Idaho
- Mercury is becoming a bigger issue for DEQ. This will lead to recommendations
on fish consumption and studies of lakes and reservoirs
- There is a proposal for a coal fired power facility near Soda Springs
that would utilize the latest “clean” technologies.
- Since Idaho does not have primacy in their discharge permitting, it
is possible to have a regionalized (across state boundaries) POTW (publicly
owned treatment of wastewater) or even municipal culinary water system.
This is being explored in the Franklin – Preston area.
Wyoming
- Wyoming has unused USDA 319 money. The Bear River Watershed plan did
not apply for any 319 money in 2006.
- Wyoming has a growing coal bed methane problem that may affect the
Bear River.
EPA Grant Update – Jack Barnett,
Jeff Horsburgh, Beth Nielsen, Terry Glover, Nancy Mesner
There is one year remaining on the three year, $750,000 EPA Targeted
Watershed grant that the Bear River Commission received for the Bear
River. The grant has four components: a Watershed Information System
(WIS), a water quality model of the Bear River, a pollution trading
model and an education/outreach section.
The WIS is functionally complete. Work is continuing on populating the
various sections of the website and fine tuning some of the data bases.
It is designed for use by all groups – from elementary students
and households looking for general information to grad students. It
offers descriptions of the watersheds, a digital library, maps, a calendar
and both real time data and data sets from earlier studies. Check out
www.bearriverinfo.org.
The water quality model incorporates four types of existing models to
achieve the sophistication necessary to portray pollution in the watersheds.
The Hydrologic model generates the stream flows for each sub watershed.
The Watershed Loading model adds the amount of pollution loading and
the Stream Response model simulates the changes in the pollution levels
due to plant use and natural processes. Finally, the Accounting model
measures all the inflows, diversions, return flows and outflows. As
with any model, the greatest challenge is fine tuning to model by collecting
data to verify the model’s accuracy.
The pollution trading is an extensive effort to determine if it is
possible to establish market like forces in improving water quality.
The EPA, through the TMDL process, has set targets on water quality
standards. The trading would determine if there are financial incentives
for point sources of pollution (municipalities or industries) to trade
with each other or with non-point sources (agriculture) to achieve the
desired water quality standards at a lower overall cost.
The education and outreach portion of the grant has been assisting
in the collection of data and identifying sources of information within
the Bear River watershed. The effort to spread the wealth of information
and let everyone know where the information resides and how to use it
will begin in earnest this next year. It will target K-12 education,
training on the pollution trading and use of the website. Part of the
education and outreach will culminate in a symposium held in September
2007 in Bear Lake. Tentative dates are Sept 6-7 or Sept 13-14.
The guidelines for the final report to the EPA have just been published.
The water quality committee will decide in April if it will be necessary
to request an extension of the grant to complete some of the modules
and finalize the report.
Bear River Water Quality Task Force -
Mitch Poulsen
The Water Quality Task Force continues to be an active participant in
the Watershed Information System steering committee and overall effort.
It has also been involved in several meetings concerning the Bear Lake
National Wildlife Refuge and how that area affects water quality in
the Bear River/Bear lake system.
USU Studies on Mud Lake
Utah State University has submitted a proposal for funding an intensive
study of water quality in Mud Lake. The study would install real time
water quality sensors at four locations within Mud Lake. This would
provide a year long picture of the quality of the water 1) entering
Mud Lake from the Bear River, 2) entering Bear Lake at the inlet structure,
3) leaving Bear Lake at the Lifton pumping station and 4) leaving Mud
Lake at the Paris Dike outlet. This real time data would be verified
and supplemented by several manually taken water samples that would
include full chemical and biological parameters.
Operations Committee
2006 Bear Lake Storage and Bear River Lower Division –
PacifiCorp Connely Baldwin
Storage capacity in Bear Lake continues to improve. The forecast runoff
was for 133% of normal, but the dry soil moisture content and three
weeks of warm dry weather in May reduced the runoff to 63% of normal.
A good snow pack and high runoff in the Bear Lake valley brought the
net runoff up to 79%. The 2005 low was 5907.72 on 11/2/05. the 2006
high was 5911.96 on 6/27/06, an increase of 4.24 feet. The low for 2006
was 5909.97 on 10/12/06 and decrease of only 1.99 feet (that includes
storage release and evaporation). Although the Irrigation Allocation
was for 225,000 acre feet, only 62,256 acre feet of storage was released
saving 167,600 acre feet in the lake. The outlet canal (storage water)
was utilized from June 9 to Sept.15th.
The remarkably low amount of storage water used was attributed to the
continued efforts by the Irrigation community to conserve water and
the continued spread of automation of data which results in better water
management. This was in spite record heat during the summer.
Upper and Central Divisions
There was no regulation during 2006. Even though the flow on the river
in several locations could have warranted such a call, the increased
communications and better real time data precluded it.
Storage
The Bear River Commission is compiling a list of all the potential storage
sites in the basin. Each state is submitting its own data.
Both the Idaho and Wyoming legislatures have pledged $50,000 each towards
a Corps of Engineer study of flood control sites upstream of Bear Lake.
