Headwaters Summer 2011: The Mighty Colorado

Colorado Foundation for Water Education1580 Logan St., Suite 410 • Denver, CO 80203

303-377-4433 • www.cfwe.org

Board MembersRita Crumpton

President

Justice Gregory J. Hobbs, Jr.1st Vice President

Taylor Hawes 2nd Vice President

Callie HendricksonSecretary

Reagan WaskomAssistant Secretary

Alan HamelTreasurer

Chris RoweAssistant Treasurer

Becky BrooksSteve Fearn

Jennifer GimbelAlan Matlosz

Trina McGuire-CollierRebecca Mitchell

Reed MorrisChris Piper

Rick SackbauerRobert Sakata

Sen. Gail Schwartz Travis Smith

Rep. Jerry SonnenbergChris Treese

Steve Vandiver

StaffNicole Seltzer

Executive Director

David HarperOffice Manager

Kristin MahargEducation Program Associate

Caitlin ColemanOSM/VISTA Communications Coordinator

HEADWATERS | Summer 2011

MiSSiON STATEMENT The mission of the Colorado Foundation for Water Education is to promote better understanding of water resources through education and information. The Foundation does not take an advocacy position on any water issue.

Acknowledgments The Colorado Foundation for Water Education thanks the people and organizations who provided review, comment and assistance in the development of this issue.

Headwaters is a magazine designed to provide Colorado citizens with balanced and accurate information on a variety of subjects related to water resources. Copyright 2011 by the Colorado Foundation for Water Education. ISSN: 1546-0584 Edited by Jayla Poppleton. Designed by Emmett Jordan.

About the authors…George Sibley is a freelance writer and 40-year resident of the Gunnison River Basin, neighbor to the Colorado River mainstem. His essays and articles have appeared in publications including Harper’s Magazine, Mountain Gazette, High Country News and Colorado Central. He is currently working on a history of the Colorado River Water Conservation District. Working on this story reminded him how much can happen along a river that goes from high mountains to high desert in only a few hundred miles.

While living and working for more than 20 years in towns from Granby to Vail to Glenwood Springs, Allen Best got to know the Colorado River headwaters very well. For this assignment, he further broadened his horizons in the direction of Grand Valley irrigation as well as the recovery program for endangered fish. Even more than before, he now understands that many hands rest on the plumbing valves of the Colorado River. From a home in Arvada, he writes for local, state and national publica-tions about water, energy and other natural resource issues.

Based in Boulder, Jerd Smith is a freelance writer and editor with an interest in water issues. She has won numerous awards, including Stanford University’s Risser Prize for environmental reporting. Of researching these stories on the Colorado River, Jerd says, “I was struck once again by the fierce politi-cal and environmental forces that continually reshape this river and how, even with its vast influence and power, the river at its heart is fragile.”

Wendy Worrall Redal is a freelance writer and editor based in Boulder, where she has also taught courses in environmental media studies at the University of Colorado. She writes regularly about wildlife, natural resources, conservation and sustainable travel. After reporting this story, Wendy says, “I have a deeper appreciation for the complexities of managing a scarce resource like the Colorado River. Ecology and economics often collide, and the people of Colorado have common interests with regard to both. I hope we’ll do right by the river that serves us in so many ways.”

Joshua Zaffos is a Fort Collins-based freelance writer who reports on the environment, science and politics. His work has appeared in High Country News, Wired, Miller-McCune and Grist, and he reports on green business and technology for the Northern Colorado Business Report. “Writing about Colorado River recreation doesn’t quite compare to past experiences of navigating Shoshone Rapids in an inflatable kayak or wobbling down a run at Vail,” says Josh, “but reporting on the different uses and needs is its own adventure—and a reminder that the river courses through so many different aspects of our state.”

