conservancy, overseeing the organization’s land conservation pro-grams and fund raising activities. During his tenure, DLC doubled the land under protection and tripled the stewardship endowment fund.

Highlights of Glaser’s career include:

• 2000-2003 – Senior manager, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; formulated new conservation partnerships; served as the foundation’s chief operating officer in its Washington, D.C. office and the Intermountain West regional director.

• 1998-2000 – Consultant, spe-cializing in natural resources,

water, and institutional manage-ment in the West; negotiated first CALFED contract with the California Resources Agency on behalf of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; instru-mental in securing additional municipal water for Loveland and Pueblo.

• 1996 – Executive director, Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission, reviewed, under the guidance of the presidential commission, the status of western water resources and federal policy changes needed to address water challenges for the next 20 years; managed a staff of scien-tists, engineers, water attorneys, social scientists, environmental specialists, and policy analysts in dispersed locations.

• 1995 – State Director, Bureau of Land Management, oversaw the management of public lands and leasing of minerals in Colorado; implemented range reform including the development of standards for rangeland health and guidelines for grazing.

• 1975-1995 – U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, served in increas-ingly more responsible positions in the Great Plains Region includ-ing personnel director, project manager, and assistant regional director; assistant commission-er; and deputy commissioner.

Glaser is a graduate of Eastern Montana College, now Montana State University-Billings, with a bachelors of science in business administration and economics.

Land Conservancy’s Glaser Succeeds Brown as CFWE Director

CFWE Executive Director Don Glaser

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Colorado boasts a national winner and a national finalist in the national River of Words Poetry Contest. The two, Avery Forsythe and Annie Ochs, are both Slate River School students taught by Sue Wilson in Crested Butte. River of Words is an arts and environmental educa-tion program conducted every year in affiliation with The Library of Congress Center for the Book, culminating in an international poetry and art contest for children in grades K-12.

Each April, eight U.S. winners, one international winner, and a “ROW Teacher of the Year” are honored during National Poetry Month at The Library of Congress in Washington. Colorado awards state prizes, too.

The contest is free, and every child is acknowledged. Children may enter on their own or through schools, nature centers, libraries, youth clubs and other organizations.

For details contact the Colorado Center for the Book, Colorado Endowment for the Humanities, www.ceh.org, or 303.894.7951. The Colorado Foundation for Water Education helps maintain water-related poetry resources for teach-ers at www.cfwe.org

Winners of the 2006River of Words Poetry Contest

Congratulations!

Avery Forsythenational Winner

Slate River School, Grade 2Sue Wilson Teacher

Crested Butte, Colorado

I Love My DogThe summer sun dances off the water

While I played in the S-shaped bend

In the East River.

I stomped in the water

With my puddle boots

And watched my dog Taylor flop down

Like a child flops down on her bed

She looked like a lump of angel rock

Protecting me as I

Plomped,

Plomped,

Plomped

In the shallow edge

Of the river.

I was always the happiest

Kid in the world

Playing with my dog

In the sun

At the S-shaped bend

In the East River.

Annie Ochsnational Finalist



LightOutside

Is all filled up with snow.

It is a magic powder;

It has a quiet silent glow.

Feathers from the sky create

Soft pillows on the ground.

Summer is much louder.

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taylor tyzzerFirst Place Category i – Colorado river of Words



Earth WaterI wander to the warm pool,

crouch down, and watch

the waters come out of the cave.

My dad says it rushes from

Inside the earth and trickles

Into the pool.

I softly melt into the pool;

it feels like a newborn body.

I walk to the cave; it is dark and

Gloomy.

I sink under water and I hear

the sounds of my feet and

hands sweeping

swish, swish

on the bottom of the pool.

The cool arms of the wind wrap

Around me as I come up for air.

I get out of the pool and gaze at the sunlit sky.

The warm body of nature comforts me.

raine lambFirst Place Category ii – Colorado river of Words

Discovery Canyon Campus, Grade 6Colorado Springs, Colorado

My WildernessMy backyard is wild

With plants and animals and dreams

Bears come to my door

Reminding me

That I’m living by their streams

Deer make trails down my hills

Munching scrub oak leaves

The starry nights

Call to a special place in me

Mountain lions stalk from the cliffs

Scanning the world below them from their prey

Scrub Jays feed their babies

Teaching them to fly

Tree by tree

Lizards sunbathe on the rocks

Warming the cold blooded bodies

My backyard in the foothills

Is the wilderness

That I need

tristan BestFirst Place Category iii – Colorado river of Words

Discovery Canyon Campus, Grade 6Colorado Springs, Colorado

WintertimeWinter comes and goes,

Mountain peaks topped with snow,

Frost on the grass,

Fog on the window glass,

Every year,

The world seems to stop

To watch the snow fall down.

