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Denver-based energy company proposes water plan

Firm seeks to replace water depletion
An energy company has a plan to replace water depletion in the Pine River system as a result of coal-bed methane development in the San Juan Basin. The primary supplier of storage water for the Pine River is Vallecito Reservoir.

DENVER – A Denver-based energy company with plans to operate in the San Juan Basin has proposed a water plan to the state to replace depletions to the Pine River system as a result of coal-bed methane development.

Catamount Energy Partners owns four wells that withdraw groundwater flows to the Pine River from the Fruitland Formation in the Colorado portion of the San Juan Basin in Southwest Colorado, specifically the Northern San Juan Basin, which encompasses about 862 square miles within La Plata and Archuleta counties.

The company has proposed to the state engineer, which handles a variety of water issues, a so-called “Substitute Water Supply Plan,” with a proposal to replace depletions. The proposal would allow for operations through 2016.

Marjorie Sant, an attorney representing Catamount, pointed out that Colorado operates water rights using what is known as a “prior appropriation system.” In this system, rights are granted to the first person to take water from an aquifer or river, despite residential proximity. An exception, however, allows for operation under a Substitute Water Supply Plan, with approval from the state.

“A Substitute Water Supply Plan requires a water user to have another supply of water to offset the out-of-priority use to ensure senior water rights are able to continue to divert water,” Sant said.

Catamount’s plan to extract coal-bed methane means it would withdraw groundwater flow to the Pine River. Catamount’s plan calls for replacing depletions.

“It will make replacements at the time the depletions reach the Pine River at the locations where the Pine River suffers the depletions, and in the amount of depletion to the surface flow of the Pine River,” Sant said.

She said the energy company’s water engineers have calculated the time, location and amount of the depletions to the Pine River resulting from Catamount’s tributary groundwater production. Replacements would be based on those calculations.

Sant said because the wells and subsequent groundwater are deep, substantial time would pass before the Pine River experiences a depletion resulting from production. Based on projections, the first measurable depletions to the Pine River would occur 33 years after pumping would begin this year.

“Catamount has a sufficient replacement source of water to keep the Pine River whole at that time, ensuring no injury to senior water rights in the basin,” Sant said.

The primary supplier of storage water in the Pine River drainage is Vallecito Reservoir. The Southern Ute Indian Tribe owns the most senior direct-flow rights in the Pine River Basin.

Water replacement would begin in 2047, according to the plan. Catamount has identified three replacement sources, including La Boca Pump Enlargement and La Boca Pond – both south of Ignacio – and Vallecito Reservoir, north of Bayfield.

Catamount suggests their replacement plan is conservative, according to Durango-based Wright Water Engineers (WWE), which prepared the plan for Catamount.

“It is the opinion of WWE that the replacement requirements and schedules, together with the firm replacement supplies identified in this report, will protect vested water rights from the stream depletions,” the plan states.

The state has received the application but has not yet evaluated it, so officials were unable to provide comment on the proposal.

pmarcus@durangoherald.com

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