Currents by Nicole Seltzer .........................................................................................................1

CFWE News ..........................................................................................................................2

Watermarks by Jayla Poppleton ................................................................................................3

At a Glance: The Colorado River Mainstem Basin ............................................................4

The Colorado: Our Namesake Working River by George Sibley .............................................7

Phoning for Flows by Allen Best ............................................................................................11In a system where timing is everything, reservoir operators and water managers work behind the scenes to tweak flows for fish

East-West Peace Pact by Jayla Poppleton .............................................................................16

Keeping it Clean by Jerd Smith ..............................................................................................18 Protecting and enhancing water quality on the Colorado

The Coveted Colorado by Jerd Smith .....................................................................................22 In the Rocky Mountain state, where most water is already claimed, the Colorado River carries the last reserves of the life-giving liquid. But how much can safely be developed and at what cost?

The Larger Basin by Jerd Smith .............................................................................................26Bound for the delta, through seven states and Mexico

Watered-Down River by Wendy Worrall Redal .......................................................................28

Joy Ride by Joshua Zaffos .......................................................................................................32Beauty sets the stage for an economy based on outdoor play, water fuels the fun

2011 President’s Award & Emerging Leader Award ........................................................36

Cover photo by Kevin Moloney.

H e a d w a t e r s | s u m m e r 2 0 1 1 1

Producing this issue of Headwaters has reminded me how challenging the Colorado Foundation for Water Education’s mission is. In an arid state, competition exists for limited water. Whether you want to conserve it in the historic sense by putting it in a reservoir for later use, or in the modern sense by limiting use so there is more to share, a bevy of legal, engineering and public relations resources are employed to enact specific solutions. Emotions run high, and staying neutral is not always popular. Nor is it easy.

The Foundation is dedicated to producing accurate and balanced water resources informa-tion and education. Sharing information about such topics as how water quality is regulated or the ins and outs of water conservation is relatively simple. There is agreement on the basics. Producing information on current topics, however, is not so straightforward. Telling a story of conflict and disagreement from an objective viewpoint while honoring—but not favoring—different positions, requires good journalists and lots (I mean lots!) of peer review.

I think we do a good job of this at the Foundation, but I welcome your feed-back on our online forum, where we set up a thread on this topic.

Looking ahead to 2012, CFWE is excited to lead a statewide coalition of over 200 partners to celebrate water! In preparation, we are making some changes that you will notice. The first is that we are skip-ping the usual fall issue of Headwaters to focus on making our January issue,

which will launch Colorado Water 2012, the best it can be. To ensure you don’t miss out on high-quality water education in the interim, CFWE will fill the gap with online stories and video. Look for more details later this summer.

Colorado Water 2012 is a great opportunity to use community events to increase aware-ness about water protection and management. Go to www.water2012.org to learn about the initiative and get onboard!

As always, your financial support through membership, sponsorship and donations is criti-cal to our success. CFWE is fortunate to receive a portion of our funding through an annual appropriation from the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Early on, these funds supported 100 percent of our budget. Today, they cover less than one-third. Diversification of income is an extremely important step for CFWE. It ensures the organization will remain strong, regard-less of state funding cycles.

When you financially support CFWE, you are supporting the vision that all Coloradans understand basic water information and have the tools to be involved in local decision-mak-ing processes; that policy makers should care about and be versed in water issues; that the water profession is strengthened when we have good leaders; and that we can all be effective water educators. If these ideas resonate with you, please remember to financially support the Colorado Foundation for Water Education. We cannot do it without you.

Executive Director

CFWE executive director Nicole Seltzer (first row, right), Xcel Energy employees and Colorado Water 2012 partners happily accept a $10,000 grant from the Xcel Energy Foundation. The grant will support the production of displays on water that will be rotated through libraries, museums and community festivals in 2012.

