Name and Position: Elaine Chick, Program Manager
Organization: Water Information Program
Became a WEN Member: March 2017
Watershed: San Juan/Dolores
Favorite River: The Lower Dolores River
Favorite Water-Based Activity: Rafting
Our Favorite Quote from Elaine: 

“I pretty much had to drink from the fire hose when I first started to learn all about water in Colorado. It’s very complex, very political.”

Interview with Elaine: 

Where are you from originally? Vancouver, BC, Canada. When I was young my folks moved to Los Angeles and I grew up in California. And then I actually moved back to Vancouver for quite some time and had a totally different career up there.

What was your career up there? I was actually in the music industry for about 15 years, so I was a booking agent, a promoter, opened up Universal concerts in the Pacific Northwest, managed different bands, was a publicist for Bryan Adams and a Canadian group called Lover Boy and a bunch of other different acts. Then, started going into the corporate world and became a corporate special event producer, creative director and technical director.

What brought you to Colorado? I have been coming down to Durango, Colorado for the past 28 years. My sister and family lived here in Durango. And I am a horse woman. I used to come down to ride in all the different parades as well as ride in the Durango pro rodeo… My heart is here. My spirit and soul are here. And I’ve been coming down for so long, that finally I made the declaration that I will not be away from my family any longer and this lifestyle, and 5 years ago I moved here.

What are the primary duties of your job? What I do now focuses on educational programming, outreach, creating events and programs that educate our local communities and the different communities around the region all about water and water conservation. So, I produce a children’s water festival every year, which is an awesome event and task to do by myself, but it does require over a hundred volunteers, which includes our presenters and volunteers on site.

We do [the children’s water festival] at Fort Lewis College. This year, we had 750 5th graders, 29 presenters and 36 different classes that attended.

Describe the coolest project that you’re currently working on.

Well, they’re all pretty cool. The one that just passed is called Forests to Faucets and it is very near and dear to my heart. I partner with Mountain Studies Institute and the San Juan Mountains Association… It’s a teacher training program. We offer it for free for teachers. We go to different areas each year and we put together a kit that has pretty much all of the accoutrements—the things that the teachers will need to do the activities that we teach them. We also sponsored a book called My Water Comes from the San Juan Mountains that teaches kids about the watershed and there is curricula in there as well…

The other one that’s coming up on September 18th and 19th is the Water 101 & 201. That is all about water law and water education. Topics include Colorado water law, Colorado Water Plan implementation, an explanation of state and local water agencies’ perspectives, water rights, administration, development, and more…

Then of course we just launched our new website, which has a lot of information. It’s waterinfo.org… It’s a work in progress, but it’s definitely a much better resource. The new platform that we have is easier to navigate, more friendly, happier.

Is there anything in particular that people should look for when they check it out? Go to our events section. We also feature all of our partners. That’s one of the advantages of becoming a partner is we give each of our partners a page that has information… And then our resource section… We’ve got an area for ditches and diversions, history of Colorado water, planning for the future, which is all about the Colorado Water Plan.

What made you want to become involved with the Water Educator Network? Initially, I really wanted to touch base with other people who had done the children’s water festival and there was the great water educator program meetings that were happening. That was my first introduction to it and I thought, “How great to actually talk to people on what they’re doing in their programs and what’s been successful and what could be changed to be more successful.”

And then, the different programs. I also went on the basin tour that you guys did last year and to get all of these different people together and be able to go out and see and feel and touch our different rivers and have an understanding of how it works and some of the challenges with some of the local people and networking with some of our water associates is great. You know, only being in water for a couple of years, I’m definitely still learning. It takes a long time to really get a good understanding… I consider you guys not only associates, but friends… It’s a great way to not only learn and see what you guys are doing, but to create a shared community, especially in education.

