Water rights fight<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep Scott Tipton discussed legislation he is working on in Washington, including a second push to get his Water Right Protection bill passed.<\/p>\n
The Water Rights Protection Act passed the House in 2014, but was unable to garner support from the Senate. Despite last year\u2019s roadblock, he\u2019s relentless in fighting, what he says is federal infringement on property rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s abundantly clear that all water is going to be under the control of the federal government unless we\u2019re willing to stand up and push back,\u201d said Tipton. \u201cHere in the West, water is private property right. \u2026 We need to make sure we\u2019re doing everything possible to protect our private property rights, to make sure that determination is made according to state law here in Colorado. Once the federal government gets control of our water \u2013 I believe that\u2019s the agenda \u2013 the impacts of federal control impacts on farms, ranches, towns and cities, I don\u2019t think we could over state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tipton also touched on the Endangered Species Act, and proclaimed that it was currently, \u201cone of the greatest challenges we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all understand importance of the Endangered Species Act, we all value that, but we\u2019re now seeing this being used as a tool by extremists to be able to control property and development,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kinder Morgan update<\/p>\n
County Commissioner Larry Don Suckla updated the crowd on county initiatives, including an appeal of the recent Kinder Morgan tax assessment decision. Suckla said that after a meeting in Denver on Feb. 13 that all four attorneys that represent the membership organization backing the county, Colorado Counties Inc. agreed to file a brief to the Colorado Court of Appeals in hopes that a judge will consider it in the case.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 29, a Colorado Court of Appeals decision overturned a lower court ruling that upheld Montezuma County\u2019s assertion that Kinder Morgan was under-reporting its production, and therefore owed additional taxes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud to say that up in Denver yesterday, 100 percent of the board agreed to write the amicus brief in support of Montezuma County,\u201d said Suckla.<\/p>\n
Sheriff\u2019s office changes<\/p>\n
Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin detailed changes to the sheriff\u2019s office that have been underway since he took office in January.<\/p>\n
He noted that the county was now part of the Southwest Drug Task Force, a combined effort of sheriff\u2019s offices and the Drug Enforcement Agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going after the importation of narcotics that are effecting our county\u2019s citizens,\u201d said Nowlin. He also discussed his intent to establish a mounted patrol division, and stated that his office has identified grant funding to cover the much of the costs of a program.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince I took office on Jan. 13, a lot of changes have come about,\u201d Nowlin stated. \u201cThey (department staff) have received interim policies\u2026 the most important is the code of conduct, which is bound and held from the top down. It was accepted greatly, widely and these are professional people that wanted this type of leadership. That\u2019s what they\u2019re delivering every day. We\u2019ve come a long way in just a month.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reservoir projections<\/p>\n
Mike Preston of the Dolores Water Conservancy District provided projections of the summer\u2019s water situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is setting up a lot like last year. \u2026 We were looking like we were going to have minor shortages, and then rains came along in March, and the pattern seems to be less snow and more likely to have some rain,\u201d said Preston.<\/p>\n
McPhee Reservoir\u2019s active capacity, he said, was about 32,000 acre-feet of capacity, about 800 acre-feet lower than last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cMcPhee is sitting relatively where it was last year,\u201d said Preston. \u201cThe MVI buckets (Groundhog Reservoir, Narraguinnep Reservoir), however, are in much better shape.\u201d<\/p>\n
Preston said that if forecasts played out, \u201cwe could have full supply.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that in a dry period like the one the county is currently experiencing, numbers are based on a lower probability scale in an attempt to be more conservative.<\/p>\n
The DWCD looked back at data from the past 12 years, and studied years where the reservoir was in a similar position as of Feb. 1, as it is currently.<\/p>\n
Preston said that seven of those similar years saw diminished inflow levels in July, and five years saw increased inflow levels in July.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could break either way,\u201d he said. \u201cThese forecasts are assuming there\u2019s going to be storms for the rest of the year based on these averages. So we\u2019re not sitting in a great position today, and it\u2019s really a matter of how the rest of the season breaks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
rights fight U.S. Rep Scott Tipton discussed legislation he is working on in Washington, including a second push to get his Water Right Protection bill passed. The Water Rights Protection Act passed the House in 2014, but was unable to garner support from the Senate. Despite last year\u2019s roadblock, he\u2019s relentless in fighting, what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[281,13,1398],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-114292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-agriculture","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-livestock-farming"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114292"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=114292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}