EASTER Worship

Church of the Beloved

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Holy Week Services and Easter Mass

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Arvada United Methodist Church

8:15am | In Person

10am | In Person & Livestream childcare available with JeffCo Brass, AUMC Choirs & Handbells

Arvada United Methodist Church invites you to Easter Worship services at 8:15am and 10am on Sunday, April 9, 2023. We are located at 6750 Carr Street in Arvada, CO. Our 10am service will also be livestreamed online. AUMC is an open and affirming community- all are welcome in our doors and at our table.

To learn more about Holy Week and Easter at AUMC, please visit us online at arvadaumc.org/lent

Gender Expression churchofthebeloved-ecc.org

Religious Background …and more!

ALL Are Welcome!

In-person or on Zoom!

Weekly Mass: Saturdays at 5pm

Holy Thursday: 7:30pm; Good Friday: 7pm Easter Vigil: 9pm; Easter Mass: 8:30am

10500 Grant Dr, Northglenn CO (303) 489-7046 available, or whether it’s legally available at the time when it’s physically available,” Rein said in an interview. e Nebraska study “does not adequately consider future development” by Colorado of water in the upper section of the South Platte, a stretch running back from Washington County all the way up through Greeley, Boulder County and Denver, Rein’s letter says. e compact doesn’t give Nebraska any say over how much upper section water Colorado can use from the South Platte or how much water must be available at a key river gauge at Balzac, a ghost town near Brush.

Other failings of the study, Rein adds, include relying on lower section ows of irrigation water returning to the river that Nebraska doesn’t have a right to; not accounting for diversion rights at Julesburg Reservoir; and ignoring that the canal would be iced over and unable to deliver water across the border during some of the time Nebraska has a right to take it, from October to April.

Nevertheless, Nebraska is itching to start.

Nebraska is in talks to option or buy up land around Julesburg and to the west for canal construction, Rein said. Grassed-over scars of Nebraska’s un nished attempt at a Perkins Canal in the late 1800s are visible across northeastern Colorado.

Colorado takes pains in its o cial response to say it has always honored a 1923 compact with Nebraska on how the South Platte operates, and always will. e letter, with extensive input from the Colorado Attorney General’s O ce, is not meant to be a hard “no,” Rein said. e engineering formulas and legalese are meant to say, “ ere may be things that you didn’t consider, that will reduce the amount of water you’ll be able to yield,” Rein said.

Nebraska surprised Colorado and Western water watchers in early 2022 with a revival of the ancient Perkins County Canal plan. (Perkins County is on the Nebraska side of the border, though the canal may or may not actually run through it.) Nebraska’s governor warned Colorado had plans to use up all available South Platte River water before it left the state just northeast of Julesburg, and that the only way for Nebraska to secure its rights was a $500 million canal allowed in the compact.

Nebraska needs the water for its agriculture-based economy and for recreation, state o cials said. e state’s legislature quickly agreed, and voted to launch engineering studies and start setting aside money for eventual construction.

A year ago, Rein and the o ce of Gov. Jared Polis said they hadn’t heard many details of the canal plan directly from Nebraska engineers. e Nebraska consultants’ report was delivered to the state legislature in late December.

“Nebraska stands to lose the water supply that provides bene ts to its residents if it does not build

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the project,” the study concludes. If begun in earnest in 2023, the report estimates, the canal could be owing by 2033.

At the 500 cubic feet per second rate the canal has a compact-codi ed right to draw from the Colorado side of the South Platte, the project would deliver about 78,400 acre-feet to Nebraska in an average year for irrigation and storage, the study says. By comparison, Denver Water’s Dillon Reservoir in Summit County can hold 257,000 acre-feet of water. (An acre-foot provides a foot of irrigation water to one acre for a season or supplies two to four typical city households for a year.)

If expected Colorado river development projects take away 50% of the current remaining supply in the South Platte, the study adds, the canal could still deliver 69,900 acre-feet to Nebraska each year.

e water could support 1.6 million irrigated acres in Nebraska and bolster municipal supply to faster-growing eastern cities such as Omaha and Lincoln.

Total economic bene ts from the project would range from $698 million to $754 million, an enticing payo for the $567 million project cost, the study adds.

