Summer 2016 RECLAMATIONManaging Water in the West Plains Talk NEWS FROM THE GREAT PLAINS REGION Inside this Issue: 2016 Pathways - The Next Generation GP Accomplishments Seminoe Repair Plains Talk Issue 01-2016: contents contents PUBLISHER Tyler Johnson EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 2016 Hill Visits - Informing Congress Great Plains Land Resource Training Buck Feist 1 20 Hill visits are a proactive effort to foster an open dialogue on water resource issues with OTAO had the pleasure of hosting the 2016 Great Plains Land Resource Training in members of Congress. Visits span most of a week and include 15-20 meetings with various Norman, Oklahoma, April 19 - 21, 2016. Participants included staff & managers representing ASSISTANT EDITOR Senators, Representatives and Committee Staff Members. all six area offices, Denver policy, and the regional office. Sterling Rech GRAPHICS Jerry Leggate Pathways: Reclamation Welcomes Interns Hill Visits, p. 1 2015 GP Photo Contest Winners Tobias Taylor 6 22 We Pay, You Learn, the early slogan for the Great Plains Region’s Student Employment The winners of the Great Plains 2015 Photo Contest. Program, has elicited the interest of hungry college students for years. NEWSPAPER TEAM Jack Conner, Montana Patience Hurley, Dakotas Jay Dallman, Wyoming Yellowtail Dam Celebrates Fifty Years vacant, Colorado 26 Pathways Internship Participants Construction began during President Kennedy’s administration for Great Plains Region’s Kimberley Parish, Oklahoma & Texas 8 The Great Plains Region’s Annual intership participants for 2016. largest addition to the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program. Jeffery Zentz, Nebraska & Kansas . Plains Talk is an employee publication devoted to the in- terests of Reclamation’s Great NKAO Launches SCADA Using Color in a Digital World Plains Region. Plains Talk 10 29 The Nebraska-Kansas Area Office located in McCook, Nebraska, is in the process of replacing Color essentials for modern communication - Learn to use color to improve contemporary is published from the Great its Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. The new system will incorporate publications. Plains Office of Public Affairs. Garrison Diversion 50th, p. 12 state-of-the-art Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) driven Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) at To be added to the Plains Talk the dams, and a Windows Server 2012 based Master Station computer system. mailing list, submit your name and mailing address: Seminoe Concrete Repair Bureau of Reclamation 33 Seminoe Dam has outlet works refurbished to eliminate deficiencies and facilitate future U.S. Department of the Interior Garrison Diversion Celebrates 50 Years maintenance activities. 2021 4th Avenue North 12 On January 6, 1966, the Garrison Diversion Unit master contract was signed between the Billings, MT 59101 United States and North Dakota’s Garrison Diversion Conservancy District. The signing of this Phone: 406-247-7610 contract was considered the best way for North Dakota to create municipal, rural and industrial Email: [email protected] water supplies, fish and wildlife habitat, recreation benefits, and bring farmers much needed water. Find the Words Submission Guidelines: 35 Find 30 words published in this edition of Plains Talk. Articles and other materials for publication should be sent to the Great Plains Public Affairs GP Block Safety Training Land Resource Training, p. 20 Office, Attn: Plains Talk Editor, 16 “Safety is paramount. We want our employees to be healthy and whole at the end of the day,” GP-1240, or email to bfeist@ said Commissioner Estevan Lopez, in a safety video to employees. usbr.gov. Plains Talk encourages em- ployee submissions, and as- sists with developing ideas. WYAO Benefits from Pathways Questions about stories or 18 “The Pathways Internship Program actively recruites colledge students from around the country, photographic essays should be providing an opportunity to earn income in a summer position with a Reclamation Office, while directed to the Plains Talk edi- gaining experience related to their field of study. tor, at 406-247-7610. Cover: Pathways Students Using Color, p. 26 tour Shoshone Power Plant. expected to result in annual water savings of more Significant GP Milestones: than 570,000 acre-feet once completed, enough water for more than 2.2 million people. This year’s Water 2016 Hill Visits Windy Gap: The Windy Gap Firming Project is and Energy Efficiency Grants are expected to be an exceptional example of the federal government working with our partners to get big things done. announced in June. Informing Congress of Reclamation Activities 2016 represents the first year of implementing a more collaborative approach to water operations. Northwest Area Water Supply: Reclamation continues to work