The Corps doesn’t have the money to do the study but it is being
requested in the Federal 2008 budget. The Idaho money must be “obligated”
by July 2007.
There are currently 2 (or 3) proposals concerning storage or water
rights that are of interest to the Commission.
Twin Lakes project below Oneida Reservoir. It would inundate the highway
and necessitate moving power lines. The Twin Lake Canal Company will
make a presentation at the General Commission meeting.
Northwest Power Services of Rigby, ID has filed a FERC permit for a
pump-back hydropower project at Fish Hook Canyon located between North
and South Eden canyons on the east side of Bear Lake. The principals
are Brent Smith and Vince Lamarra.
Bear Mountain subdivision in Bear Lake County is proposing using mitigation
water from the central division with the point of diversion in the lower
division.
Woodruff Narrow Reservoir is presently near its Compact storage level
since Bear Lake is not yet above 5911 ft. They will increase flow below
the Reservoir from 25 to 50 cfs. for the winter.
TAC Operations
The TAC recently investigated the operations of the Wildlife Refuge
at Mud Lake to see if recent improvement have changed the capacity curves
or enlarged the water rights. The TAC was impressed with manager Rob
Bundy’s knowledge, sophistication and use of resources to estimate
capacity curves using submergent vegetation cover. Rob’s estimate
agreed with PacifiCorp’s capacity curves and there is no need
to change the Mud Lake Capacity curves. The TAC sees nothing of concern
for the Operations Committee. There are hints that future projects at
the Refuge may be of interest to the Water Quality Committee.
Records & Public Involvement Committee
Future Public Events
A Water Mitigation Workshop is being held on January 18, 2007 in Logan.
The workshop is sponsored by PacifiCorp, Bear Lake Watch and the Bear
River Water Users is about the groundwater mitigation plan required
by developers. The goal is to increase knowledge about the requirements
of a mitigation plan, reduce delays in the water application process
and reduce costly protests thereby reducing lengthy delays in developments.
Hopefully, anyone involved with developments, the planning process,
planning approval, writing or submitting the plans and the owners of
the water rights will attend.
As part of the Commission’s EPA Grant, there is an opportunity
for a symposium to explain the WIS and pollution trading. There is a
requirement in the grant for Education & Outreach which this symposium
would satisfy. It would be coupled with a need by the Bear Lake Regional
Commission for a similar event for the Water Quality Task Force and
could also be coupled with the proposed conference about storage on
the river
The Commission’s website continues to be expanded. They are currently
scanning historical documents and will add minutes of past Commission
meetings.
General Commission Meeting
Report on EPA Grant Outreach Program – USU Nancy Mesner
(See Water Quality Meeting)
Historic Photo Presentation – USU Steve Sturgeon
A separate, but complimentary project at Utah State University is the
Bear River Historical Digital Collection. It was started 12 years ago
and is part of a larger effort titled the Western Waters Digital Library.
http://digital.lib.usu.edu.
Real Time Data Collection – Jerry Olds
As you manage for water, you have to manage for drought. Utah has set
a priority to obtain accurate water measurements. In the state, 115
of the 124 water measurement sites are now real time. The remaining
9 are either not diverting or have technical problems like no access
to power or communications problems that make conversion very expensive
or unrealistic. Without taking a few risks, we just don’t progress.
Bear Lake Storage and Use – PacifiCorp Connely Baldwin
(See Operations Committee)
Bear River Water Users Association – Carly Burton
BRWUA has continued to automate diversions in the lower division. Both
canals on Last Chance and West Cache went on-line this summer. Cub River
Canal will be finished this spring. Real time flow data can be seen
at www.bearriverbasin.org.
Use of Bear Lake storage water was significantly below the allocation.
Connely has given many of the “numbers” earlier, but here
are some other interesting statistics. The temperatures for Laketown
and Logan were above average for the months May through September. Precipitation
was near average for May but significantly below average from June through
August. So despite warmer temperatures and below normal precipitation,
the downstream irrigators only used 27% of the allocation leaving about
163,000 acre feet of water in the lake.
BRWUA, working closely with Bear Lake Watch and PacifiCorp, continues
to monitor new water applications. We have attended many meetings in
an effort to protect the interests and water rights of the groups. The
biggest obstacle in getting new applications approved is the lack of
adequate mitigation plans. To that end, we are cosponsoring a workshop
designed to increase understanding of the mitigation requirements and
streamline the process. The target audience includes developers, local
planning and zoning commissions, attorneys, water engineers and irrigation
companies.
Twin Lake Canal Project – Clair Bosen
Twin Lake Canal Co. is studying the feasibility of a storage dam on
the Bear River downstream from the Oneida Narrows area. The company
received a $100,000 loan from IDWR (Idaho Division of Water Resources)
to initiate the study. Rollins & Brown of Provo are doing the engineering
study. The project would be 104 feet high and store 16,000 acre feet
of water. They are using data from a previous Bureau of Reclamation
study and hope to start the FERC preliminary application process within
a month. To date, IDWR has not received any water rights applications
or change requests from Twin Lakes.
Next Commission Meeting
April 17, 2007
