In Appreciation of Alan Hamel

-Scott Lorenz and Patrick Wells

Alan Hamel, Executive Director of the Pueblo Board of Water Works, was the recent recipient of the Bob Appel “Friend of the Arkansas” Award which got us thinking about how this giant in the water industry has affected our careers.   From the vantage point of our short time in the water business it is almost impossible to fathom that Alan has worked in the same field for 50 years.   During that time he has come to be known not for just what he has accomplished (which is  a lot) but equally  for how he has done it.  Alan is known in many Colorado water circles for his calm quiet demeanor, his ability to bring people together, and his ability to work on his vision for the future while managing the immediate.  Alan often mentions “stick-to-it-tiveness” as being critical to success in the Colorado water business.  In addition, we would add that his honesty and integrity are traits that leaders any field would do well to emulate.  So, will we have 50 year careers in the water business?  That’s hard to say.  What we can hope for is that our careers in some small way live up to ideals embodied in Alan’s.

Congratulations to Alan both for the award and for an amazing career!

Do you have an Alan story or has he played a special role in your career?  If so add it to the blog.

Top Colorado Water News: April 24-May 4

From drought restrictions to fracking hearings, water has played a starring role in recent news. Here are some of the stories you need to know about. Comment on this post to tell us about the Colorado water news stories you’re following.

1. Denver Water Begs Us to Use Less Water
During an incredibly high-snowpack year like 2011, it’s easy to forget that Colorado is considered semi-arid. But the drought-dry conditions that contributed to March’s North Fork fire, as well as the dismal rainfall Denver has received this spring, are good reminders of just how dry the state really is. Denver Parks and Recreation has already said it would trim its use by 10 percent this summer. Meanwhile, Denver Water announced on April 25 that it was implementing stage 1 drought restrictions. Click here to find out what that means for you.

The average household uses a whopping 130,340 gallons per year. Where is all that water going?

One World One Water– Celebrate Art and Water

Rik Sargent and his sculpture. Credit- Westword

Artist Rik Sargent’s One World One Water sculpture is being celebrating right now at Denver’s Metro State College during a dedication ceremony. To celebrate Water 2012 read an interview with Rik that appeared in Westword and check out more water -inspired art this Friday during the “Living River of Arts” coming to Santa Fe Drive. From Westword:

Why water?

Aw, man, water is everything. We, the One World, One Water Group, are passionate about using the arts to facilitate creative conversations about ecological and water issues. What’s meant by that is, there are things you can say as an artist that would seem politically incorrect if people of leadership said them. Artists can use humor and be tongue-in-cheek, the same way a late-night talk-show host can do this. It deepens the conversation.

What kind of conversation are you hoping to facilitate?

We are in a renaissance of water awareness in the West and around the world. The old rules of water use and natural resource use were based on infinite forests and rivers. Now that we’re aware that they are very finite, we’re moving from natural resource to commodity. As a commodity, that means somebody owns our water. For the first time now, that’s inevitable in the unfolding of the planet. What we have to do as people is to be conscious of that. It’s a very complicated discussion and it has to be done with a certain amount of joy or it becomes venomous. It’s not about good guys or bad guys; it’s about people adjusting to evolution.

Attention Watershed Groups: Tools for Working with Volunteers

Watershed groups work across Colorado and around the county to clean contaminated water, reforest burn or mine-scarred lands, monitor water quality and implement other projects to revitalize, engage and restore their communities. In many cases they have few resources and rely on the commitment and leadership of local volunteers to get things done—volunteers who are often driven by a deep devotion to the cause or by the simple fact that if they don’t do something, no one else will.

When volunteer management is pushed to the end of a long to-do list, new volunteers are not informed of what they can do next or how they can become more involved, and consequently donate their time elsewhere. In rural communities—where a small population also means a small volunteer pool—watershed groups can’t afford to lose volunteers as a result of poor management.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have rural volunteer management guidelines that watershed groups could use to accomplish more? Or a resource telling rural watershed groups where others have recruited volunteers, engaged them and celebrated them? Now we have just that.

The OSM/VISTA Teams just completed a pioneering research project on rural volunteerism and created the Toolkit for Working with Rural Volunteers to share approaches to volunteer recruitment, management and retention that are successful in rural settings.  More importantly, it contains one-of-a-kind tools needed by rural volunteer-based groups to build sustainable volunteer management practices within their organizations.  Readers are guided through the larger process of bringing volunteers into their organization and keeping them there—all with the least amount of time, people and money.

