May 8, 2012, 6:30-8:00 p.m., Summit County Community & Senior Center

Summit County’s new water commissioner hosts the 20th annual State of the River Forum on May 8 from 6:30-8:30 at the Summit County Community and Senior Center.

Jointly sponsored by the Colorado River District and the Blue River Watershed Group, the evening begins with water administration and project updates for the BLue River Basin, followed by a discussion of current snowpack and runoff predictions.

Bob Steger from Denver Water and Ron Thomasson from the Bureau of Reclamation will report on Dillon and Green Mountain Reservoir operations and how those operations will affect water-based recreation opportunities.

Summit County manager Gary Martinez will provide an update on the Colorado River Cooperative Agreement, while George Sibley commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Colorado River District with an historical perspective of the District, as well as Summit County’s water struggles and achievements over the years.

Scott Hummer, now the project manager for the Colorado Water TRust, will discuss the organization and its mission to protect and restore streamflows throughout Colorado.

The Blue River Watershed Group will highlight developments with collaborative restoration efforts. It will also be a chance to shake hands with Summit County’s new water commissioner, Troy Wineland.

Thursday, April 19, at the Silverthorne Pavilion from 5:30pm to 8:00pm

The Swan River running along Tiger Road near Breckenridge has fought its way from free-flowing upper tributaries through gravel dredge piles to create a semblance of what the river likely looked like 150 years ago.

It’s the pre-mining appearance and functionality the Blue River Watershed Group, the Forest Service, the Town of Breckenridge, Summit County Government and two private landowners hope to restore.

The dredge piles range from several feet to almost 40 feet deep along the watershed — in some places, causing the river to flow underneath and reappear down valley, Forest Service district fisheries biologist Corey Lewellen said. The piles come from dredge boats, which removed the river bottom, turned it on end, and miners combed it for valuable minerals.

An altered river means an affected fish population. In this case, healthy streams flow into the main Swan River from the north, middle and south forks. But their confluence is cut off by about two miles of dredge piles. Colorado cutthroat trout have been out-competed by introduced brown trout, and those fish are inbreeding.

Because the Swan River is “a pretty good opportunity to restore a metapopulation of native Colorado cutthroat trout,” the Forest Service is tackling the project with its partners. Summit County and Breckenridge have been working on their Swan River properties since 2007, but with Forest Service technical support, they and the other partners aim to hire a project design firm and begin implementation as soon as possible — but there’s a long way to go. The idea is to re-introduce the cutthroat in different, but connected, habitats.

“We want them to mingle and mix and from a genetic perspective, that’s good,” Lewellen said, adding that part of the reintroduction effort includes relocating as many brown trout as possible and eliminating the rest to prevent them from again out-competing the cutthroat.

The project will likely be expensive, at several millions of dollars funded by grants and other revenue managed by the Blue River Watershed Group, but it will be worth it, Lewellen said.

“There are 17 miles of habitat we can reconnect if we fix this two miles of dredge,” he said, later adding, “We want to promote healthy fish populations on all our lands… We can’t do that without restoring this.”

But that’s just part of it. The Forest Service is involved in the stream project because it’s part of a broader look at the Swan River watershed — an area covering roughly 20,000 acres. It’s also associated with the agency’s revised mission to get “better bang for our buck,” Lewellen said, by focusing resources more directly instead of haphazardly across the national forest.

“We want to pick a watershed and do everything we can to restore it,” Lewellen said, adding that it’s a multi-year effort to do so. It includes timber management, attention to the bark beetle, wildlife habitat, road decommissioning, abandoned mine reclamation, sediment analysis and control and recreation management, to name a few.

“We can put resources into private property to benefit national forest lands,” he said.

The Swan River in the Dillon Ranger District is one of a handful of emphasis areas, which includes a 50,000-acre habitat restoration project in the Roaring Fork Valley.

 

 

The Swan River, which runs along Tiger Road near Breckenridge, used to be a combination of wetlands created by beaver dams and free-flowing water through forest streambeds. Now, it’s surrounded — and sometimes submerged — by dredge piles upturned from early mining. A contingent of nonprofits, federal and local officials and private landowners are teaming together to begin a several year, multi-million dollar watershed restoration in the Swan River drainage.

Blue river watershed group’s new role
Steve Swanson, director of the Blue River Watershed Group, said the Swan River Restoration Project is his nonprofit’s first foray into project facilitation.

It’s something he plans to continue, as part of the group’s mission to promote, protect and restore rivers. The group has historically been involved with water education, but when Swanson took over as director in 2010, he had his eye on adding project-driven work. 

 “As a nonprofit, we’re able to bring together stakeholders,” Swanson said, adding that the group can also act as fiscal coordinator. They can apply for grants, such as the $25,000 that was awarded to support as seed money for the Swan River project.

Headwater Hops Fest, August 18

By Janice Kurbjun
Summit Daily News

June 7, 2011

“The Science of Watershed Protection” is slated for 7-9 p.m. Thursday at the Summit County Community and Senior Center at County Commons in Frisco. A panel consisting of experts in the field will address how (and if) the limited U.S. Forest Service can allocate its budget to protect both water supplies and homes.

The panel aims to address questions of what watershed protection means and looks like, how to achieve a more resilient forest, how best to protect against catastrophic wildfire — and priorities for how to spend limited resources.

One panelist, Chuck Rhoades, is the resident expert research scientist with the Forest Service’s experimental forest in Grand County, said Howard Hallman of Our Future Summit. Hallman said Rhoades should help shed light on what watershed protection actually means, as it’s often a term used broadly. Other panelists include Don Kennedy of Denver Water, Eric Howell of Colorado Springs Utilities, Jeff Lucas of Western Water Assessment, and John Stedmick of Colorado State University.

