Downstream States to Fund Cloud Seeding: The Colorado Water Conservation Board OKs a Deal That Could Mean More Water for the State.

By Chris Woodka, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.

Mar. 13–CANON CITY — Downstream states will provide most of the funding to continue a cloud-seeding program under an agreement approved Monday by the Colorado Water Conservation Board.

The program will have benefits for Colorado as well, and particularly for the Arkansas Valley, which receives transmountain water from the Roaring Fork and Fryingpan basins, two of four areas in the cloud-seeding program.

“The lower basin states won’t be able to make a claim that it’s their water,” CWCB Executive Director Rod Kuharich assured the board.

Under the program, water agencies in Arizona, California and Nevada will pay Colorado $110,000 to extend cloud-seeding operations in the Roaring Fork and Fryingpan basins; the western San Juan Mountains, which feed rivers in the southwestern corner of the state; and Grand Mesa, on the mainstem of the Colorado River.

Total cost for the projects is $155,000.

Similar deals are being negotiated with Utah and Wyoming, but Colorado generates more than 60 percent of the flow from the Colorado River to the Lower Basin states. The idea is to increase snowpack and the eventual flow for all of the states involved.

“Since 9 million acre-feet run out of the state, it’s best to benefit the state as a whole,” Kuharich said.

Project manager Ted Kowalski presented the plan to the CWCB and fielded questions from the board. Among the concerns addressed:

The agencies funding the cloud-seeding — California’s Metropolitan Water District, the Central Arizona Project and the Southern Nevada Water Authority — have agreed to be co-insured for potential damages.

Cloud-seeding contractors or sponsors in Colorado may not accept funding from outside the state without the CWCB’s consent.

Downwind effects, if they exist, cannot harm other Colorado watersheds. A $25,000 study of possible downwind effects is part of the agreement.

Lower Basin states would pick up liability for side-effects, such as snow removal bills the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District received when it tried cloud seeding several years ago.

Cloud seeding could only occur when snowpack remains below 120 percent, Kowalski added.

Transmountain water for Twin Lakes, the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project and ditches owned by the Board of Water Works comes from the Roaring Fork and Fryingpan basins, annually bringing more than 100,000 acre-feet into the Arkansas Basin on average.

The agreement emerged out of ongoing talks between the seven basin states — New Mexico is the other member — aimed at reaching an agreement to balance Lake Powell and Lake Mead and to deal with future shortages on the Colorado River.

The states all signed the 1922 Colorado River Compact. During recent drought years, levels at Lake Powell, which releases the Upper Basin states’ share, and Lake Mead, which stores the Lower Basin states’ share, became unbalanced.

The Bureau of Reclamation is considering plans for operations of the two reservoirs and hopes to have an agreement among the states by the end of this year. A draft environmental impact statement has been released by Reclamation and public hearings will begin in April.

Randy Seaholm, CWCB chief of water supply protection, briefed the board on potential implications of each of five alternatives in the draft EIS and what it would mean to Colorado and the other Upper Basin states.

One of the problems that could develop is a signed agreement between Arizona and Nevada that assumes the amount of future shortages Mexico will shoulder, even though international negotiations have not been concluded.

Another factor could be prolonged drought, as cited in a recent study of Colorado River flows over 500 years. While the modern average for flows is 15 million acre-feet annually, the long-term study shows it could be 400,000 acre-feet less.

“There have been periods where streamflows are lower than what we’ve experienced,” Kuharich said. “How global climate change affects this is anyone’s guess.”

Kuharich added the agreement would only be in force until 2025.

“It’s essential that this goes away in 2025,” Kuharich said. “The driving force is the protection of water in the Upper Basin, as well as to allow the Lower Basin states time to put their house in order.”

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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