Describe your proudest water-related accomplishment? I think it’s just jumping in and being able to do what I do—being able to educate people. I’m really passionate about community. That’s part of why I moved down here—to make a difference in my community… And to be able to bring my experience of over 30 years doing outreach, working with nonprofits, doing educational events and major events—to be able to do that in a way that has a purpose (that’s not just for corporate special events)… If I get a handful of kids who have a great takeaway and learn from that, then we’re doing our job. That’s going to make our future better…
What do you do in your free time? Well, I am a horse woman. Most of my free time, when I can, I ride my horse. That is my passion…

What is your biggest goal for 2018, professional or otherwise? I have quite a few. Professionally, get alittle more handle on water information, upgrading our brochures and looking at otherprograms that we can develop and nurturing my partners, finishing the website. Personally, really committing more time to physical activity and getting out and enjoying the outdoors, which is why people live here.

Is there anything else that you would like to add or that you’d like other WEN members to know? Look at how we can perhaps join together and work in collaboration. How can Water Information Program collaborate with other entities that are doing education?

We’re excited to bring you a contemporary website that will make engaging with our organization that much easier and more valuable. Stay tuned for the announcement of our launch!

By Larry Morandi

The Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) met in Salida on May 23-24, in part, to take final action on grant applications to help implement Colorado’s Water Plan (CWP). The Colorado General Assembly created the grant program in 2017, appropriating $9 million in fiscal year 2018 for projects in six categories—storage ($3 million); water supply/demand gap ($2 million); and agriculture, environment/recreation, conservation/land use, and innovation/engagement ($1 million each).

CWCB approved $3.1 million for 24 projects at the meeting, bringing total water plan grant funding for the year to more than $8.8 million for 65 projects. The remaining $172,370 will carry over into FY 2019; agriculture will have the largest balance at $116,042. The new grants include $1.4 million for a dredging project in Northeast Colorado that will add 356 acre feet of storage water for irrigation; and $175,000 to rehabilitate a diversion project in Southwest Colorado that will preserve 210 acre feet of storage and 12,264 acre feet of irrigation water, protect 11.5 miles of stream passage for fish, and restore 48.8 acres of aquatic habitat.

Lauren Ris, CWCB Deputy Director and a member of Water Education Colorado’s Board of Directors, said the grants are important to achieve the water plan’s objectives.  “Many of the grants are for projects in rural parts of the state that don’t have access to ratepayer funds like those in larger urban areas.”

The legislature passed CWCB’s 2018 water projects bill—SB18-218—last month and sent it to the governor. It contains $7 million in water plan grants for FY 2019. The application deadlines are August 1, 2018 and February 1, 2019, with CWCB approval in November 2018 and May 2019, respectively.

Larry Morandi writes on environment and natural resources issues. His articles on drought, the Colorado River and public access to water have appeared in State Legislatures magazine. He recently retired from the National Conference of State Legislatures, a think tank based in Denver, where he was Director of State Policy Research.

By Jerd Smith

Water Education Colorado

It’s a drought year, right?

But back in April, Pueblo Reservoir in southeastern Colorado was so full of water it came within days of releasing the excess, also known as “spilling,” to make room for spring runoff.

Spilling water is painful in a semi-arid state, in part because whomever owns the water can no longer claim it for use. It simply becomes part of the river’s native flow, meaning anyone downstream could capture it. That’s a worst-case scenario for those accustomed to holding on to every drop.

“It made it an interesting year to begin with because we said ‘How could we have such a dry year and still be faced with having to spill water?’” says Garrett Markus, water resources engineer for the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which manages water imported to southeastern Colorado from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. The Fry-Ark is a transbasin diversion system with five reservoirs, including Pueblo.

In the water world, storage lags precipitation for one year, so the robust water levels in the Fry-Ark system this year derived almost entirely from 2017’s wet winter. As with most reservoirs, users store different amounts of water and hold different dated storage rights that dictate whose water would go first if a spill became necessary. At Pueblo Reservoir, the City of Aurora would have been at the top of the list, followed by certain irrigators and some smaller communities, according to Chris Woodka, a spokesman for the Southeastern District.

If the reservoir’s users hadn’t acted quickly, millions of gallons of imported water would have been spilled, merging with the Arkansas River’s native flows, available to downstream and out-of-state users who normally would have been blocked from tapping those flows. Instead, Aurora was able to sell some of its stored water to an irrigation company, and other irrigators took their water early to use for spring planting.

