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Moffat County Land Use Board

Minutes of Meeting

August 11, 2008

MOFFAT COUNTY LAND USE BOARD MEETING MINUTES August 11, 2008 Attendees: John Husband, Little Snake Field Office BLM Robyn Morris, Little Snake Field Office BLM Steve Hinkemeyer-LUB Bob Grubb, LUB Tom Deakins, LUB Dave Watson, LUB T. Wright Dickinson, LUB Tom Gray, Commissioner Don Carlson, Northern Water Conservancy District Jean Stetson, LUB Doug Wellman, LUB Sam McIntyre, Guest Marianna Raftopoulos, NW Oil and Gas Jeff Comstock, Moffat County Moment of Silence: Observed Call to Order: Steve Hinkemeyer, Secretary called meeting to order at 7:07pm Roll call was taken. Approval of Minutes from July 14, 2008 Dave moved minutes with spell check corrections made by Steve be adopted. Bob seconded. Unanimous Yes Vote. General Discussion/Committee Reports Archeology: Robyn Morris, LSFO BLM, provided an update regarding the Medicine Wheel Road as follow-up to the July LUB Meeting. She proposed to apply for a National Historic Fund Grant to perform further study of the archeology site. The grant would be applied for by the local government, (Moffat County) and Robyn would draft the grant. Jeff asked for a description of the type of work that the grant would cover. Robyn explained the grant would be used to identify if the site would meet ‘significance’ standards for the State. Steve asked about the details of the work that would be performed under the grant. Robyn stated the details of work would have to be ironed out before the grant was written. No in-kind contributions are required for the $10,000 grant. Tom questioned the point of further exploring the site when it did not address the point at hand, which was closure of the Medicine Wheel Road. The Board discussed this and some agreed with Tom and others felt that irregardless of the proposed road closure, the site needed further ‘significance’ study. If ‘significance’ was not found through further study then the proposed road closure is not an issue. If the site is ‘significant’ then the proposed road closure is still an issue. Tom asked to see the mandate that states BLM must mitigate or avoid archeology sites. John agreed to provide the information. T. Wright motioned the LUB encourage the Commissioners to support the grant process. T. Wright asked how much survey area would be included in the research. Steve recommended a certain distance from the centerline be further studied. This would make the survey directly applicable to the proposed road closure. Robyn stated that the LUB could review the grant prior to commissioner approval. Sampling design would be reviewed by the LUB. Jean Seconded. No Further Discussion. Unanimous Yes Vote. Tom restated that grants will not be a long term solution as there are not enough grants to go forward with addressing every road next to arch sites. Yampa River Pump back: Don Carlson from the Northern Water Conservation District highlighted the Yampa River Pump back for the group. He described the history of the District which was formed to bring Colorado Big Thompson (CBT) water to the front-range. CBT water is collected from west slope snow melt and pumped to high mountain reservoirs. Water is then pumped through 13 miles of pipeline to Loveland, CO. Don showed maps of where CBT water irrigates acres around Fort Collins, Denver, and other front range areas as far NE as the State Line, near Fort Morgan. Marianna asked about the Northern Conservancy District Board of Directors. Don stated they were appointed by judges to serve. They represent different areas of water management and have very gradual turnover of board members. Lawyers, farmers, engineers, and other interests make up the 15 member Board. Don stated 15% of CBT water used to be owned by communities and 85% by agriculture. Today cities own 50% and agriculture owns 50 % of CBT water. CBT water cannot leave the district, but native water can leave as dictated by statute. New research is quantifying return flows regarding volume and location. Return flows also must stay within the Northern Water Conservancy District. After the background of the Northern Conservancy District, Don discussed the Yampa Pump back Project. The Northern Conservancy District Board requested their staff study the Yampa Pump back for feasibility. A feasibility study is pertinent, considering that Municipal and Industrial needs of the Front-Range are expected to dramatically jump by 2030. Contractors looked for extra available water in the Colorado River, White River, Yampa River, and Green River. In addition, the Statewide Water Supply Initiative showed that the Yampa had significant un-adjudicated water and that 1 million AF of water flows annually across the Maybell Gauge. In addition, Yampa water quality is superior to the Colorado, White, and Green water quality, especially regarding total salts. The Green River has severe algae blooms that cause excessive TDS, hardness, and sulfates. The Northern Conservancy District Board Members asked staff to explore a project getting water from the Yampa River to the Front-Range, and determine its feasibility, or cost to the Front-Range. Consultants looked at three routes to carry water from the Maybell site to the front-range. There are northern, central, and southern routes identified in the feasibility study. The pump station is proposed to handle 2000 cfs and only divert water when flows are over 1000 cfs. So during high yield years when 6,000 cfs flows during a short period of time, there would only be 2000 cfs pumped, thus leaving 4000 cfs in the Yampa. There would be approximately 208-227 miles of pipe, depending on which route was selected, water to the front-range. An average of 118 megawatts of power would be generated at a cost of $11,000 per acre foot. Currently people are used to purchasing water at $30K – 80K per acre-foot on the Front Range. The project requires one big pipe of 106” in diameter or two pipes of 78” diameter to carry water from Maybell to the Front Range. The project was described as feasible, both from a construction standpoint and economically. The feasibility of this project does make it different than others that have been proposed, largely because of the purity of the Yampa River water. Other water projects must deal with more costly purification projects. The cost of the project is over 3 Billion Dollars. No proposals currently exist to build the project. Don stated that a coalition of water providers would be needed to build the project. He stated that a coalition would likely not be funded by water providers, but rather a statewide water project. Doug stated that for this to work, he felt equal storage for the Yampa River would need to be built immediately prior to the Pump back being built. Without that compensation he would oppose the Pump back project. Updates: Road Maintenance Committee: No update existed as the group was to meet later this month. Closing Update and Comments Future Agenda Items Archeology MOU between County and BLM. In stream flow updates. Announcements None Adjournment Doug motioned to adjourn; Jean, seconded 9:15 PM. Unanimous Adjournment.

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