2 C o l o r a d o f o u n d a t i o n f o r w a t e r e d u C a t i o n

The Colorado River Basin TourMore than 100 lawmakers, educators, water professionals and citizens spent a few exciting days touring the Colorado River Basin from June 13-15. This year’s annual CFWE River Basin Tour spread awareness about transbasin diversions, cooperative river management, the health of headwaters streams, environmental concerns, agricultural water issues and more. A few highlights included:

• Moose viewing in the headwaters at Rocky Mountain National Park• Soaking in the sun at the confluence of the Blue and Colorado rivers• An exclusive tour of Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant• Wine tasting and dining at a working orchard in Palisade• Tagging endangered fish at the Grand Valley Project Diversion Dam

Tour participants were joined by the state Legislature’s Water Resources Review Committee as well as a diverse group of teachers through a “Forests to Faucets” workshop. Thank you to all of the tour speakers, attendees and sponsors for delivering a fun and fast-paced educational program!

CFWE’s Announces its 2012 Water Leaders Class CFWE is thrilled to announce the 2012 class of Water Leaders. Starting in July, 15 mid-level water resource professionals will embark upon a process of leadership development, self-assess-ment and team building. This was a competitive year, and we did not have room for the many deserving individuals that applied. Thank you to all applicants, and congratulations to the following emerging leaders:

Matt Brown, AECOMDavid Colvin, Leonard Rice EngineersAlice Conovitz, Integral ConsultingPatricia DeChristopher, Moses, Wittemyer, Harrison & WoodruffMat deGraaf, Pagosa Area Water & Sanitation DistrictNicole Garrimone, Garfield & HechtDiane Johnson, Eagle River Water & Sanitation DistrictGreg Johnson, Colorado Water Conservation BoardKen Kehmeier, Colorado Division of WildlifeScott Lorenz, Arkansas Groundwater Users AssociationKristin Maharg, Colorado Foundation for Water EducationErin Minks, United States Senator Mark UdallCourtney Peppler, AMECSeth Turner, CDM, Inc.Patrick Wells, Colorado Springs Utilities

Thanks to Brown & Caldwell, Tessara Water, the Byers Group and Leonard Rice Engineers for their support of the program through scholarship funds.

Promoting Understanding of Water Issues for Decision Makers During Spring 2011, CFWE delivered balanced and accurate information to more than 500 Colorado decision makers. Visit www.cfwe.org to find out more about the following programs:

• An annual Legislative Lunch that taught a quarter of the state Legislature about Colorado water issues through an interactive quiz show

• The first Statewide Roundtable Summit, which drew more than 300 attendees plus Governor Hickenlooper to discuss the strategies for meeting Colorado’s future water demands

• The Climate and Colorado’s Water Future Workshop, which gave 50 educators and climate specialists an exclusive tour of the National Ice Core Laboratory

• A Metro Roundtable Reception that attracted 200 elected officials and water professionals to learn about the tradeoffs in meeting the region’s future water supply needs

Thank you to the following tour sponsors:

Colorado Water Conservation Board

Grand County

Kleinfelder

Tricia Nichols

Basalt Water Conservancy District

Southwestern Water Conservation

District

Williams Energy

Board of Water Works of Pueblo

Colorado River District

CDM

Guaranty Bank and Trust Company

Tri-State

City of Grand Junction

GBSM

CFWE NewsTour participants enjoy breakfast at High Country Orchards in Palisade while Grand Mesa rancher Carlyle Currier shares about the Grand Valley’s agricultural heritage.


EditorJayla Poppleton


The Mighty Colorado. It’s been called America’s Nile River, flowing as it does through the most arid region of the country on its seven-state, rambling and canyon-carving traverse. Along that journey, the river is tapped and re-tapped, its flows supporting millions of acres of irrigated agriculture and such unlikely desert communities as Las Vegas.

In Colorado, we too depend on this lifeline to the West, to a far greater extent than many realize. All of the rivers on Colorado’s West Slope tie into the larger Colorado River system eventually. But this issue of Headwaters focuses on the Colorado River’s mainstem, including its tributary streams, as defined by Colorado’s Water Division 5. As the most copious source of water available to the state, and one most readily accessed by the more populous East Slope, the Colorado River binds the state with its life-giving flows. Here, the river weaves a common thread through communities as distinct as Colorado’s peach capital of Palisade, its high moun-tain ski country, and its population center along the northern Front Range.