Part of the study’s optimism about how much Colorado water it can get stem from a disagreement over the extent of climate change. Colorado forecasters and engineers predict continuing heavy impacts on the South Platte Basin from an ongoing drought and temperature and snowpack pressures. Nebraska studies “ nd more moderate temperature changes and even stabilized precipitation patterns” for the lower section of the river, the Nebraska report said.

Nebraska’s Deputy Director of Natural Resources Jesse Bradley said the Colorado state engineer’s letter fails to account for the fact that the Nebraska supply study “used a conservative approach.” Bradley’s email attached a photo from near Julesburg showing strong river ow on March 14.

“Even assuming that ows entering the lower section are zero, there will still be signi cant ows available for the canal,” Bradley wrote. Bradley said his photo showed South Platte River ow at the state line near Julesburg was 260 cubic feet per second on a day Nebraska would have the right to divert, even though ows were near zero at the gauge dividing the river’s upper section from the lower section.

der would achieve that end.

Nebraska o cials have said in some conversations they feel a canal could be completed within four years, said Joel Schneekloth, a regional water resource specialist at Colorado State University. But the likely litigation over EPA environmental impact rules alone could drag on for years, Schneekloth added.

Nonpro ts and water agencies along both the North and South extensions of the Platte River, and the mainstem after they meet 90 miles east of Julesburg, have fought for decades over providing enough water and habitat for whooping cranes. Northern Water in Colorado started planning the two-reservoir Northern Integrated Supply Project in the early 2000s, and only in late 2022 received its nal federal permit, Schneekloth said. at project faces still more opposition lawsuits. South Platte River environmental issues will “come into play, and that’s going to be an issue that will be adjudicated,” he said.

In prepared remarks at a January water congress, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser listed many reasons why the Nebraska canal is “Stated simply . . . both unwise and unlikely.”

Schneekloth, as well as water experts on the Nebraska side of the border, agree with the Colorado engineer’s pointed questions about where exactly Nebraska can nd the water to ll the canal.

With low o -season ow and all the senior water rights diversions allowed above the Nebraska canal spot, Schneekloth said, “we’re starting out with basically a dry river at that point.”

While the Nebraska legislature moves forward, they’re hearing from local academics who are similarly skeptical.

“ ere are a lot of senior users in the basin who would basically be able to take the water, so I’m not even sure legally if this canal would really be able to appropriate water out of the South Platte,” an appropriations committee heard in 2022 from Anthony Schutz, a University of Nebraska associate law professor, according to Nebraska public radio.

Worship Christ in Spirit & Truth

Sunday Worship: 9:30 am and 3:00 pm

Weekly Bible Studies, Catechism, Praise&Prayer, and Youth Group

Emmanuel Reformed Church 10290 Wadsworth Blvd Westminster

Pastor Steve: 303-667-7194 emmanuelarc.org

Mt Zion Lutheran Church (LCMS)

Sunday Service: 9:30-10:30

Sunday School & Bible Study: 11-12 500 Drake Street Denver, Colorado 80221 303-429-0165

Please visit our website www.mtzionlcms.org e Colorado response letter on future water supply does not include an extensive environmental analysis of the canal’s impacts. But previous studies have warned canal engineers may never overcome the South Platte ow requirements of the Endangered Species Act. e Nebraska report says the canal may actually improve conditions satisfying a 2006 interstate pact to support South Platte wetlands wildlife, but doesn’t explain how taking more water out before the Nebraska bor- is story is from e Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver and covering the state. For more, and to support e Colorado Sun, visit coloradosun. com. e Colorado Sun is a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy, owner of Colorado Community Media.

“In addition, this does not account for the many junior Colorado recharge projects in the lower section that are currently diverting, but would be curtailed to meet Nebraska’s demand,” he added.

“We have not had the opportunity to discuss the letter with Kevin (Rein) and hope to do so in the future,” Bradley said.

Nebraska o cials said in their response email to e Colorado Sun that they have “discussed alternatives” to the canal with Colorado that would allow their state to divert South Platte water in a di erent location that would reduce any impact to Colorado landowners.

“ at alternative was dismissed by Colorado, as they indicated they would not recognize Nebraska Compact rights unless the diversion is located” southwest of Julesburg and the tiny hamlet of Ovid.

As for Nebraska shrinking from the implications of the Colorado engineer’s hydrology-questioning letter, Schneekloth is not expecting surrender.

“ ey’re dead serious about this,” he said.