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At its November auction of energy leases, the Bureau of Land Management is expected to offer 800 acres adjacent to McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reports.

The Colorado Water Conservation Board has awarded $3.3 million to 14 projects intended to help Colorado communities identify and meet critical water supply needs.

The grant awards, which were made from the CWCB’s Water Supply Reserve Account program, were announced at its September meeting in Steamboat Springs. The board also voted to support two dam safety projects and two agricultural projects with low-interest loans.

The grants approved this month cover a broad range of water activities. In the metro area, two grants totaling over $1 million address water supply and infrastructure limitations in Denver’s south metro area, which currently relies on non-renewable groundwater.

In southwestern Colorado, the La Plata Archuleta Water District received $400,000 to initiate permitting necessary for the construction of its water system to serve a projected population of almost 10,000. Many residents in the La Plata-Archuleta area currently haul water due to water quality and water quantity limitations.

The city of Pueblo received a grant of $190,000 to explore sediment removal in a degraded section of Fountain Creek, while the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District received $180,000 for a study to determine the availability and sustainability of groundwater resources in the Upper Arkansas River valley.

In addition, five agricultural applicants received a total of over $1 million to address a range of issues including canal lining rehabilitation, reservoir seepage, recharge and wetlands enhancement, community education, and leveraging federal funds for the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program.

Three grants were awarded to address the non-consumptive environmental needs of river restoration and water quality assessment.

The Water Supply Reserve Account program was created to identify and meet critical water supply needs by funding a broad range of eligible activities including the construction of infrastructure such as reservoirs, storage, pipelines and river improvements, feasibility studies, studies of human and environmental needs, and technical assistance for permitting or environmental compliance.

The Water Supply Reserve Account is administered by the CWCB in collaboration with the Interbasin Compact Committee and the nine basin roundtables.

The recently approved loans will help address dam safety concerns in the South Platte and Colorado river basins. Additionally, two agricultural applicants received loans totaling over $1.5M. One of the agricultural loans was to address augmentation needs along the South Platte River and the other was a canal lining project to reduce salinity loading into the Colorado River.

The Water Project Loan Program and the Non-Reimbursable Project Investments Program provide low-interest loans to qualified borrowers for raw water projects that develop or preserve waters statewide.

Wazee Energy LLC is considering developing a wind farm on public lands in the Horse Mountain area near Palisade.

The Bureau of Land Management has approved a right of way that would allow Wazee Energy to erect up to four towers about 50 meters high over the next year. Wazee Energy intends to erect the first tower within the next 90 days, and the additional towers will be erected if the data collected from the first tower shows possible wind energy potential at the site.

The test towers will collect data for a total of three years.

If data from the towers indicate that wind energy development is feasible in the area, Wazee Energy could submit an application to the BLM Grand Junction field office for full development of the site, which would prompt an environmental review of the proposed project.

“We are very interested in the possibilities for renewable energy projects such as this one on BLM lands,” Catherine Robertson, manager of the BLM Grand Junction field office, said in a statement.

The BLM manages 20.6 million acres of public lands with wind potential. The BLM’s Lands and Realty Management program has authorized a total of 192 rights-of-ways for the use of public lands for wind energy production sites nationwide. Of these, 25 projects have a total installed capacity of 327 megawatts.

Currently, there are no wind generation projects on BLM land in the Grand Junction field office.

The Bureau of Land Management’s Uncompahgre field office is seeking public comment on a draft environmental assessment for a proposed coal lease by Oxbow Corp. adjacent to its Elk Creek Mine near Somerset in Gunnison County.

BLM will hold a public hearing to receive comments on the draft Sept. 9 in Paonia. The hearing will be held at 7 p.m. in the Town Hall Community Center Room.

The proposed Elk Creek East Tract would include about 786 acres of BLM-managed surface and mineral estate containing an estimated 3.96 million tons of recoverable federal coal reserves.

Written comments will be accepted through Sept. 25.

The Bureau of Land Management is proposing a land exchange with the Mountain Island Ranch that would provide public access to currently inaccessible public lands, including prime deer and elk habitat, near Grand Junction.

The land involved is in the Timber Ridge area near Glade Park, about 20 miles west of Grand Junction.

The proposal would transfer 788 acres of BLM land surrounded by ranch property to the ranch in exchange for 576 acres of in-holdings owned by the ranch.

“This exchange would accomplish many things — including protecting important natural areas, wildlife habitat and cultural and historical resources,” Catherine Robertson, manager of the Grand Junction field office, said in a statement. “It would also consolidate federal ownership and improve our ability to manage public lands in the area efficiently and effectively.”

The proposed exchange would provide key public access for hunting and other recreational opportunities in Timber Ridge, according to Robertson. Acquisition of the non-federal parcels would eliminate private in-holdings and provide an important public access point to Timber Ridge, a 9,000-acre parcel of federal land popular with hunters that has extremely limited public access currently.

One of the non-federal in-holdings is within the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area.

Federal land exchanges are required to involve property of equal market value. Appraisals on the parcels proposed in the exchange will be conducted this fall.

Public comments on the proposal are being accepted through Oct. 12.

Senate GOP leader Josh Penry and state Rep. Cory Gardner (R) are asking the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to consider extending the “shelf life” of drilling permit applications, saying it would encourage confidence in Colorado’s commitment to the energy industry.

“We will continue to oppose, and work to repair significant aspects of the new oil and gas rules, but we see this policy change as an opportunity for Colorado to signal that we are not happy with our standing as the worst state for oil and gas investment, and that we are serious about recovering from the dramatic losses in the energy sector,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to COGCC Director David Neslin.

If the commission does not adopt such a change, Penry and Gardner said they would try to enact the change legislatively.

Uranium mining brought prosperity to the Western Slope decades ago, and plans to reopen the mines and build a new mill in Naturita promises to restart the mining lifestyle there again, but some residents are concerned about the health effects of the uranium industry, the Durango Herald reports.

The federal government suspended the release of yellow-striped Diorhabda beetles on stretches of tamarisk in eight Western states where the water-sucking weed has gobbled more than 1.5 million riparian acres after a lawsuit that charged the beetles threaten habitat for the endangered southwestern willow flyctacher in New Mexico and Arizona, but Colorado agriculture officials have planted 100,000 of the beetles along banks of the Arkansas River, the Denver Post reports.