“As federal, state and local budgets now stand, there’s not nearly enough money available to protect homes, communities and resorts from wildfire and at the same time, save watersheds and water supply infrastructure,” Hallman said. “What makes good sense is for water users to invest in long-term forest restoration projects to protect water sources, with the same degree of urgency as for building reservoirs, pipelines and treatment facilities.”

 Press Release

Details of the historic proposed Colorado River Cooperative Agreement between Summit County, 26 other West Slope entities and Denver Water will be discussed with the public at the Tuesday, May 3 Summit State of the River meeting set for 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Summit County Community and Senior Center.

Members of the Summit Board of County Commissioners and County Manager Gary Martinez will join Denver Water’s Chief Executive Officer Jim Lochhead and Colorado River District General Manager Eric Kuhn in a panel discussion of the proposed landmark water agreement.

The meeting is sponsored by the Colorado River District and the Blue River Watershed Group.

The proposed agreement, five years in the making, seeks to settle many long-standing water disputes in Summit County dating back to the 1940s when Denver Water first filed for water rights to build Dillon Reservoir. Once the agreement is signed, West Slope opposition will be cleared for Denver Water’s Moffat Collection System Project.  Summit County benefits are a big part of the proposal. They include new consumptive water supplies for local jurisdictions and snowmaking, keeping Dillon Reservoir nearly full during the summer recreation season, protection of minimum flows below Dillon Dam and financial support for environmental and wastewater treatment projects.

Denver Water is undergoing permitting for its Moffat Project in Grand County but part of the proposed agreement includes drawing to the Front Range some 4,800 acre feet of more water in an average water year from Denver Water’s Dillon-Robert’s Tunnel.

The Summit State of the River meeting will also provide information of snowpack and runoff predictions as well as reports on how Denver Water will operate Dillon Reservoir this year. The Bureau of Reclamation will report on its Green Mountain Reservoir operations.

Members of the public who cannot attend the May 3 meeting but want to know more about the proposed agreement can attend the Grand County State of the River meeting that takes place on Wednesday, May 4, 6:30-8:30 p.m., at Mountain Parks Electric , 321 West Agate, Granby. Grand County officials will be joining Denver Water and the Colorado River District in the panel discussion.

For more information, contact Jim Pokrandt, Colorado River District, 970-945-8522 or jpokrandt@crwcd.org.

 Jim Pokrandt

WASHINGTON, DC — The Department of the Interior announced today that over the next six months, the Bureau of Reclamation expects to release a projected additional 3.33 million acre-feet (maf) of water from Lake Powell in Utah and Arizona to Lake Mead in Nevada. This new projection, boosted by a significant snowpack in the Upper Basin of the Colorado River, supplements the previously projected release of 8.23 maf—for a total of 11.56 maf—to fulfill the guidelines of the historic agreement reached between the Department and the seven Colorado River Basin States in 2007.

“Drought conditions over the past 11 years had raised the possibility of water shortages in the Lower Basin over the next year, but thanks to good precipitation, wise planning, and strong collaboration among the states, we are able to release additional water and avert those shortages,” said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.

After an intensive public review process, in 2007 the Department of the Interior approved the Colorado River Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin Shortages and the Coordinated Operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead to address operation of the lakes, particularly under low-reservoir conditions. These Guidelines provide detailed rules that determine the amount of water released from Hoover and Glen Canyon Dams each year and are based on an operational framework agreed to by the Basin states. The Guidelines represent an important example of the ongoing collaborative partnership between the federal government and the seven states on Colorado River management issues.

“The Colorado River is an important resource for seven states in the Southwest as well as Mexico,” said Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and Science Anne Castle. “Continued engagement between the seven Colorado River Basin states and the Department of the Interior has ensured the management process continues to function as planned and will continue to be essential. Today’s announcement demonstrates the importance of having operational rules in place to guide management of the Colorado River under varying conditions.”

In noting that total releases in Water Year 2011 (which ends September 30, 2011) are now projected to total 11.56 maf, Reclamation Commissioner Michael L. Connor pointed out that the current April-through- July inflow forecast for Lake Powell from the spring runoff is 9.5 maf, which is 120 percent of average. This is also an increase of 300,000 acre-feet over the March 2011 inflow forecast.

“The Colorado River Basin has experienced historic drought, and while this winter’s snowpack will benefit river flows, we cannot say that the drought is over,” cautioned Commissioner Connor. “Given the potential for extended dry years, and the effects of climate change on snowpack and runoff in the Colorado Basin, we must continue to work with the states, tribes and other stakeholders in the Basin to meet the water needs in the future.”

Under the terms of the operational guidelines, the snowpack conditions and expected inflows triggered what are called “equalization operations” under which the current annual release volume of 11.56 from Lake Powell has been projected. The projected annual release will be updated each month through the end of September 2011 to reflect changing hydrology. As a result, Lake Powell is expected to be at similar levels as last year, peaking in July at about elevation 3,643 feet above sea level. The additional water will increase Lake Mead elevation levels by more than 20 feet since October 2010, ending September 2011 at 1,105 feet above sea level.

Because of the continuation of spring storms and cooler temperatures in the Upper Basin, runoff will continue into the late spring. At the present time, Lake Powell is 52 percent full with 12.7 maf of water in storage. Forecasters warn that at this point in time, a rapid increase in temperatures may lead to very high flows once the runoff begins with the possibility of some localized flooding in the Upper Basin states.

NOTE: A fact sheet with additional specific information related to the coordinated operations of Lake Powell and Lake Mead is available upon request.

Press release obtained from U.S. Department of the Interior