Lone previous dissenter changes his vote on $1.5 million request



By RUTH HEIDE

ALAMOSA — The Rio Grande Inter Basin Roundtable on Tuesday voted - this time unanimously - to resubmit to the state a request for $1.3 million from statewide water funds and $200,000 from Rio Grande Basin designated funds for the Rio Grande Initiative, a project designed to protect the Rio Grande corridor through voluntary conservation easements.

The basin had unsuccessfully submitted the project to the state for funding in 2007.

When the roundtable group considered the request the first time last summer, roundtable member Fred Bauder voted against it because he said he did not believe conservation easements were the most economical use of riparian areas. Assured that plenty of developable land would still be available for urban expansion, Bauder on Tuesday voted with the rest of the board to request funding from the state for the Rio Grande Initiative.

Rio Grande Roundtable Chairman Mike Gibson said even by removing half of the river corridor from development through conservation easements, “I think you would agree there’s still a lot of land along the river that could be developed if property owners decided to sell to Mr. [Bob] Honts or some other developer. There’s adequate land available to do that.” He said land along the river is already being purchased for development.

The original Rio Grande Initiative request last year was also for $1.5 million, the largest considered by the roundtable group, but the initial request was solely for statewide funding. Upon the state’s recommendation, the revised request also includes $200,000 from the local basin’s pool of money.

The state legislature in 2006 approved $1 million specifically for each river basin as well as a larger multi-million-dollar pool of statewide funding, the Water Supply Reserve Account, for which projects in all of the river basins compete. Whether from the statewide account or local pot of money, all requests must progress first through the basin roundtable and then to the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) which acts on the requests. Valley resident Travis Smith chairs the CWCB.

Smith said when the Rio Grande Initiative came before the CWCB before, the vote to fund it was one short. He said one board member had many questions about conservation easements and one board member was philosophically opposed to conservation easements, so the vote at that time was insufficient to provide the funding requested. “But the general sentiment from the board was they were very interested and supportive of this effort,” Smith said, “so I am encouraged that we are going to get another shot at it.” He said he was not overly confident the project would get the funding this time but was hopeful. The CWCB will reconsider this request during its March meeting.

Rio de la Vista, coordinator for the San Luis Valley Wetlands Focus Area Committee who presented the Rio Grande Initiative request to the roundtable, said the initiative project was successful in being awarded a $7.385 million Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) Legacy grant in December, the largest in the state, and the $1.5 million state/basin funds would provide a portion of the $2.9 million match for that grant. The GOCO grant will protect six ranches, 5,600 acres and 19 miles of river. Landowners will contribute $3.7 million through the value of their property.

The $1.5 million from the Water Supply Reserve Account and Rio Grande Roundtable basin funds would be applied to conservation easements on four of the six ranches proposed to be included in the Rio Grande Initiative, or about 2,220 acres.

The eligible group actually applying for the $1.5 million is the Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust (RiGHT.) RiGHT has already secured more than 10,000 acres in easements throughout the Valley since its inception in 1999.

De la Vista said the Rio Grande Initiative emerged from a number of local community organizations’ desire to protect as much of the river corridor as possible. The project will protect the riparian area through incentive-based voluntary conservation easements, de la Vista said. With those easements, landowners could not sell off their water rights, but the water rights would remain with the land. “That’s one of our main motivations for doing this,” she said.

De la Vista said RiGHT is negotiating with private property owners along the river now so it would not be appropriate to release their names, but once their conservation easements are in place, the information will be public.

She added that the Rio Grande Initiative fits well into the Rio Grande Roundtable’s goals of sustainability in the basin.