Future of snowpack monitoring program uncertain

The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to maintain through fiscal 2014 a snowpack monitoring program depended on by farmers and water managers, but the program’s future remains uncertain.

Farmers, water managers, ditch-irrigation company representatives and local government officials rely on the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service program to forecast water supplies. The agriculture department, however, has proposed eliminating some sites where scientists manually measure snowpack in Colorado and throughout the West.

Because of looming budget cuts, the agriculture department is uncertain about how it can maintain the traditional, manual measurements that began in the late 1930s. The agency also has automated snow stations scattered throughout the West, including in the Larimer County high country.

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“As a climatologist, our strengths reside in the quality of our long-term data for tracking variations and changes,” Colorado State University climatologist Nolan Doesken said. “We don’t want to see any of those long-term records interrupted.”

The manual measurements done by scientists cover more territory than the automated snowpack sites, giving scientists a better grasp of snowpack depth and water availability than if they relied only on the automated sites, he said.

“That really allows improving on the forecast of what the future water supply is going to be,” he said.

Democratic U.S. Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, as well as Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton entered the fray this week, urging the agriculture department to maintain the snowpack monitoring measurements.

In the face of prolonged drought, significant population growth and climate change, the National Resources Conservation Service’s snow program data provides vital information on precipitation and future water supplies essential for Colorado and other western states, the lawmakers said in the letter.

“The ability to accurately measure snowpack in each basin, using both SNOTEL and manual snow course data, is essential for water districts and municipalities to meet the demands of competing users,” the lawmakers said.

The agriculture department has been working with various groups to find ways to finance the program in fiscal 2014 despite limited funding, agriculture department said.

“Whatever we come up with is somewhat of a short-term fix,” agriculture department spokeswoman Petra Barnes said. “After Jan. 1, we’re going to continue to work with those stakeholders to find some long-term solutions.”

The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which provides water to Larimer, Weld, Boulder, Broomfield, Logan, Morgan and Sedgwick counties, uses data from the snowpack monitoring program to create stream-flow forecasts.

The water district’s forecasting models use data from 23 snow sites, four of them on the agriculture department’s “pending removal list,” according to a letter from water district General Manager Eric Wilkinson to the agriculture department.

“In our forecasting models, we utilize sixty or more years of stream-flow data,” Wilkinson said in the letter. “Our forecasts are an integral part of our annual water allocation process.”

Wilkinson also said the water district was open to providing technical or financial aid, or both, to maintain the snowpack measurements.