All told, some 33,000 acre-feet of water was released and used, enough to serve 66,000 homes for one year, Woodka says. He credits irrigators with moving swiftly to avert the spill.

By Larry Morandi

Water Education Colorado

A  request that a federal court case on public access to rivers be dismissed was granted this week. The case involved the state’s legal challenge to fisherman Roger Hill’s efforts to gain recreational access to water flowing through private property in federal court. But the Colorado Attorney General’s office argued that the federal court lacked jurisdiction to determine title to the underlying streambed without the state’s consent.

Rather than wage a lengthy procedural battle that could delay a decision on the merits for years, Hill requested that the case be dismissed, and May 29 the U.S. District Court in Denver granted that request. Hill’s attorney Mark Squillace said he plans to refile the case shortly in state court with Colorado possibly being designated as an interested party. A representative from the Colorado Attorney General’s Office did not respond to requests for comment. Stay tuned for more once the new complaint is entered.

Clarification: An earlier version of this blog item mischaracterized who requested the dismissal.

Larry Morandi writes on environment and natural resources issues. His articles on drought, the Colorado River and public access to water have appeared in State Legislatures magazine. He recently retired from the National Conference of State Legislatures, a think tank based in Denver, where he was Director of State Policy Research.

By Eric Hecox

Meridian Metropolitan District, General Manager

Reusing or recycling water in Colorado can be a tricky business. There are a number of factors that must be considered: whether your water can legally be reused; which method will be employed and at what scale your reuse program will operate.

At Meridian Metropolitan District we continually wrestle with each of these issues. But before we delve into our own story, here’s a bit of a primer on reuse in Colorado.

Remind Me Again, What Water Can Be Reused?

In general, there are four broad categories of water that can be reused:

• Transbasin water, which is typically brought over from river basins on the West Slope
• Transferred consumptive use
• Nontributary groundwater
• Other decreed reuse supplies

How Is It Done?

Water providers are currently employing or considering a variety of tactics for reusing their reusable water supplies. These include:

• Direct non-potable systems
• Reuse by exchange
• Diversion and treatment of municipal effluent through an environmental buffer
• Direct potable reuse

Size Matters, Don’t Forget to Consider the Scale

However, perhaps the most overlooked consideration in reuse is the level or scale at which reuse occurs. Reuse can occur at the basin, regional, district/provider, or household level.  Leaving the household level aside for now, let’s examine each of these in the context of the South Platte River Basin, the Denver Metro Region, and Meridian Metropolitan District.

Basin level and successive reuse

It is no surprise that Colorado has more water demands than available supplies—this is particularly true in the municipal and industrial sector along the Front Range. Not surprisingly, people across the state have differing opinions on how we should meet these water demands. Many people from the West Slope where Colorado’s transbasin diversion projects originate, insist that the East Slope and Front Range maximize reuse of existing transbasin water before contemplating new diversions.

In the South Platte River Basin, home to metro Denver, a drop of water is generally used seven times before crossing the state line—downstream water users have come to rely on the return flows from those projects. This successive or de facto reuse works on the South Platte, at the basin scale, and is meeting a wide variety of municipal, agricultural, and environmental needs. In a water-short system like the South Platte, water is not wasted, it’s just a question of the level at which the water is reused. As upstream municipalities become more efficient, some are concerned that return flows will decrease, diminishing the water supplies of downstream communities and agricultural users.

Reclaimed Water providers in Colorado

Regional level and WISE

Reuse is also occurring at the regional level. Perhaps the best example of this is the recently implemented Water, Infrastructure, and Supply Efficiency (WISE) Partnership.

WISE is a partnership between Denver Water, Aurora Water, and 10 South Metro water providers. Denver and Aurora have reusable return flows from their transbasin, agricultural transfer, and decreed reuse water supplies. Denver Water and Aurora Water use these reusable supplies within their own systems through their own reuse projects when they have a demand for them. But there are times when reusable water supplies are available but Denver and Aurora don’t have demand for that water within their systems. So, they combine their supplies and use available capacity in Aurora’s Prairie Waters Project to bring the water off the South Platte at Brighton and pipe it southeast to Aurora, where it is treated and provided to the participating South Metro water providers. The 10 South Metro entities are then responsible for the infrastructure to distribute the treated WISE water to their communities.