The sheer breadth of those affected creates a high level of consternation over where and how Colorado’s share of the mother river’s water should be put to use. Everyone’s got a slightly different take. And the compromises haven’t come easily. But in the face of shrinking water supplies and growing water demands, it’s not uncommon to hear people remind themselves that “We’re all in this together,” as they look toward taking maximum advantage of the Colorado River’s relative abundance.

At the same time, as bearers of the river’s largest headwaters and the self-same name, many Coloradans harbor an innate sense of pride and ownership over the Colorado River. Not only do we recognize our long-standing dependence on the river, but we care about whether its flows are well-managed and protected, whether it will support native fish populations and wildlife, and whether it can still flow mightily along its long and varied path—with us riding its waves, fishing its ripples or simply appreciating its beauty—all the way to its delta in Mexico.

In 1921, this sense of ownership led Congressman Ed Taylor to petition Congress to change the name of what was then called the Grand River in Colorado. The Grand River was today’s Colorado River mainstem, from the headwaters down to the confluence with the Green River in Utah, where it then became the Colorado. Taylor argued successfully that this tribu-tary—the Grand—contributed more water to the Colorado River than any other and should bear its name. The river is no longer known as the Grand, but the path it followed is still evidenced by local communities and geographic markers like Grand County, Grand Junction, Grand Mesa and the Grand Valley.

It’s been ninety years since the change and our namesake river, though facing its share of challenges, is still pretty grand. It’s leading us to stand together as a state, recognizing our mutual dependence on its flows and working on creative ways to ensure the river can be used while still remaining healthy. It’s a balancing act to say the least—or a balancing myth, as some would argue—but there is really no other option but to come together and try to find those win-win scenarios. Most believe, however, that some sacrifices will need to be made. Maybe, for example, we really don’t need to grow so much bluegrass.

As a Denverite who drinks Grand County water—and uses it to water my garden and (small) lawn—but also frequents the Colorado Basin on pleasure-seeking adventures, I remain hopeful that the balance can be struck and that we will be diligent to use our Colorado River water wisely.