Birds gone south,

Sitting by the fire,

Hot chocolate in your mouth,

The squeal of a tire,

Driving through the icy streets.

The air is frigid,

Seeping

Through the cracks

At midnight

A full moon in the sky,

Brightens the corners.

Warmer now,

The ice melts,

Dripping to the beat,

Of a world brought back to life.

Reprinted with permission from the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities and the Colorado Center for the Book, 2006 Student Literary Awards.


ENDOWING PARTNERColorado Water Conservation Board

CHARTER MEMBERSAurora Water; Bureau of Reclamation; Central Colorado Water Conservancy District; City of Greeley Water & Sewer Department; Colorado Water Resources & Power Development Authority; Colorado Association of Realtors; Colorado River Water Conservation District; Coors Brewing Company; Denver Water; Eagle River Water & Sanitation District; MWH; Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District; Southwestern Water Conservation District; Stanek Constructors, Inc;

Ute Water Conservancy District; Winter Park Resort

PIONEER MEMBERBoard of Water Works of Pueblo; HDR Engineering, Inc; Metro Wastewater Reclamation District;

Rio Grande Water Conservation District; Triview Metropolitan District

SUSTAINING MEMBERSApplegate Group; Brown & Caldwell; City of Grand Junction Utilities; City of Thornton Water Resources; Colorado Municipal League; Colorado Springs Utilities; Duncan, Ostrander & Dingess, PC; Maynes, Bradford, Shipps & Sheftel, LLP; Orchard Mesa Irrigation District; PAT/PAC Colorado Dairy Farmers; Porzak, Browning & Bushong; Robert T. Sakata; Rocky Mountain Agribusiness Association; Rocky Mountain Farmers Union; Ryley, Carlock & Applewhite; Summit County Board of Commissioners; Suncor Energy (USA); The Consolidated Mutual Water Company; Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District; Upper Gunnison River Water

Conservancy District; White & Jankowski, LLP

ASSOCIATE MEMBERSArkansas River Outfitters Association; Ayres Associates; Black & Veatch Corp; Center Conservation District; Colorado Livestock Association; CRPA/CRMCA; Delta Conservation District; Douglas County Community Development; Gregory J. Hobbs, Jr; Hydrosphere Resource Consultants; Krassa & Miller, LLC; Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District; Middle Park Water Conservancy District; Platte Canyon Water & Sanitation District; Roxborough Park Metro District; Spur Associates; St Vrain & Left Hand Water Conservancy District; Y-W Electric Association, Inc

WATERSHED MEMBERSAirstar, Inc; Anderson & Chapin, PC; Anschutz Family Foundation; Bishop-Brogden Associates; City of Westminster; Collins, Cockrel & Cole, PC; Daniel Tyler; Deer & Ault Consultants, Inc; Don Ament; Eagle River Watershed Council; ERO Resources Corporation; Frank McNulty; Gerry Saunders; Huerfano County Water Conservancy District; Hydro Construction Co, Inc; InterMountain Corporate Affairs; James & Martha Webb; Jeanne & Miles Davies; Jody Williams; John & Susan Maus; John C Halepaska & Associates, Inc; Ken & Ginger Lykens; McKinley Farm & Ranch; Meurer & Associates, Inc; Nina Stulp; Patty Stulp; Reagan Waskom; Rex & Sally Miller; Rick Sackbauer; San Luis Valley Water Conservancy District; Scott Hummber & Sally Roscoe; Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District; State Representative Diane Hoppe; States West Water; Steven Acquafresca; Town of Frisco;

