Pueblo Water Board Joins Front Range User Group

By Chris Woodka, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.

Apr. 16–The Pueblo Board of Water Works on Tuesday formalized its agreement with other Front Range water users who import water from the West Slope in an effort to promote “mutual interests.”

Water board staff has been meeting informally with the other water interests quarterly since December 2004, but an agreement approved Tuesday forms the Front Range Water Council. Its purpose is to look at projects, policy and legislation regarding transfers of water from the West Slope to the Front Range.

Members of the group collectively serve about half of Colorado’s population and have the largest water systems in the state. Other members are the Denver Water Board, Aurora Water, Colorado Springs Utilities, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District and the Twin Lakes Reservoir and Canal Co.

The water board voted 5-0 to approve the bylaws and declaration of creation for the group as a nonprofit organization.

“We’ve done a variety of things as a group,” said Alan Hamel, executive director of the water board. “The group has been meeting informally for several years and we were the last to join. When we take a position, we want to be able to present it as a group, instead of under the signature of one of the agencies.”

The group has taken several positions in recent months. “We thought we had reached a point where we should take this to the individual boards,” Hamel said.

Last summer, the group, under the auspices of the Northern district, wrote a letter to the Bureau of Reclamation asking it to delay a contract for water entrepreneur Aaron Million to connect a pipeline to Flaming Gorge Reservoir until a state study of water availability is completed.

In March, the Front Range group presented a collective “vision” statement for the next 50 years as part of an Interbasin Compact Committee process initiated by Department of Natural Resources Director Harris Sherman. The group also asked for a delay in the Bureau of Land Management environmental review of West Slope oil development.

“Those are the types of issues we work on,” Hamel said.

The Front Range Water Council is separate from the Colorado River Coalition, a broader group that also includes West Slope interests and is primarily working on maintaining flows for four species of endangered fish.

However, the Front Range council is the group that will be working on the Sulphur Gulch reservoir project. The reservoir site is 25 miles east of Grand Junction. The reservoir will be used to deliver 10,825 acre-feet annually for fish recovery in the Upper Colorado River under the 1999 federal programmatic biological opinion.

“Up until now, we’ve been paying Denver Water, but when we take on a project like Sulphur Gulch, this will be the group,” Hamel said.

The Front Range council will not have a director or its own staff, but will rely on its members to provide engineering and support for projects, Hamel said. It won’t result in increased costs for ratepayers.

It also won’t prevent its members from squaring off in court, as they frequently do.

The water board remains an objector in both the Colorado Springs and Aurora exchange filings in Division 2 water court.

“It doesn’t prohibit us from protecting our interests as we always have,” Hamel said.

Water board member Tom Autobee asked about a provision of the agreement that would allow other members to be added at future dates.

“There are a lot of other water systems along the Front Range, but these are the only major transmountain diverters,” Hamel said. “We wouldn’t add members unless there are new diversions.”

“So, the purpose is just for the West Slope?” asked board member Mike Cafasso.

“That is correct,” Hamel said.

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Copyright (c) 2008, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.

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