to resolve litigation affecting the project designed to deliver a bulk water supply Hill visits are a proactive effort on behalf of Reclamation’s to meet municipal and rural water needs of people Congressional and Legislative Affairs and Reclamation’s in northwestern North Dakota. The project was authorized because existing water supplies are not of Regional Directors to foster open dialogue on water sufficient quality or quantity to reliably meet current resource related issues with members of Congress. The needs or projected growth. visits also help develop a level of rapport and trust between Wildfire fuel reduction: The Glacier Creek to Fishermen below Yellowtail Diversion Dam at power plant location. Reclamation’s leadership and Capitol Hill. Mill Creek Fuel Reduction in Colorado is a project of federal, state and local entities. Reclamation is Crow Tribal Hydropower Development: The providing $84,500 toward the partnership to reduce Claims Resolution Act of 2010 (Act) gives the fuel loads and help prevent wildfires while improving Crow Tribe (Tribe) the exclusive right to develop Visits generally span the better part of a week and are watershed health on 210 acres in Rocky Mountain hydropower at Yellowtail Afterbay Dam and comprised of 15 to 20 meetings with various Senators, National Park in the headwaters of the Colorado-Big authorizes $20,000,000 for energy development Thompson Project. projects on the Reservation. Appraisal studies Representatives, and Committee Staff Members. Often, the completed by the Tribe’s consultant estimate the member is present at the meeting, but sometimes they are WaterSMART: Since 2009, Reclamation has Yellowtail Afterbay Dam hydropower project will provided more than $174 million in funding through cost approximately $40,000,000. The Tribe and not available and the meetings take place with congressional WaterSMART Grants to states, Tribes and other Reclamation executed an agreement to move forward staff such as a Chief of Staff, Legislative Assistant, or partners. The grants are being leveraged with more with the project on March 26, 2015, and Reclamation than $426 million in non-federal funding to complete will provide technical assistance to ensure safety and Legislative Fellow. more than $600 million in improvements, which are reliability with the existing Yellowtail Afterbay Dam. Topics throughout the week generally cover all nine states in Challenges in the Nine Great Plains States: the vast Region and include the highest profile and sensitive Republican River Compact: Reclamation will of maintenance projects at power plants such as Mt. issues. Congressional offices may prepare in advance of continue to work with Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado Elbert and Yellowtail. FY16 power customer funding is to comply with the Compact and make beneficial use $29,573,000. the Hill visits by reaching out to their constituents, or of the water in the basin. Collaboration is needed to by reviewing past interactions with stakeholders in their progress toward a long-term solution. Ongoing Endangered Species Act Obligations: Continued support of the Platte River Recovery respective states. Regional Directors have to be well versed Rural Water Project Construction: Four projects Implementation Program and the shared vision for in a wide range of issues and need to be prepared to discuss in the Great Plains Region have significant balances creating and maintaining habitats on the Platte in of unfunded federal construction cost: Fort Peck/ Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska. Coordination with these issues in great depth and detail. Dry Prairie, Garrison Diversion, Lewis and Clark the Corps of Engineers, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and Rocky Boys / North Central. These four projects the Solicitor’s Office, and the Department of Justice in have a federal appropriated construction cost of response to a lawsuit alleging violations of the ESA in For the Great Plains Region, the annual Accomplishments $1,480,329,000 through the end of the last fiscal operation of Fort Peck Dam and Reclamation’s Intake year. $851,758,000 in federal expeniture remains to Diversion Dam on the lower Yellowstone River in Report is published as a handout to be used during the complete them. Montana. visits. Area Offices provide a list of short statements of fact Reclamation prioritizes rural water funding to meet Staffing issues: Workforce attrition due to retirements for accomplishments of the past 18 months and their most two goals: complete high priority rural water projects and competition with private sector wages (such as important challenges for the coming year. The following that meet the most urgent water supply needs in in Bakken area of North Dakota) impacts staffing of a timely manner, and give priority to rural water mission