9NEWS.com | Denver | Colorado's Online News Leader | Man jailed for stealing well water claims it was his

Interesting story on 9news over the past couple of days. Just one example that shows how precious water is in our state, and how much controversy can spring up from this.

Read some of the comments in the comments section--many readers are woefully uneducated in water law and how things work in our state. Others make some interesting valid points.

Regardless of all the fighting, did this man really deserve to go to jail for this?

9NEWS.com | Denver | Colorado's Online News Leader | Man jailed for stealing well water claims it was his

Tour of East Slope CB-T Facilities

On Tuesday, November 24th, I had the opportunity to head to the Bureau of Reclamation (from now on denoted as BoR), located west of Loveland, with Noah (a fellow Colorado Climate Center inhabitant) and Colleen (who works for the Poudre School District). Noah and Colleen collaborate on a project (Walking Through the Water Year) to teach students about Colorado's climate. At the BoR, we met with Kara Lamb, who was to give us the full tour of the Colorado Big-Thompson project on the east side of the Continental Divide. I'm going to describe the tour, and you can either follow along with the schematic above, or with the slideshow shown below.

First a little Colorado Big-Thompson Project history: Back in the 1930s, it soon became clear that if Colorado's Front Range population grew any more, there would be no water available as aquifers would eventually be completely used and the climate was too arid. Roosevelt signed the bill in 1937 and the BoR, a federal program that had been established in the early 1900s specifically for the purpose of providing westerners with water, was given the task of transferring water from the mountains (where it was more than plentiful) to the Front Range. Many years later, and after the construction of multiple dams, reservoirs, powerplants, tunnels, and canals, the mountains can provide us with water after each snowy season. After all the water is collected in the mountains, it travels 13 miles through a tunnel (the Alva B. Adams Tunnel) to the Mary's Lake and Lake Estes, located in Estes Park on the east side of the mountains.

Our first stop on our tour took us to the Pole Hill Powerplant. Water fed to this powerplant comes directly from Lake Estes via the Olympus Tunnel. Two things can happen at this point: 1) the water will fall 800 feet through the tunnel and generate power through the powerplant before being moved on, or 2) during times when it is not generating power, the water falls out of the tunnel and is fed through a creek and then a canal before being moved on.

The water's next stop, and ours as well, is to the Pinewood Reservoir and through the Rattlesnake Dam. From the reservoir, we moved up the mountain side to see where the water bifurcates (splits into two). In the pictures, you will see two tunnels which snake down the mountain side and head for the Flatiron Powerplant (which is located right next to the BoR offices). The powerplant can generate power from the twin tunnels and/or send the water to the Flatiron Reservoir and to Carter Lake. Water that is sent south to Carter Lake continues south where it ends at Boulder Reservoir. This Reservoir provides water to residents of Boulder, Broomfield, Lafayette, and Longmont. However, we followed the water in its journey north.

After leaving the Flatiron Reservoir, the water is sent through the Charles Hansen Feeder Canal. Along this canal, at the intersection of the canal and the Big-Thompson River, one of three things can happen: 1) The water is fed to the Big-Thompson Powerplant, 2)the water is fed to the Big-Thompson River, or 3)the water continues through the canal where it crosses Highway 34 and the Big Thompson Canyon. According to Kara, this tunnel used to be called the "big green tunnel" until it was painted a color that would nicely match the surrounding rocks.

After this long trek, the water finally reaches the Horsetooth Reservoir, just west of Fort Collins. Much of this water is used by the communities in northern Colorado. Some of this water continues on its long journey to the plains via the Poudre River. And that is the amazing journey of a snowflake, which fell high on a mountain top, melted in the spring, and traveled many miles to end up in your glass of drinking water.

Tour of the Loch Vale Watershed

On October 16, I was able to join a group of scientists (mostly from the USGS) to tour the Loch Vale watershed, located in Rocky Mountain National Park. We entered Rocky Mountain National Park shortly after 9:00 in the morning and headed into the watershed with our hiking gear. The weather was perfect--cloudy, windy, and chilly at the higher elevations, but a crisp clear day at the start.