In essence, Denver and Aurora combine their reusable water and through a large regional loop of pipes, pumps, and treatment infrastructure, those supplies are provided to Aurora, Denver, and South Metro cities, helping to meet the needs of more than 2 million people.  The WISE Partnership is a pioneer in meeting municipal water demands through a regional reuse project.

Local level and Meridian

The final level of reuse we’ll examine is the local level, which most people are familiar with. It involves water providers reusing their supplies as best they can within their system. The predominate method is through a reclaimed or “purple pipe” water system. Below is a map of water providers throughout Colorado with a reclaimed system.  One of these (number 6 on the map) is Meridian Metropolitan District (Meridian).

Meridian, which serves 20,000 people on a daily basis, is widely recognized as one of the most efficient water systems in the state. In addition to being a member of the WISE Partnership, Meridian was chosen by a national organization, the WaterReuse Association, as its 2014 Institution of the Year.

Meridian, like many South Metro entities, has groundwater supplies from the Denver Basin Aquifer,  a deep bedrock system that is disconnected from the surface water. This makes it a nonrenewable supply, which legally can be reused.

Meridian accesses its groundwater supplies through a series of wells. It treats the water to potable standards and sends it to the residents and businesses in Meridian. The water comes back to Meridian as sewer flows. Meridian’s sewer plant treats the water, returns it to nearly potable standards, and sends it back out through a separate system to irrigate outdoor landscaping, parks, and open space.

This isn’t the unique part. Many water providers have a reclaimed system. What is unique is that Meridian does this with 100 percent of its water and has no ability to discharge to a surface stream. Whereas most water providers reuse a portion of their supplies, every drop of water is reused within Meridian’s closed loop system.

The main challenge Meridian faces is balancing its system, ensuring that as it grows and more water enters its loop, that it can store excess supplies until they are needed. As Meridian continues to develop we are excited to continue to be leaders in reuse, evaluating new technologies and pushing the envelope to navigate the tricky business of reusing and recycling water in order to ensure Meridian’s sustainable water future.

Eric Hecox is a vice president with Shea Properties Colorado and is general manager for multiple special districts including the Denver Tech Center and Meridian.  He also serves on the board of Water Education Colorado.

A February 12 blog entitled “Public Access to Water Flowing Through Private Property” describes a lawsuit filed by a fisherman, Roger Hill, against a landowner, Mark Warsewa, over Hill’s ability to wade the Arkansas River adjacent to Warsewa’s land. By wading the river, Hill touches the streambed, which Warsewa says belongs to him and makes Hill guilty of trespass. Hill claims the Arkansas was navigable at the time of statehood and, therefore, the state owns the streambed and the public has access to it for recreational purposes. The case is in the U.S. District Court for Colorado.

The litigation has taken a new twist with the state of Colorado filing two motions on May 7 to intervene in the case and then to dismiss it. The state’s argument is twofold. First, even though the suit does not name Colorado as a defendant, it is an essential party because the plaintiff “attempts to affect the State’s title to land within its borders” and thereby “implicates the State’s sovereign interests.” And second, the U.S. Constitution’s Eleventh Amendment prohibits a private citizen from suing a state in federal court. Colorado essentially argues that the federal court has no jurisdiction without the state’s consent.

Mark Squillace, a University of Colorado law professor and one of Hill’s attorneys, criticized the filings in a May 21 Denver Post op-ed piece saying “If the state were properly exercising its trust responsibility to the people of Colorado, then it would have filed this case itself on behalf of Roger Hill. Short of that, it might at least have intervened on his side after the lawsuit was filed, or even just stayed out of the dispute.” Squillace is not sure how his client will proceed, but a decision will come soon as the court has set a May 28 hearing on the motions.

