{"id":2444560,"date":"2019-05-23T20:56:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T02:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/colorado-taking-demand-management-workgroups-behind-closed-doors\/"},"modified":"2019-05-23T20:56:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T02:56:00","slug":"colorado-taking-demand-management-workgroups-behind-closed-doors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/colorado-taking-demand-management-workgroups-behind-closed-doors\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado taking demand-management workgroups behind closed doors"},"content":{"rendered":"
Representatives from seven states and the federal government sit during a news conference at Hoover Dam before a ceremony for a Colorado River drought contingency plan, Monday, May 20, 2019, in Boulder City, Nev. (AP Photo\/John Locher)<\/strong>
AP | AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

GUNNISON \u2014 The directors of the Colorado Water Conservation Board have consented to let staffers hold closed-door meetings of nine workgroups that would explore a water demand-management program and to let staffers require the participants to sign confidentiality agreements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorkgroup members will be expected to sign a confidentiality agreement to abstain from discussing outside of the workgroup forums any information that is deemed confidential or privileged per the terms of the agreement,\u201d read a slide shown at the state agency\u2019s most recent meeting, which took place here May 15.<\/p>\n

In presenting the closed-meeting plan, Brent Newman, the chief of CWCB\u2019s interstate, federal and water information section, told the agency\u2019s 15 directors: \u201cWe need these groups to be able to candidly identify, discuss and examine important issues without undue attribution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newman also stressed that any recommendations formed in the closed-door workgroups, expected to meet throughout the year, would be shared in a series of public workshops. He also said any decisions about whether, and how, the state sets up a demand-management program will be made by CWCB directors.<\/p>\n

The closed-door meetings about demand management, also known as water-use reduction, are being slated just as the prospect of such a program in Colorado is increasing.<\/p>\n

On Monday at Hoover Dam, representatives of seven states and the federal government signed a set of drought contingency planning agreements to better manage falling water supplies in federal reservoirs, including Lake Powell and Lake Mead.<\/p>\n

The DCP agreements outline a process for the four states in the upper Colorado River basin \u2014 Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico \u2014 to each develop demand-management programs.<\/p>\n

And the agreements also create a new regulatory pool to store, mainly in Lake Powell, up to 500,000 acre-feet of water, conserved through such water-use reduction programs.<\/p>\n

Demand management also could get a financial boost this fall if voters approve a statewide ballot question legalizing sports betting in Colorado.<\/p>\n

The betting question, now slated to be question \u201cDD\u201d on the ballot, includes a provision for the state to keep up to $29 million a year from a 10% tax on gambling revenue, most of which is to go to the CWCB to make grants tied to the state water plan.<\/p>\n

But the money, according to House Bill 1327, which sets up the sports-betting program, can also be used for \u201cexpenditures to ensure compliance with interstate water allocation compacts\u201d and \u201cto support projects and processes that may include compensation to water users for temporary and voluntary reductions in consumptive use.\u201d<\/p>\n

The primary compact in question is the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which requires the upper basin states to deliver a set amount of water to the lower-basin states: California, Arizona and Nevada.<\/p>\n

Lake Powell, formed by Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River in Arizona, serves as the upper basin\u2019s storage vessel to meet its requirements in dry years. Today, the giant reservoir is 41 percent full.<\/p>\n

And while the reservoir\u2019s water level is expected to rise with this spring\u2019s healthy runoff, the Colorado River basin has been in a lingering drought since 2000 and there is a concern the reservoir could drop so low that the upper basin would fail to meet its compact obligations.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Kerry Donovan, a Democrat representing District 5, which includes Pitkin County, was a sponsor of the sports-betting bill. She confirmed that the bill\u2019s language about \u201ctemporary and voluntary reductions in consumptive use\u201d refers to a potential demand-management program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may fund demand management,\u201d she said. \u201cIt could. It\u2019s not a \u2018shall.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She also pointed out that demand management is referenced in the state\u2019s water plan.<\/p>\n

In November, the CWCB adopted a policy to guide the development of a demand management program. The policy said the agency would \u201cinvestigate voluntary, temporary and compensated reductions in consumptive use of waters that otherwise would deplete the flow of the upper Colorado River system for the specific purpose of helping assure compact compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such reductions are expected to come mainly by fallowing fields and crops or reducing water in urban areas on the Front Range, which rely heavily on water from the Colorado River system delivered via transmountain diversion systems, including at the headwaters of the Roaring Fork and Fryingpan river basins.<\/p>\n

In addition to investigating voluntary curtailment though demand management, the state is studying how a mandatory curtailment program, if necessary, might be managed.<\/p>\n

The nine closed-door workgroups are being set up by CWCB staff to explore aspects of demand management: law and policy; monitoring and verification; water-rights administration and accounting; environmental considerations; economic considerations; funding; education and outreach; agricultural impacts; and tribal interests.<\/p>\n

Several veteran water managers in Colorado interviewed for this story said they couldn\u2019t remember the CWCB inviting participants to serve on workgroups in closed-door settings and requiring confidentiality agreements.<\/p>\n

Aspen Journalism covers water and rivers in collaboration with The Aspen Times. More at http:\/\/www.aspenjournalism.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Denver Water CEO Jim Lochhead served as CWCB director from 1983 to 1994 and as director of state\u2019s Department of Natural Resources, where the CWCB is housed, from 1994 to 1998.<\/p>\n

He said he has not seen the approach before, nor has he or anyone else at Denver Water yet been invited to serve on a workgroup.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just presuming that they want smaller groups that are going to have very candid and frank conversations with the state about how this can be implemented,\u201d Lochhead said.<\/p>\n

And he said any recommendations about any new policies or legislation must be made public.<\/p>\n

While some of the CWCB\u2019s directors had clarifying questions for Newman about the staff\u2019s recommended closed-door approach, none of the directors challenged it during last week\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI certainly support the idea of allowing these workgroups to operate in the right environment without a lot of public interference,\u201d said director Steve Anderson, who represents the Gunnison River basin.<\/p>\n

Anderson said he was comfortable with that closed-door approach because the product of those workgroup discussions would eventually be shared with the state\u2019s nine river-basin roundtables.<\/p>\n

In an interview Wednesday, Newman said the basin roundtables are already talking about demand management, and he sees the workgroups as engaging in \u201cparallel conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Invitations to serve on the CWCB\u2019s workgroups are to be extended to various \u201csubject-matter experts,\u201d who will be told they need to sign confidentiality agreements.<\/p>\n

Newman told the directors that people are not being invited based solely on their affiliation with different water organizations and that, generally, the invitees \u201care not already an active voice or in a leadership role in other forums and groups discussing demand management.\u201d<\/p>\n

And any professional consultants who want to serve on a workgroup are advised they should not do so if they plan on bidding on related state contracts in the future.<\/p>\n

The final roster of workgroup participants will be posted on the CWCB\u2019s website by the end of the month, Newman said.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Representatives from seven states and the federal government sit during a news conference at Hoover Dam before a ceremony for a Colorado River drought contingency plan, Monday, May 20, 2019, in Boulder City, Nev. (AP Photo\/John Locher)AP | AP GUNNISON \u2014 The directors of the Colorado Water Conservation Board have consented to let staffers hold […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2444560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 18:29:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2444560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}