County water sources dominated the Moffat County Commissioners meeting Tuesday in which Natural Resources Director Jeff Comstock presented two documents for commissioners’ approval.

The first was a court filing for a water augmentation plan. Comstock said the county has been “following the augmentation plan since Day 1.” He said the plan has been drafted and reviewed by both a land use board advisory committee and commissioners, and is now ready to head to water court.

Comstock anticipated the court process will take up to a year and said that at the end of it, county officials “hope to have an adjudicated augmentation plan where the water rights will actually be assigned to Moffat County to be able to distribute these for water wells into the future.”

After the board approved signing the water augmentation plan court filing, Moffat County Commissioner Tony Bohrer noted that the plan and the subsequent filing has “been a long time coming.”

“It’s a lot of work to go into something like this, something where we weren’t given an option,” Bohrer said. “It was ‘You’re gonna do this or you don’t get water.'”

Comstock concurred, noting his pride in the work and the finished product. He shared his belief that “there is no other entity in the whole valley that could’ve taken this role on, other than the commissioners.”

Bohrer said he hopes the “constituency understands that, that it costs the county $100,000 so that we can have wells (in the county). It was a big step-up from the county, I think.”

Commissioner Melody Villard added that the implementation of the plan is “necessary for any future growth.”

During discussion, Comstock remarked that the plan was necessitated by “a total bureaucratic move to over-appropriate the river.”

“There’s nobody that believes that there’s not enough water in that river,” Comstock said. “It really was just, we believe, a strategy from the state.”

Villard responded that the state will also probably be the only opposition to the filing.

Following approval for the water augmentation plan court filing, Comstock presented a memorandum of understanding with Upper Yampa Conservancy District for approval.

Comstock explained the memo is the same as those previously signed with Routt County, Juniper Water Conservancy District and Great Northern District.

“This one is the final conservancy district within those boundaries of where the water plan will take place,” Comstock said. “This is Upper Yampa, (which) controls everything south of the river to the Tri-State land.”

Bohrer questioned whether there was a set timeline for wrapping up the whole project. Comstock responded that he is optimistic about “being able to get what they call a substitute water supply plan within a month after this is filed, which means water wells could be granted with the assumption that this will be passed within water court.”

“The actual thing probably won’t be through court for probably one year, but I think the state will be confident enough that the court will adjudicate a water right that they will issue this temporary water right permits within a month or so,” Comstock said.

In other business, commissioners approved five applicants for seats on two different local boards.

There were four available seats on the Moffat County Fair Board due to resignations and term expirations. Commissioners approved Christopher Craig, Shelly Pinnt, Dario Georgiou and Bryson Davis to fill those vacancies. Current fair board member Tammy Villard reapplied for her seat.

The board also approved John Ilko for the alternate seat on the MCTA board.

“It’s nice to have full boards for sure,” Bohrer said.

Moffat County Coroner Jesse Arthur and Chief Deputy Coroner Rebecca Warren also petitioned commissioners for approval of a participation agreement between the coroners and the nonprofit Colorado Regional Health Information Organization, or COHRIO, to facilitate the streamlining and expediting of health-information exchange.

Warren explained that CORHIO “holds all electronic records for the eastern slope of Colorado, plus Arizona, parts of Utah and Nebraska. It collects electronic medical records with the idea being that as a person moves around, their electronic record can be accessed more quickly.” The timely acquisition of relevant documents can be essential to the coroners’ work, especially when it comes to potential organ and tissue donation.

Commissioners approved the agreement with Bohrer saying they were happy to help with “anything that makes your life easier,” and Commissioner Donald Broom conveyed his appreciation to the coroners for “all you do.”

Commissioners also approved an application from Barbara Lynette Haskins for a conditional-use permit for a zone variance and a road/alley vacation. The permits and vacation related to Haskins’ plan for five seasonal long-term rental cabins with a bath house in Maybell.

Bohrer said the property has already been “cleaned up a lot, (which) makes it looks a hundred times better” and added that it gave Maybell “a little face-lift.” Broom agreed, calling it “makeup on Maybell.”

Commissioners also held a hearing for the second reading of a county fire restriction ordinance. The ordinance will “allow the sheriff to go in and out of restrictions as needed, when we start looking at fire restrictions as the season changes,” according to Moffat County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Todd Wheeler.

It would also help eliminate the need to call special and emergency meetings related to restrictions.

Wheeler said the ordinance “has been in the works for almost 15 years,” and he credited the work of Rebecca Tyree, Moffat County Sheriff K.C. Hume and county commissioners for the development of “an ordinance that will expedite the process and help the community and maybe help limit the number of fires.”

Hume said that the ordinance will provide for “a more clear and concise definition of understanding for those that are interpreting restrictions and what those restrictions entail.”

He added that the language has been cleaned up so that “it makes more sense and is easier for the public to digest (and) easier for (his) team to assess situations when (they) are in restrictions.”

In response to Bohrer’s assertion that the ordinance is “a smart choice” and Villard’s praise for the communication skills displayed by the sheriff’s office, Hume said there was “a lot of work that went into this over a long period of time.”

He also vowed that “moving forward, the sheriff’s office’s level of engagement will remain equally robust, if not more so.”

Moffat County Commissioners will next meet at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 14.