Larry Morandi writes on environment and natural resources issues. His articles on drought, the Colorado River and public access to water have appeared in State Legislatures magazine. He recently retired from the National Conference of State Legislatures, a think tank based in Denver, where he was Director of State Policy Research. He previously worked for the Colorado Legislative Council as staff to water committees. Larry has lived in Colorado for the past 40 years, splitting his time between Denver and Summit County.

Names and Positions: Karen Bish, Community Outreach Supervisor; Deb Parker, Public Education Specialist  
Organization: South Platte Water Renewal Partners
Became WEN Members: September 2017
Watershed: South Platte Basin
Favorite River: Karen- The Colorado River; Deb- The South Platte River
Favorite Water-Based Activity: Karen- Swimming; Deb- Kayaking
Our Favorite Quote From Karen: “I actually went to the State of Colorado and I have a certified nose. We don’t get very many odor complaints, thankfully.”
Our Favorite Quote From Deb: “My proudest water-related accomplishment was the day that my granddaughter explained to her mommy why we turn the water off when we’re washing our hands… She’s 4 years old and she had her reasons together. It wasn’t just, ‘Mommy, we turn the water off after we get our soap and our hands wet and then we scrub and then we turn the water back on.’ She knew why. She was like, ‘Cause that wastes a lot of water and we need to think about it because water is a precious resource.’”

 Interview with Karen and Deb

What are the primary duties of your jobs?
Karen: The main components of my job are that I coordinate all of the tours. I also work on the plant’s odor reporting program. So, if someone in our service district has an odor complaint, I go out and investigate those. I actually went to the State of Colorado and I have a certified nose. We don’t get very many odor complaints, thankfully.
Deb: I help coordinate education programs with the schools and outreach groups. So we work with [Rocky Mountain Water Environment Association (RNWEA)] and we’ve done a couple of educational activities with them for schools. We do outreach with local schools and then I help with tours and we do various outreach activities, like the Denver Water Festival… On the 6th of June we have our Community Open House to celebrate our new name and to explain to the community and our connectors what we do here and why changing our name was really important… We want to honor all of our users and we also wanted to promote the fact that we are renewing resources and not just cleaning poopy water. We are so much more than just wastewater. Wastewater is our first end product, but we do so much with it, so we need to change that vision of what people see of us.

What is the vision that you want people to see?
Deb: We want them to see that the South Platte community thrives by renewing water to support recreation, agriculture and wildlife, and we protect the environment by treating waste in the water and recovering vital resources during the process. So that’s what we’re trying to promote.
Karen: We’re trying to take the opportunity to educate the public about the value of water. We don’t view our byproducts as waste anymore, so we’re trying to make sure that people understand water renewal and that we’re doing more with what comes in. Then, we changed our named from Littleton/Englewood to South Platte because we are bigger than just those areas. We have 19 connector districts that send us their water that we process as well. Then, we also have upstream and downstream users. So, we’re trying to get the word out that we’re helping the whole South Platte community and not just Littleton and Englewood.

Tell us about your new water education initiative. Why did you make this shift to focus on water education?
Karen: Last year, we had a new director come to the plant and he’s very passionate about education and outreach and decided that since the plant didn’t have one, we needed one. I have been in the Operations Department for 14 years, so I have the plant knowledge and Deb has an early education background. We make a really good team together.

What are you hoping to get out of being WEN members?
Deb: Building our network and helping where we can within that network. As we learn, we can help other people grow. Unfortunately, right now we’re kind of in the baby stages, so we feel like we’re more on the receiving end as opposed to the giving end. But we’re getting warmed up and we’ll be ready to start giving back soon.

Is there anything that you’re looking for out of the WEN membership or anything that you would like to say to other members.
Deb: We’re just open to any possibilities or any collaborative avenues that might be out there where we can help out other members…

What is your favorite Water Education Colorado workshop or event that you’ve attended?
Karen: The ice core lab was pretty cool! I also enjoyed the Watersheds Conference last October. Stephanie did a presentation on finding the right people that was partnered with Allison Plute from Colorado Springs Utilities. They did a great presentation about how to find volunteers and that was nice because we are just starting our program.

