[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: FW: Suggested revisions to Ordinance 7816

[kohls at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Wilson, Ken

I would like to support Bill DeOreo's proposed changes to Ordinance 7816 as described below.  This may require pulling this ordinance from the consent agenda.  Bill is the Chair of Boulder's Water Resources Advisary Board and a water engineer.  Bill was one of my mentors when I was on WRAB and has always been forward looking in his water policy suggestions.  Perhaps the City Attorney can prepare alternative language for this ordinance that we can consider this evening.

Ken Wilson
Deputy Mayor

________________________________
From: bill deoreo [bill at aquacraft.com]
Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 11:50 AM
To: Council
Cc: Catherine Long Gates
Subject: Suggested revisions to Ordinance 7816

Dear Manager and Council:
I will not be able to address council on Tuesday since I will be out of town, but I still would like to ask council to make two revisions to the latest version of the language in Ordinance 7816.
I believe these changes will make the ordinance more fair, and will help protect the historic and valuable ditch system.

In paragraph 11-1-19 b(1), and in paragraph 11-1-19c both on page 9 of the Agenda memo.  I suggest that the words "which duplicate municipal water" be added to end of the first sentence of the first full paragraph on the page and the first sentence of paragraph (c).  This will allow people to obtain shares in ditches without having their water budgets reduced in the case that the water they are purchasing does not duplicate water which is already part of their water budget.  This will also prevent the City from having to pay for reductions in PIF's fees unless there will actually be a reduction in water drawn from the system, and will prevent citizens from having their water budgets reduced when the water they are buying is not intended to replace water under their existing budgets. The way the ordinance is worded right now sounds like the reduction in water budgets is a punishment for someone having the temerity of owning or purchasing ditch shares.  That is not right.

In paragraph 11-1-19 b(2) I suggest that the second sentence be reworded to state that if the City purchases the shares they will agree to lease them back to the owner or other users on the ditch within City limits for as long as there is a valid call for water in the city under the ditch..  This will eliminate the problem of allowing shares to be sold out of the City, and will insure that the City will own them, but will also provide a long term commitment to keep the shares in use on the ditch as long as there are bone fide users for the water in the City.

I believe that these two changes will greatly improve the ordinance and will help preserve what remains of the ditch system within the City.  The City should do this because the ditches provide a tremendous amount of "free" water via groundwater recharge, which helps maintain gallery forests in the city and help maintain much of the vegetation around the neighborhoods through which they run.  We also know from repeated hydrological models that the City has more than enough raw water rights to get us through even the 1000 year droughts without violating (or even reaching) the reliability limits.  Hence we are under no compulsion to obtain additional ditch rights, and would not be able to use them in our system in any case. Therefore, I suggest we encourage them to be left in the historical ditches and keep the historical raw water irrigation system in tack.

Thank you giving this your consideration, and please note that these are my personal recommendations; not the official recommendations of the WRAB.

--
Bill DeOreo
Chair of the Water Resources Advisory Board
3030 15th Street
Boulder, CO 80302
303-786-9691 (office)
303-859-4997 (cell)