Silt Glenwood Springs

Carbondale

Basalt

Eagle

Gypsum

Breckenridge

Wolford MtnRes

£⁄40

Grand Junction

Vail

Fruita

Rifle

Aspen

Frisco

Winter Park

Granby

Palisade

Kremmling

Lake Granby

Dillon Res

Green Mountain Reservoir

Vega Reservoir

Williams Fork Reservoir

Homestake Reservoir

Rifle Gap Reservoir

MESA

GRAND

EAGLEGARFIELD

PITKIN

SUMMIT

ROUTT

Eagle River

Plateau Creek

West S

alt C

reek

Big

Salt

Wash

East

Salt

Cree

k

Rock

Cre

ek

Buzzard Creek

Fraser River

Piney River

Gore Creek

Deep Creek

Big Creek

Brush Creek

Jerry Creek

Little S

alt Wash

Gypsum Creek

Clear Creek

Muddy Creek

Will

ow C

reek

Main

Elk

Creek

Egeria Creek

Roan Creek

Rifle

Cre

ek

Colo

rado

Riv

er

Blue

Riv

er

Troublesome C

reek

Fryingpan River

Derby Creek

Snake River

Para

chut

e C

reek

Mar

oon C

reek

Prai

rie

Can

yon

Cattle Creek

Red Dirt Creek

Sweetwater Creek

Cottonwood Creek

North In

let

Sheephorn Creek

Ute Canyon

Cedar Creek

Elk Creek

Lipan W

ashNorth Thompson Creek

Granby Reservoir

Mack W

ash

Wallace Creek

West D

ivide Creek

Sulphur Gulch

Tate

Creek

Alka

li C

reek

Crystal River

Big Alkali Creek

South Dry Fork Creek

West Brush C

reek

Knowles Canyon

Trail Gulch

Mule

Cree

k

Crys

tal R

iver

Colorado River

Roan Creek

Blue River

Eagle River

Colorado River

Colorado River

Blue River

Ruedi ReservoirRoaring Fork River

Colorado River Mainstem Basin

At a Glance Source: Statewide Water Supply Initiative 2006, 2010

Gore Canyon

Glenwood Canyon

Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant

DeBeque Canyon

The 15-Mile Reach


Summit County

Pitkin County

Mesa County*

Grand County

Garfield County

Eagle County

0

20,000

40,000

60,000

80,000

100,000

120,000

140,000

160,000

180,000

Low Medium High

2008 2035 2050

M&

I Dem

and

(Acr

e Fe

et/Y

ear)

Colorado Basin Municipal and Industrial Water Demands

0

100,000

200,000

300,000

400,000

500,000

600,000

700,000

800,000

900,000

2008 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 Low Medium High

2050

Popu

latio

n

Colorado Basin Population Growth

Summit County

Pitkin County

Mesa County*

Grand County

Garfield County

Eagle County

*Colorado Basin Portion of County

Talking WaterAcre foot—The volume of water required to

cover one acre of land (43,560 square feet) to a depth of one foot—equal to 325,851 gallons or 1,233 cubic meters.

Call—Usually a written document filed with the division engineer stating that a water right holder is not receiving all of the water they are entitled to by decree and request-ing that the division engineer shut down (curtail) all upstream water rights junior to them until their senior right is satisfied.

Consumptive use—The amount of water with-drawn that is transpired by plants, incor-porated into products or crops, consumed by humans or livestock, lost to evaporation or otherwise removed from the immediate water environment.

Cubic foot per second (cfs)—A streamflow measurement equal to a volume of water one foot high and one foot wide flowing a distance of one foot in one second. One “cfs” is equal to 7.48 gallons of water flow-ing each second.

Nonconsumptive use—A beneficial use of water that does not require removing it from the immediate water environment; this usually applies to a recreational or environmental use.

Return flows—That water which, after appli-cation to a beneficial use, returns to the stream system either on the surface or as groundwater.

Runoff—Precipitation, snowmelt or irrigation water that appears in uncontrolled surface streams, rivers, drains or sewers.

Transbasin or transmountain diversion—A diversion of water from its natural drainage basin into another drainage basin, typically from the West Slope to the East Slope of Colorado by means of tunnels or canals across the Continental Divide.