Our destination was a weather station located high up in the watershed, just below a couple of glaciers. During the hike, our tour guides, Jill Barron and Don Campbell, shared information with us, such as the ecology of the area and the importance of measuring weather in the watershed. We ate lunch sitting on snow surrounding the weather station and headed back down to the cars by 4:00 in the afternoon.

Unfortunately, we did not get to see the new sublimation measurement site that has been erected in the watershed. Sublimation will be a very important part of my research, and I was looking forward to seeing one and taking a picture. Sublimation is similar to evaporation: Rains or lakes can evaporate into a water vapor gas in the air. But snow (which is too cold to first melt into water) can sublimate into a water vapor gas. Mountain snow is a very precious commodity--it is how most of us on the front range get our drinking water. But researchers have found that we're not getting as much water as the amount of snow in the mountains indicates we should get. Many scientists believe that this is due to sublimation. However, without proper measurements, it is impossible to know for sure how much the mountains lose from sublimation each season.

This is why the sublimation measurement site at the Loch Vale watershed (and other locations in the mountains) are so important. With the data that are collected, scientists will be able to determine the exact effects of wind, solar radiation, dust on snow and other factors have on snow sublimation.

Below I have posted a slideshow of images from my tour of the Loch Vale watershed. And many thanks to those at the USGS who led this tour and provided much valuable information!

Drought Monitor Forum and Colorado Weekly Update

Drought Monitor Forum

October 7-8 I traveled to Austin, TX for the Drought Monitor Forum. Nolan and Henry from the Colorado Climate Center (above) also attended the meeting. This year marks the 10-year anniversary of the U.S. Drought Monitor.

http://drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html

Each week, the drought monitor is updated for the entire country. There is a HUGE process for this. It all starts with the drought author, who begins looking at data and drought conditions for the past week. Through much data analysis, many calculations, and large amounts of input from scientists all across the country, they finally post an updated map on the website on Thursday. Click any region of the map and it will zoom in. Then click on any state, and you will see where drought lines fall on a sub-county level. This information is very important not just for scientists but for decision makers in each state/city/county.

This forum was held for several purposes:

1. To inform on the history and the progression of the U.S. Drought Monitor

2. To provide information on useful datasets (how to access/view them) that can help better monitor drought conditions around the country

3. To host open discussions on improving drought monitoring and our understanding of droughts

Some useful datasets:

So here are some useful links I learned more about during the forum. I will hopefully post more information as time goes by.

USGS Data

One interesting feature is the Rain Days link. This shows images of number of consecutive rain days or dry days across the country. The hydrological model output link shows model output of evapotranspiration and soil moisture across the country.

NIDIS Drought Portal

NIDIS (National Integrated Drought Information System), which happens to be funding my work on the Upper Colorado River Basin, provides an interactive drought portal which allows you to pick and choose what data you would like to look at over the map. Hopefully soon, my group will be able to add data specific to our project to the portal, which will allow water managers and others in the water community in CO to more easily access the data they need.

Colorado Basin River Forecast Center

This River Forecast Center not only provides current conditions and forecasts for the Colorado River Basin, but they also provide interesting datasets.

Colorado Drought Weekly Update

My boss recently asked me to read through the Drought Monitor's author narrative and to pass on relevant information about Colorado to him and other coworkers. As soon as I figure out how to post a PDF as an attachment here, I will put that up.

Innaugural Trip to Grand County

Monday - Wednesday I took my first business trip to Grand County. The purpose of the trip was to meet some of the people of Grand County and get an idea of the water/drought information needs. We met with several water quality people, a couple of people from the Bureau of Land Management, someone from the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District and two people from Winter Park.

After the meeting, Nolan drove me around Grand and Summit Counties, pointing out the different rivers, lakes, and reservoirs that make up the Colorado Big-Thompson Project. Basically, the project is about diverting water out of Grand County and to the Front Range.

I have posted pictures with these reservoirs into a photo album via Photobucket. Please feel free to look through the pictures!