Tri-Star Masonry Inc; WaterColorado, LLC

Thank youto all those who make the work of

the Colorado Foundation for Water Education possible


Thank you!INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS

Alpine Cascade Corp; Andrea Bendlin; Aqua Engineering, Inc; AWWA, Rocky Mountain Section; Barbara Dallemand; Barbara Horn; Big Thompson Watershed Forum; Bloomin – Planned Outdoor Environments; Boulder County Parks & Open Space; Boyle Engineering Corp; Brad Udall; Bruce Jackson; Bruce Kroeker; Bucher, Willis & Ratliff; Burry Ranch; Carl Bachhuber; Carl Trick II; Case Ranch; Charles McKay; Christ Kraft; Chris Reichard; Chris Rowe; City of Boulder Water Quality & Environmental Services; City of Northglenn; Clay & Dodson, PC; Clifford Hoelscher; Cold Creek Outfitting Company; Collins Ranch Co, Inc; Colorado Department of Local Affairs; Colorado Division of Wildlife; Colorado Water Workshop; Colorado Watershed Assembly; Conejos Water Conservancy District; Connie Peterson; CSURF Real Estate Office; Curry Rosato; Dan Smith; Daniel L Ritchie; David & Linda Overlin; David A Reinertsen; David Batts; David Bernhardt; David Berry; David Hallford; David Hayes; David Nelson; Debby Pfauntsch; Deborah Hathaway; Dick Unzelman; Dick Wolfe; Donald Schwindt; Douglas County; Douglas Shriver; Drew Peternell; Eagle County Community Development; East Grand Water Quality Board; Edith Zagona; Elaine Davis; Environmental Process Control; Evans Group, LLC; Fairfield & Woods, PC; Ferdinand Hagden Chapter, Trout Unlimited; Frank Anesi; Fred Wolf; Friends of the Animas River; G E McNally Inc; Garald Barber; Gary Grinnell; Gene Bradley; Geo-Smith Engineering, LLC; Gerald L Adams; Gregory Hoskin; Gretchen Cerveny; H Gordon Johnson; Hall and Hall; Harold Miskel; Harvest Farm (Denver Rescue Mission); High Line Canal Preservation Association; The Honorable Richard Decker; Inverness Water & Sanitation District; J T Pickarts; Jack Fox; Jack Perrin; Jake Klein; Jane Sharkoff; Janet Enge; Jason Wolfe; Jean Anderson; John Bliese; John Kaufman; John Porter; John Redifer; Joy Kinard; Julio Iturreria; Karen Wiley; Kathleen Butler; Kathleen Zoller; Kathy Jeffrey; Katryn Leone; Lambert Realty; Lawrence J MacDonnell; Lee Stierwalt; Les Shaver; Luther & Jolene Stromquist; Mark & Sara Hermundstad; Martin & Wood Water Consultants; Marty Feeds; Marvin Kembel; Mary Miller; Mary Sue Liss; McCarty Land & Water Valuation; Megan Estep; Melvin Rettig; Merrill, Anderson, King & Harris; Minion Hydrologic; Mr & Mrs Jerry Varela; Murray McCaig; Nancy Porter; National Park Service Black Canyon/Curecanti; New Consolidated Lower Boulder Reservoir & Ditch Co; Northwest Colorado Council of Governments; Patricia Locke; Patrick, Miller & Kropf, PC; Paul Harms; Penny Lewis; Pete Crabb; Pete Gunderson; Pikes Peak Association of Realtors; Protect Our Wells; Randy See; RHN Water Resources Consultants Inc; Richard Lichtenheld; Rio Blanco Water Conservancy District; Rita Crumpton; RJH Consultants Inc; Roaring Fork Conservancy; Robert Ward; Roger Camper; Round Mountain Water & Sanitation District; Russell Kemp; Russell Waring; Rutt Bridges; San Juan Water Conservancy District & Pagosa Area Water & Sanitation District; Sand Creek Regional Greenway; Scott Williams; Silverlined Productions; Skip Dinges; South Pueblo County Conservation District; South Reservation Ditch Company; Southeast Business Partnership; State Senator Lewis H Entz; Sue Petersmann; Susan Andrews; Tanya Unger Holtz; Taylor Hawes; The Hudson Gardens; The Tisdel Law Firm, PC; The Wangnild Real Estate Co; Tillie Bishop; Tom Looby; Tom Pointon; Tom Sharp; Tomlinson & Associates; Town of Breckenridge Water Division; Town of Fraser; Treatment & Technology Inc; Tri-County Water Conservancy District; Troy Bauder; TST Infrastructure, LLC; Turkey Creek Soil Conservation District; Tyler Martineau; Virgil Cochran; Vranesh & Raisch, LLP; W W Wheeler & Associates Inc; Walter I Knudsen Jr; Warner Ranch; Washington Group International, Inc; Wat H2O ER; Water Information Program; Wendy Hanophy; Wendy Wempe; WestWater Engineering; William &

Donna Patterson; Wyoming Water Association; Zach Margolis; Chuck Wanner

STUDENT MEMBERSJonathan Wheelhouse; Remington Box; Sarah Catherine Hester; Thomas Barry


Support the Foundation’s efforts to provide balanced and accurate information on water resource issues. All members receive regular updates and notices on new Foundation products and events, 10 percent discount on all publications and event registrations, and FREE subscriptions to the quarterly Headwaters magazine. Your membership contribution is tax-deductible, in accordance with state and federal laws.

Charter member - $2,000 or more Up to 10 FREE annual subscriptions to Headwaters magazine FREE set of Citizen’s Guides and posters Special recognition in CFWE publications & eventsPioneer member - $1,000 Up to 7 FREE annual subscriptions to Headwaters magazine FREE set of Citizen’s Guides and postersSustaining member - $500 Up to 5 FREE annual subscriptions to Headwaters magazineAssociate member - $250 Up to 3 FREE annual subscriptions to Headwaters magazineWatershed member - $100 2 FREE annual subscriptions to Headwaters magazineIndividual member - $50 FREE annual subscription to Headwaters magazineStudent member (currently enrolled students only) - $25 FREE annual subscription to Headwaters magazine 50% off products and event registrations

I / we would like to become a member at the level as described above.

