Michael Sullivan, new deputy state engineer, testified on Monday in the sub-district water management plan trial in Alamosa.

Witness stand to transfer sides



By RUTH HEIDE

ALAMOSA — Attorneys for the State Engineer and Rio Grande Water Conservation District are wrapping up their side of the testimony as a water trial revolving around the San Luis Valley’s first water sub-district management plan enters its second week.

Newly appointed Deputy State Engineer Michael Sullivan, who is also still serving as the division engineer for the Rio Grande Basin, took the stand on Monday.

Preceding Sullivan on the stand last week were his boss State Engineer Dick Wolfe, former Deputy State Engineer Ken Knox, Rio Grande Conservation District Manager Steven Vandiver, the district’s engineer Allen Davey, Sub-District Board Vice President Lynn Kopfman and Sullivan’s associate from Pueblo.

Following the state’s witnesses, those objecting to the management plan will call their witnesses. District/Water Judge O. John Kuenhold, who is presiding over the trial, has allotted up to three weeks if necessary.

The trial revolves around the first sub-district’s management plan in an area of the Valley known as the closed basin area. The stated goals of the sub-district are to reduce or eliminate injuries to senior surface water rights; restore the aquifer; and support the Rio Grande Compact. Sullivan testified that the sub-district’s plan is an economic engine to generate funds to purchase water rights or take land out of production in order to recover/sustain the aquifer at a higher level than it is today and purchase water rights to compensate depletions to the river. The plan seeks to fallow up to 40,000 acres of land “to stop the bleeding so to speak,” Sullivan said.

He said he agreed with Knox’s approval of the sub-district plan while Knox served as acting state engineer.

“I do see the plan and procedures as workable,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan discussed the impact of well pumping on surface rights and said the groundwater model only shows 9,000 acre feet of actual river depletions that would have to be replenished after other factors are considered such as well pumping that is offset by Closed Basin Project contributions.

He said the sub-district has about 3,000 wells in it, some close to the river and others 25-30 miles away.

Sullivan testified that even with decreased well pumping resulting from the sub-district operation, surface water users have no guarantee they will receive their full decreed amounts of water because other factors are in play.

Sullivan said well pumping could not be blamed for all of the curtailments on surface water rights. For example, this year the forecasts predicted a large snowpack and big runoff so irrigators were curtailed as much as 36 percent on the Rio Grande to make sure the state made its anticipated Rio Grande Compact obligation.

Attorney Tim Buchanan pointed out that the surface water rights bear the brunt of that Compact curtailment because wells are not curtailed to meet the Compact. Sullivan responded, “I don’t have the rules and regulations to allow me to do that.”

Referring to an earlier comparison Sullivan had made to his involvement in the sub-district management plan development as an 800-pound gorilla sitting in the corner, Buchanan said, “So the 800-pound gorilla has been asleep?” Sullivan said, “not necessarily.”

Sullivan said that the state has no rules and regulations regarding wells other than to administer them according to their decrees and permits. However, he said well regulations/rules would be necessary to effectively make the sub-district plan work because they would provide the power to back up the requirement to replace water depletions.

“We need to promulgate rules which set the standard for the sub-district to meet,” Sullivan said.

State Engineer Wolfe testified last week that the state would begin the process to set up such rules next year.

Sullivan testified that well owners within a sub-district essentially get a “pass” from subsequent rules and regulations but added if the sub-district did not perform properly the state engineer’s office could take the sub-district to task even to the point of seeking to void it out.

He said if the sub-district was unable to fulfill its intentions to protect senior water rights, “I would return jurisdiction into the court to either get them to get their act in gear and get some water to replace those injurious depletions or void the sub-district plan and make it subject to rules and regulations.”