Water in Two Different Generations

-Courtney Peppler

As a tomboy growing up in Littleton, Colorado in the 1980s, I have countless memories of running through sprinklers on the Slip ‘n Slide, playing water games at the local outdoor swimming pool (with green hair), climbing in the large cottonwood trees along the Highline Canal Trail near my childhood home, cooling off on the covered patio in the evening, experiencing the clockwork afternoon thunderstorms and of course, selling lemonade for ten cents a Dixie cup to any generous soul who decided to stop and support the neighborhood’s young entrepreneurs’ endeavors.  At that innocent time, water was simple. With the exception of my biweekly chore of manually moving the sprinkler to water the  lawn with our old fashioned ‘hose and sprinkler system’, water was fun! I gave little thought to the natural forces and human ambition that came together to make my lifestyle possible.

Water had a different meaning for my mother and father growing up in western Kansas in the 1950s.  The source of water was more transparent where rural families were often directly responsible for their own supply.  Windmills, powered by the Great Plains’ perpetually renewable energy resource, were often used to pump well water for household use.  A famous family story entails my ambitious two-year-old father climbing to the top of a windmill platform thirty feet above the ground and my grandmother running out of the house wringing her hands as my father looked down at her saying, “Don’t cry Mama!”

Colorado Water Trust Employs New Tactics in Drought Response

The Colorado Water Trust just kicked off its pilot drought response water leasing program this year. Visit the CWT website or schedule a public informational meeting to learn more about leasing your water rights this summer.

Colorado Water Trust seeks willing water users interested in pilot water leasing program

Across the state, many Colorado water-users are preparing for drought conditions this year.  According to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, streamflow forecasts indicate flows are likely to be below average to well below average in all basins across the state due to low snowpack combined with a dry spring and warmer than usual March temperatures.  This is creating concerns for Colorado’s water users and the state’s rivers, on which waterfowl, wildlife, fish, bugs, and plants depend.

This year, the Colorado Water Trust (CWT) intends to utilize Colorado’s short-term leasing statute for the very first time to put water back in the state’s rivers while compensating water users at fair market value for choosing to participate in the program.  Under the pilot program, CWT will be leasing water from willing water users to place into the State’s Instream Flow Program.  An instream flow water right is treated in Colorado’s water allocation system just like any other water right, but is decreed for nonconsumptive, in-channel use in order to preserve the natural environment to a reasonable degree.

“We intend to put this statute to work to make a difference both to water users facing what could be an uncertain summer if conditions don’t improve and to the state’s rivers,” says Amy Beatie, Esq., executive director of CWT.  The Colorado short-term leasing statute, created through widespread, bi-partisan support in 2003, allows water users to bypass the long “change of use” process in water court and temporarily loan their water to streams within a matter of weeks through a state administrative approval process.

Animas River Water Quality – an Interstate Affair

As the sun shines and the snow continues to melt in the San Juan Mountains this month, the Animas River comes hurtling down out of its headwaters to mark another spring runoff season. It passes through Silverton and Durango, flows across the Southern Ute reservation, crosses the border to New Mexico, and meanders past Aztec before finally joining up with the San Juan River in Farmington. Unfortunately for downstream residents, however, the waters of the Animas pick up a good deal of pollutants along this journey.

By the time the Animas reaches the New Mexico border, its water is already out of compliance with New Mexico water quality standards for total phosphorus, E. coli bacteria, sediment, and turbidity. When it reaches Aztec, impairment for nutrients and indicators of eutrophication are added to the mix. The New Mexico Environment Department added a whopping seven water quality impairments on New Mexico stretches of the Animas to its 2012 303(d) list of impaired waters .

While this might tempt some groups to point a finger of blame upstream, the Animas Watershed Partnership (AWP) is taking a different approach.  The AWP started as an offshoot of the Farmington, New Mexico based San Juan Watershed Group, and was formed to specifically address the problems of nutrient pollution in the Animas across state and tribal boundaries. The AWP steering committee is comprised of both government and citizen members from three jurisdictions – Colorado, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and New Mexico – and it alternates its meetings between Durango, Ignacio and Farmington in order to give equal voice to the concerns of all stakeholders.

A meeting of the Animas Watershed Partnership on Monday, April 23 will take a deeper look into the issue of regulating nutrients on a river that so inconveniently decided to flow across human-drawn boundaries.