Describe your proudest water-related accomplishment.
Deb: My proudest water-related accomplishment was the day that my granddaughter explained to her mommy why we turn the water off when we’re washing our hands… She’s 4 years old and she had her reasons together. It wasn’t just, “Mommy, we turn the water off after we get our soap and our hands wet and then we scrub and then we turn the water back on.” She knew why. She was like, “Cause that wastes a lot of water and we need to think about it because water is a precious resource.”
Karen: I think some of my proudest moments are- you know we’ve had a few spills here in the 14 years that I was operating and we work hard to stop those spills, so that nothing goes down a storm drain and so we don’t impact the river. We’re a good team and very quick to react to minimize the impact on the environment. So, I always felt really proud when everyone just jumped into line and did what they needed to do without complaining or asking questions. They just knew what they needed to do and that was always a really good feeling.

What is your biggest goal for the next year, professional or otherwise?
Deb: Well, professionally we want to build the network with the Littleton schools and some of our connector district schools. 
Karen: Continue developing the curriculum for the Englewood schools and like Deb said, start partnering with other schools in the area. And personally, make sure I get out there and go hiking and do stuff like that this summer.

Is there anything else that either of you would like to add?
Karen: If anyone wants to learn more about what we do, we’re always willing to give a tour. We do classroom events too.
Deb: If people are interested in coming to our Community Open House it is going to be June 6th from 3 – 7.
Karen: We’ll have people in all the different groups of the plant with information about what they’re doing. The whole innovation and optimization group will be there. Our lab will be there. Of course our education group will be there. We’ll have tours and activities for kids. We’re going to have some basic food, so it should be a good time if people want to know what we do and learn more about our process.

The Colorado General Assembly closed out its 2018 session on May 9. The legislature took final action on two of the six bills previously reported in this “Capitol Beat” series, passing one (SB18-218, Funding Colorado Water Conservation Board Projects) and defeating the other (HB18-1301, Water Quality Impacts of Mineral Mining). Here’s the status of all six bills, with a few additional comments on related legislation. Detailed summaries of each can be found in the earlier blogs.

Enacted into Law

HB18-1008—Aquatic Nuisance Species: Mussel-Free Colorado Act

HB18-1093—Reclaimed Domestic Wastewater Use on Edible Crops

HB18-1199—Aquifer Storage and Recovery

Passed House and Senate; Awaiting Governor’s Action

SB18-218—Funding Colorado Water Conservation Board Projects

Defeated in Committee

HB18-1151—Deficit Irrigation and Alternative Transfer Mechanisms (at the request of the Senate sponsor)

HB18-1301—Water Quality Impacts of Mineral Mining

In addition to these six bills, the legislature considered three others related to water reuse. HB18-1069 allows the use of reclaimed domestic wastewater that meets specific water quality standards for toilet flushing in multifamily residential and nonresidential facilities; it was enacted into law. SB18-38 would allow the use of reclaimed domestic wastewater in the cultivation of industrial hemp; it passed the House and Senate and awaits the Governor’s action. And finally, HB18-1053 would have allowed the use of reclaimed domestic wastewater in marijuana cultivation; it was postponed indefinitely in the Senate Finance Committee at the request of the bill’s Senate sponsor for additional study.

So that’s a wrap on 2018. The session saw progress in implementing Colorado’s Water Plan with incremental steps taken to promote surface and groundwater storage, reuse water and fund innovative storage, agricultural and environmental projects. And it confirmed that, for the most part, changes in Colorado water policy are achieved with broad bipartisan support.

Larry Morandi writes on environment and natural resources issues. His articles on drought, the Colorado River and public access to water have appeared in State Legislatures magazine. He recently retired from the National Conference of State Legislatures, a think tank based in Denver, where he was Director of State Policy Research. He previously worked for the Colorado Legislative Council as staff to water committees. Larry has lived in Colorado for the past 40 years, splitting his time between Denver and Summit County.

Water Education Colorado

Whether a high-level meeting between an Arizona water agency and the four upper basin states earlier this week will help restart a critical drought contingency planning effort in the Colorado River Basin isn’t clear yet, officials said.

