HCWCD receives go-ahead from CWCB on $220,000 water project

by Bill Knowles
HUERFANO — It is a merry Christmas for the Huerfano County Water Conservancy District, with an approval on December 3, of a $220,000 grant application by the Colorado Water Conservation Board in their hands.  The district will move on the project after the first of the year, according to an email from Sandy White, current director of the HCWCD.
The grant application shows the Cucharas Basin Collaborative Storage Study will look at a storage needs assessment within the basin.  It will also do a “reconnaissance-level” study of potential storage options to meet those needs.  Funding for the project will come from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (WSRA), and will cover both components. 
The reconnaissance-level study will include completion of a water budget for the Cucharas basin, development of water resources modeling, and a climate change analysis, according to the grant application.
Funding for the entire project will come from a number of sources.  The study will cost $250,000, with total WSRA funds requested in the amount of $220,000.  Another $25,000 will come from Basin funds, while $30,000 will come from local sources.  Sources include the Cucharas Sanitation and Water District, Town of La Veta, City of Walsenburg, Huerfano County Commissioners, and the applicant, the Huerfano County Water Conservancy District. 
The assessment and study will be conducted from 2016 to 2017 by one or more consultants selected by the Cucharas Storage Collaborative and administered by the HCWCD.
Typical of conditions throughout the Arkansas basin, storage development in the Cucharas basin steadily increased from the 1870s through the 1940s.  About 70 dams were constructed, then for all practical purposes, storage development stopped some 65 years ago.  Subsequently, with a dramatic economic downturn in the county, there has been little money available or spent to maintain storage facilities.
As a result, about 71 percent of available storage has been abandoned or is now subject to State Engineer restriction. The remaining storage is considered by collaborative members to be wholly inadequate. 
The collaborative’s first task, as stated in the grant application, is a storage needs assessment. This assessment will confirm whether each collaborator’s storage needs exceed the yield of its current storage rights and facilities.  If it does, then they will examine whether a shortfall in storage yield can be offset by conservation measures or if the shortfall requires an increased storage yield from the expansion or repair of existing storage or the development of new facilities.
The resulting recommendations will suggest the manner in which each collaborator might meet its storage needs through physical solutions, which includes a possible joint storage facility and any necessary water right modifications.  Every recommendation will address necessary permitting and likely sources of funding.