Computer model

refinement ongoing



By RUTH HEIDE

ALAMOSA — The appeal of District Judge O. John Kuenhold’s 2006 ruling on the state’s confined aquifer rules is slowly moving through legal channels, Rio Grande Water Conservation District Attorney David Robbins told the district board on Tuesday.

Robbins said appellants Cotton Creek Circles and San Luis Valley Water Company have filed their opening brief and the proponents of the rules, including the water district, have 10-12 days to file a response to the appellants but have asked the court for an additional 30 days.

Robbins and Ingrid Barrier from his firm are working on the response brief as are attorney Bill Paddock with the Rio Grande Water Users Association, attorney Peter Ampe from the Colorado Attorney General’s office and others.

If the court grants a time extension for the proponents’ response, they will file it sometime in August. The appellants will then have 30 days to file a reply brief, Robbins said, and the court will set the matter for argument sometime in the fall, probably September or October.

The Colorado Supreme Court will then have 3-6 months to rule on the appeal.

Judge Kuenhold presided over a six-week trial in Alamosa early last year to hear arguments from the proponents and opponents of the state’s confined aquifer rules. In November of last year the judge issued a ruling in favor of the state and in December amended his findings. Opponents appealed his ruling in February of this year.

On the basis that the basin is overappropriated and new withdrawals could harm senior water rights and the state’s ability to meet its Rio Grande Compact obligations, the state’s confined aquifer rules restrict new groundwater withdrawals from the confined aquifer in the San Luis Valley. Judge Kuenhold agreed with the state that the rules were necessary for the sustainability of the aquifer.

The judge also found that a state-sponsored computer model that was key to the state’s case was adequate for its intended purposes although it needed continued refinement.

The water district board on Tuesday discussed that continued refinement process at length when the board was presented with a request for an additional $50,000 from Rio Grande Decision Support System Modeler Dr. Willem Schreüder.

The board approved the funding request from its special projects budget line item so Schreüder could continue refining the model for purposes of the water management sub-districts being formed in the Valley to reduce groundwater depletions, repair injury to senior water users and assist the state in meeting its compact obligations to downstream states.

Rio Grande Water Conservation District Engineer Allen Davey said Schreüder indicated the $50,000 would keep his work going through the end of the year. The district board requested that Schreüder meet with the board to discuss his progress in the near future.

Rio Grande Water Conservation District Board President Ray Wright said he did not expect the model would ever be completely finished. He suggested that funding for further refinement be sought through the new statewide and basin-designated pots of money set up by the legislature for water projects.

Wright said it is important that the sub-districts have the information they need. “We have got clocks running, and we need people to have targets to shoot at,” he said.

Water District Manager Steven Vandiver said the district needs specific answers from the model regarding the sub-districts. “Otherwise there is no target for any sub-district to work toward as far as replacing their depletions,” he said.

Davey said he was not yet comfortable with the answers the model had provided but believed it was close to providing numbers the district could rely on.

Robbins said the district promised the sub-district organizers it would help them get the numbers they needed to project water management, and the district needed to follow through with that promise.

Water District Board Vice President George Whitten questioned the amount of money the district is putting into one person for the modeling refinement. “I feel we are being held hostage a little bit by one guy who’s got more power than anybody else right now. I understand how we got here. I just don’t know if we keep piling our efforts in one place.”

Robbins said Schreüder is not the only person working on the model refinement. The state also has one or two modelers working on it, and both the Rio Grande Water Users Association and Conejos Water Conservancy District are funding people to work on the model.

Water District Board Member David Graham said he believed the work of people like Schreüder was important. “On the other hand, I would like to see someday what the hell we are paying for in some kind of terms we can understand. We put a lot of money in this thing. All we have gotten so far is ‘send us more money’.”

Wright responded, “We got a good outcome in the rules trial last year.” He said the model was not designed for what the district is now asking of it.

Robbins said billions of pieces of data have been compiled into the model. “It is a very very complicated process,” he said.