This despite an apology from Central Arizona Project managers for publicly discussing a strategy they were using to force more releases from the upper basin’s Lake Powell to fill its own Lake Mead, mining what it called the “sweet spot” in a set of guidelines used to jointly manage Powell and Mead, the largest reservoirs in the Colorado River Basin.

The meeting, held April 30 in Salt Lake City, came after the four upper Colorado River Basin states – Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico – as well as Denver Water, sent angry letters to the Central Arizona Project (CAP), protesting the project’s actions.

The CAP is one of the largest water providers in Arizona, one of the three lower basin states, and uses about 1.5 million acre-feet of Colorado River water to serve metropolitan Phoenix and Tucson and surrounding agricultural areas, according to the agency’s website. It is managed by the Central Arizona Water Conservation District (CAWCD).

But the upper basin states and some of their largest water utilities maintained that CAP’s actions were undermining their own water-saving efforts. Since 2015, the seven Colorado River Basin states have spent more than $11 million on a system conservation pilot program to reduce water use in the upper basin in order to boost storage in Lake Powell, according to a February report from the Colorado Water Conservation Board. The upper basin states, including Denver Water and other utilities, contributed $4.6 million to that pool.

“We wanted to get together to let them explain what their position had been,” said James Eklund, a Denver attorney who represents Colorado on the Upper Colorado River Commission.

“Typically we don’t get involved in any other states’ internal disputes,” Eklund said. “This one had bubbled into the rest of the [Colorado River] basin and it risked freezing the drought contingency planning that we’ve been working very hard on.”

The dispute comes in a year when Lake Powell is expected to receive only about 42 percent of its normal inflows, according to the May 1 report from the Colorado River Basin Forecast Center in Salt Lake City.

In a statement issued Tuesday, the Central Arizona district apologized for its public statements and for jeopardizing the drought work the seven states have undertaken.

“CAWCD regrets that intra-Arizona issues have impacted other parties in the Colorado River Basin,” the agency said in the statement. “Specifically, CAWCD regrets using language and representations that were insensitive to upper basin concerns, and resolves to have a more respectful and transparent dialogue in the future.”

Tom Alvey grows fruit in Delta County and chairs the Glenwood Springs-based Colorado River Water Conservation District Board. The district represents 15 West Slope counties and acts as the lead policy and planning agency for the river within the state of Colorado.

Alvey said the tension on the river won’t have an immediate impact on him or other water users.

“More than anything else, we’re concerned that it is an exercise in bad faith,” Alvey said. “Everybody up and down the river has put a lot of effort into developing a collaborative approach to problem solving.

“This flies in the face of that. It creates the impression that CAP is gaming the system. They are causing more water to be released out of Lake Powell. That’s our bank account and they are draining it.”

Looking ahead, Alvey said the interim guidelines governing the joint operation of Powell and Mead may need to be changed to prohibit the kinds of actions CAP has been taking. The guidelines, which date back to 2007, were negotiated after the federal government ordered the seven basin states

“The interim guidelines have served us fairly well,” Alvey said, “but they may need some tweaking.”

In response to the controversy, Denver Water has threatened to pull out of the system conservation pilot project. In a statement issued after the Salt Lake City confab, it said it would wait to see if CAP follows through on its promise to restart talks with the State of Arizona before it decides whether to continue helping fund the pilot program. The agency, the largest water provider in Colorado, spent just over $2 million on the project through 2017 and had committed another $2 million in funding for 2018, according to spokesman Travis Thompson.

The Board of Water Works of Pueblo, which relies on Colorado River Basin diversions from the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, has gone one step further, saying it will no longer participate at all.

Eklund said it’s critical that CAP schedule a new round of talks with representatives for the State of Arizona so that the drought contingency planning can resume.

“We can’t have weeks go by before the next step is taken,” Eklund said. “We were optimistic we would have something done by now.”

Still, he said, “If CAP’s actions had gone unanswered it would have been a hard or impossible sell to our water users to convince them if we put [conserved] water in Lake Powell it’s not going to get pulled down to Lake Mead anyway.”

Jerd Smith is digital content editor at Water Education Colorado. She can be reached at @jerd_smith, jerd@yourwatercolorado.org or at 720-398-6474.