ALAMOSA — A group ranging from multi-generational San Luis Valley farmers to Denver metro area attorneys is meticulously crafting groundwater rules and regulations for the Rio Grande Basin.

Colorado Division of Water Resources State Engineer Dick Wolfe had “promised” to draft well rules by year’s end, with the help of 50 or so advisory committee members, and he has remained true to his word.

“I think we have completed a lot since we first started these meetings,” Wolf said on Tuesday.

The stated purpose of the rules is to optimize the use of water in the Rio Grande Basin (the San Luis Valley) while preserving the priority water rights system and protecting Colorado’s ability to meet its obligations to downstream states through the Rio Grande Compact.

The rules are also designed to regulate the confined and unconfined aquifers to maintain a sustainable water supply.

The proposed rules state that they do not relieve wells from their obligation to replace injurious stream depletions and do not allow illegal water uses or expansions.

The proposed rules are specific to the Rio Grande Basin in recognition that this basin is unique. For example, the Rio Grande Basin has an aquifer system that includes a shallow or unconfined aquifer above a deeper confined aquifer that consists of multiple layers and formations.

The rules will utilize a groundwater model to help evaluate how withdrawals from the underground aquifers are affecting stream systems and other aquifers.

The rules recognize, as the water court has also recognized in the Valley, that the basin is over appropriated and groundwater withdrawals that are injuring the streams must be remedied. These rules allow the state engineer to administer and regulate groundwater and to curtail injurious groundwater diversions that are not replaced through an augmentation plan, sub-district management plan or substitute water supply plan.

Once finalized, the rules will head to water court for ratification. Wolfe said he brought in as many people as he could, from as many sectors as he could, to help draft the rules so there would be less contention over them later on.

The committee has drafted rules that are becoming more refined with each monthly meeting. The committee met again this week to review the 19-page document.

Sub-committees of the larger advisory group are also meeting to discuss vital portions of the draft rules, such as the irrigation season that will be defined in the rules.

Division Engineer for Division 3 Craig Cotten reported to the larger group on Tuesday that the irrigation season, presumptively at least in the draft policy, will be April 1 through November 1, “but that can be adjusted based on several different criteria. Obviously on the Rio Grande and Conejos one of the many criteria is how we are doing on the [Rio Grande] Compact.”

He said the season could be adjusted based on: consultation with water user groups; the amount of soil moisture in the ground; and the type of crops being grown.

He said April 1 to November 1 is the presumptive irrigation season because that is the season when water users are irrigating growing crops.

However, he said in addition to growing crops, other beneficial water uses include flushing the ditches of weeds before the irrigation season begins and running water in the ditch for maintenance purposes.

Cotten said the irrigation sub-committee is close to finishing its work but would like to meet once more.

Wolfe said he appreciates all the comments received on the draft groundwater regulations, and the rules have been modified based on comments received.

“We have done our best to try to incorporate those into our next version,” Wolfe said.

The draft rules can be viewed on the water division’s web site, www.water.state.co.us.

The advisory committee is reviewing the draft rules literally word by word. The group is discussing definitions of such words as “long term” and “sustainable,” for example.

“We had a lot of discussion about the definition of sustainable water supply,” Wolfe said. “We looked at a lot of sources.”

Currently a “sustainable water supply” is defined in the draft rules as “the prospective management of the benefits enjoyed by current water users, coupled with a stewardship to protect those benefits and uses for future generations, and within an aquifer, requires the continued management of water demands and protection of the sup plies such that current water uses from the aquifer do not mine the aquifer long term.”

Engineer Kirk Thompson said that definition uses action words to describe a sustainable water supply rather than describing it as a physical condition. “Is sustainable a set of actions or is it a condition?” he questioned. “Could you have an aquifer that is sustainable even though it is not actively managed?”

Wolfe said aquifers are dynamic, always requiring action to keep them sustainable.

These are the types of discussions occurring within the advisory committee meetings.