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Mail or fax with payment to Colorado Foundation for Water Education1580 Logan Street, Suite 410 • Denver, CO 80203

fax (303) 377-4360or order online at www.cfwe.org

Thank you for supporting non-advocacy water resource information and education in Colorado!

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cFWE mEmbERSHiP


Contact name: Company (if applicable): Address:Phone or email (in case there is a problem or delay filling your order):

Check enclosed Visa Mastercard Discover AmexCard number: Expires: Name on card: Signature:

Item Quantity MemberPrice

Non-MemberPrice Total

Citizen’s Guide to Colorado Water Law: Second Edition Explores the basics of Colorado water law, how it has developed, and is applied today. 33 pages, full color.

$7.20 each;$5.40 each

for 10 or more

$8.00 each;$6.00 each

for 10 or more

$

Citizen’s Guide to Water Quality Protection For those who need to know more about Colorado’s complex regulatory system for protecting, maintaining, and restoring water quality. 33 pages, full color.

Citizen’s Guide to Colorado Water Conservation Highlights current water conservation technologies, incentive programs, regulations and policies promoting efficient water use in Colorado. 33 pages, full color.

Citizen’s Guide to Colorado’s Water Heritage Explore how water shaped Colorado’s culture, history and identity with Native American, Hispano and Anglo contributions during the “settling in” period of the state’s first hundred years. 33 pages, full color.

Citizen’s Guide to Where Your Water Comes From Explains how weather patterns and aquifers supply the water we use. Summarizes the intricate distribution systems Coloradans have developed to deliver water to our farms and cities. 33 pages, full color.

Citizen’s Guide to Colorado’s Water Heritage: The Environmental Era Second in our water heritage series, six essays by leaders in the environmental movement and Colorado history take the reader through the awakening of Colorado’s environmental consciousness. 33 pages, full color.

Headwaters Magazine Our quarterly magazine features interviews, legal updates, and in-depth articles on fundamental water resource topics. Available by subscription or free with your membership, Headwaters keeps you up-to-date and informed about water resource concerns throughout the state.

FREE $25 annually $

Colorado: The Headwaters State Poster An overview of the major lakes, reservoirs and rivers in Colorado and describes how humans and the environment rely on these resources. 24”h x 36”w.

Free (plus shipping)

Water History Poster An archaeological and historical timeline of Colorado’s water resources and their development from circa 14,000 B.C. to the present. 36”h x 24”w.

Free (plus shipping)

Colorado Mother of Rivers Collection of 218 water poems by Colorado Supreme Court Justice Greg Hobbs book celebrating the wonders of Colorado’s rivers.190 pages.

$8.95 each; $6.25 each

for 10 or more

$9.95 each; $6.95 each

for 10 or more

$

SUBTOTAL

PLEASE ADD THE FOLLOWING SHIPPING CHARGES TO YOUR PAYMENT:CITIZEN’S GUIDES and HEADWATERS 1-2 guides, $3.00. 3-5 guides, $5.00. 6-10 guides, $7.25. 11-20 guides, $9.50. 21-30 guides, $12.25.

COLORADO MOTHER OF RIVERS 1 copy, $4.00. 2 copies , $5.00. 3-5 copies, $7.75. 6-10 copies, $10.50.POSTERS 1-5 posters = $3.50.

Please call the CFWE office at (303) 377-4433 for shipping larger quantities than are listed here.

$

TOTAL $

Mail or fax with payment to CFWE, 1580 Logan Street, Suite 410, Denver, CO 80203, fax (303) 377-4360, or order online at www.cfwe.org

cFWE PublicATiOnS

1580 logan St., Suite 410 • denver, Co 80203

In the deep basin of the San Luis Valley, J.A. Pfeifer constructed this artesian well in 1911 for the Alamosa Water Works. The state history archives say he may be the man in the photo. At 863 feet deep, the well produced 13,320 gallons per hour.

Technology has advanced since Pfeifer’s time, and the state’s dependence on under-ground supplies has grown. Groundwater accounts for nearly a fifth of Colorado’s water supply. Of that, nearly 90 percent is con-sumed by agriculture. Over the last century, farmers and water managers, among others, learned the importance of aquifers and that the underground water resource must be carefully managed.

Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection.

Headwaters Summer 2006: Groundwater

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Transcript of Headwaters Summer 2006: Groundwater