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See other minutes at: Governance Committee / Land Committee / Technical Committee / Water Action Plan Committee

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Final Minutes
Water Management Committee Meeting

May 15, 2001
Denver, Colorado

The Water Management Committee (WMC) meeting began at 8:20 a.m. in Denver, Colorado. The minutes of the March 20, 2001, WMC meeting were approved without revisions. The minutes of the April 25, 2001, WMC/Depletion Plans Subcommittee workshop were approved with revisions.

The WMC discussed the status of the May 1 milestones identified in W1-EXT, W2-EXT, and W4-EXT. The States have agreed to prepare a document that describes their process for handling new water related activities with respect to their future depletions plans and whether an activity will be covered by their depletions plan. While these process documents are anticipated to contain some common elements, the process documents will provide information unique to the special conditions and circumstances of each state's depletions plan. The desired outcome is to develop process language regarding the depletions plans that would be approved by the Governance Committee and incorporated into the Program document.

The differences amongst the plans were discussed. New water related activities in Wyoming will be reviewed individually on a case by case basis and a determination will be made whether depletions from the new activity would be covered under their plan. Wyoming has already provided draft language describing the process that would be followed. Wyoming is reviewing the processes document for consistency with the Nebraska v. Wyoming settlement document and will revise as needed.

Colorado's depletions plan is envisioned to cover all new water related activities benefitting Colorado water users, including small off stream storage projects on the tributaries. The potential of new activities with depletive effects outside the scope of the plan has been recognized and Colorado will draft process language describing how any anomalies to their plan will be addressed.

Nebraska anticipates the majority of future depletions will be associated with new ground water wells. The ability to estimate the future well development using existing well records was discussed. The existing database does not reflect actual operations where a second well has been placed in service in a center pivot operation and the acres irrigated by the old well has been reduce to irrigate the corners. An estimate made using the historic data would over estimate the trend in future development and does not include the potential curtailment of well development likely to occur as future requirements are put in place. Nebraska will draft process language describing how projects not specifically identified in their plan will be addressed and include discussion of potential sources of offset water (Nebraska has reserved portions of their proposed Water Action Plan Projects as sources for offset).

The process language will be used for the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and the draft Biological Opinion (BO) evaluations. The language is needed by September 1. No additional involvement from the WMC regarding the Water Action Plan projects is anticipated, other than potential review of the evaluations. The following schedule to achieve the September 1 date is set forth below.

Following a break from 9:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., Curt Brown reviewed status of the Ground Water and River Flow Analysis report. The comments provided by the WMC have been addressed and incorporated into the report. The comments were addressed without difficulties. The WMC Chair asked WMC Members to review how the comments were addressed and notify him of any remaining concerns by June 1, 2001. The Chair will notify the Executive Director of the WMC position (supportive or comments not addressed adequately) on the report prior to the Land Committee's June meeting. It is anticipated the report will be presented to the Land Committee at their June 2001 meeting. Duane Woodward (Ground Water Flooding Subgroup Chair) was asked to attend and respond to questions regarding the WMC's review of the Report.

Next, the WMC reviewed the proposed schedule for review of the Future Depletions Plans (shown below). The Chair will present the proposed review schedule to the Governance Committee at their May 17 meeting.

The development of the monthly reporting format identified under milestone W8-EXT was discussed. Considerable discussion on this topic ensued. A simple interpretation of the milestone is to compile daily river accounting information from the various states accounting systems in a monthly format with respect to total streamflow and Program water. The quantification of Program water led to discussion of operating criteria for the individual projects with respect to the pulse flows and operation of the projects with respect to one another. The need for further discussion regarding the operation of the potential projects with respect to the pulse flows and with respect to each other was identified. Further, it was identified that no specific milestone to address these questions related to project operation exists. The Chair asked WMC Members to provide in writing their perspective of the issue for further discussion at the next WMC meeting. The WMC needs to develop the reporting format layout: what kind of information is reported, what will the report look like, who produces the data, where does the data come from, and where will the data reside?

The Executive Director identified the Technical Committee is developing their Database Protocol, which is anticipated to provide for the data needs of water, land, and other resources. The Executive Director will work through the WMC Chair to seek WMC's input on a data management system via a questionnaire.

The next WMC meeting will be held July 12, 2001, in Denver, Colorado, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. Mountain Time. The Executive Director will make arrangements for a meeting location near the Denver International Airport. A workshop to review information from milestones W7-EXT, W9-EXT, and W10-EXT with completion dates of September 1, 2001, will be held August 21, 2001, in Denver, Colorado.

The meeting adjourned at 12:00 p.m.

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