Silt Glenwood Springs

Carbondale

Basalt

Eagle

Gypsum

Breckenridge

Wolford MtnRes

£⁄40

Grand Junction

Vail

Fruita

Rifle

Aspen

Frisco

Winter Park

Granby

Palisade

Kremmling

Lake Granby

Dillon Res

Green Mountain Reservoir

Vega Reservoir

Williams Fork Reservoir

Homestake Reservoir

Rifle Gap Reservoir

MESA

GRAND

EAGLEGARFIELD

PITKIN

SUMMIT

ROUTT

Eagle River

Plateau Creek

West S

alt C

reek

Big

Salt

Wash

East

Salt

Cree

k

Rock

Cre

ek

Buzzard Creek

Fraser River

Piney River

Gore Creek

Deep Creek

Big Creek

Brush Creek

Jerry Creek

Little S

alt Wash

Gypsum Creek

Clear Creek

Muddy Creek

Will

ow C

reek

Main

Elk

Creek

Egeria Creek

Roan Creek

Rifle

Cre

ek

Colo

rado

Riv

er

Blue

Riv

er

Troublesome C

reek

Fryingpan River

Derby Creek

Snake River

Para

chut

e C

reek

Mar

oon C

reek

Prai

rie

Can

yon

Cattle Creek

Red Dirt Creek

Sweetwater Creek

Cottonwood Creek

North In

let

Sheephorn Creek

Ute Canyon

Cedar Creek

Elk Creek

Lipan W

ashNorth Thompson Creek

Granby Reservoir

Mack W

ash

Wallace Creek

West D

ivide Creek

Sulphur Gulch

Tate

Creek

Alka

li C

reek

Crystal River

Big Alkali Creek

South Dry Fork Creek

West Brush C

reek

Knowles Canyon

Trail Gulch

Mule

Cree

k

Crys

tal R

iver

Colorado River

Roan Creek

Blue River

Eagle River

Colorado River

Colorado River

Blue River

Ruedi ReservoirRoaring Fork River

Basin OverviewThe Colorado River Basin encompasses approximately 9,830 square miles. The largest cities are Grand Junction (population 45,669) and Glenwood Springs (population 8,301).

Elevations in the basin range from greater than 13,000 feet in the headwater areas to about 4,300 feet where the Colorado River exits the state. The basin’s mountainous headwaters gradually give way to a series of canyons and gentler terrain as the river follows along the Interstate 70 corridor toward the Grand Mesa, Grand Junction and the Utah border.

A substantial portion of the basin is composed of federally-owned land. Rangeland and forest are the predominant land uses in the Upper Colorado Basin (about 85 per-cent). Forested land is present throughout many parts of the basin. Wilderness, live-stock grazing, recreation and timber harvest are the predominant use of federal lands. Active and inactive mines can be found in the basin. Coal mining once occurred in the central portion of the Roaring Fork Valley and continues in the lower Colorado Valley.

Sources: Colorado Division of Water Resources, Office of the State Engineer; Colorado WaterConservation Board; U.S. Bureau of Reclamation; U.S. Geological Survey. Map by Thomas Dickinson.

Major River

Major Tributary Water Tunnel or other trans-basin diversion structure

Continental Divide

Pueblo

Colorado Springs

Boulder

Longmont

LovelandGreeley

Fort Collins

Aurora

Denver

Fountain

Canon City

Grand Junction

Division 1: South Platte and Republican River Basins

Division 2: Arkansas River BasinDivision 3:Rio Grande River Basin

Division 7: Dolores andSan Juan River Basins

Division 4: Gunnison River Basin

Division 5: Colorado River Mainstem Basin

Division 6: Yampa, White and North Platte River Basins

*

Delta

Montrose

Prepared by the Colorado Division of Water Resources Hydrographic Branch (2011 Revision). All values in acre feet (AF)

NORTH FORKREPUBLICAN

McELMO

CONEJOS

107,200

30,580

26,080

HUERFANO

6 5

2

1

34

7

Total Leaving Colorado

9,997,000 AF

ROARINGFORK

EAGLE

BLUE

1,509,000

526,300

4,440,000

308,200

437,000

383,500

1,509,000

526,300

4,440,000

308,200

660,100 660,100 443,900 443,900 320,200 320,200

437,000

383,500

154,800 154,800

1,839,000 1,839,000

YampaN. Platte

Colorado

Gunnison

South Platte

Arkansas

Rio Grande

San Juan

Animas& Florida

Delores

White

Colorado Water Divisions

Colorado Historical Average Annual Stream Flows


T


TSome perceive this negatively as a crime against nature; others view it positively as a great human achievement in making much from a little. Strong arguments are made both ways today. Probably no other river in America so reflects the stresses inherent in the contradictory demands placed on finite resources.

The Colorado mainstem itself and four of its larger headwaters tributaries—the Fraser, Williams Fork, Blue and Eagle rivers—have carved an eastward bulge in the Continental Divide that makes them accessible to the state’s drier and more populous eastern side, so even the highest waters are put to work, carried from collection canals to tunnels and out of the basin to satisfy needs on Colorado’s East Slope.

A little lower down in the headwaters tributaries, the mountain streams open into floodplains where the waterworks are more sub-tle. Modest irrigation systems spread water over hay fields, much of which makes its way back to the river as return flows. Similarly, headwaters towns like Breckenridge, Fraser, Granby or Kremmling take water from the river or its water table at one end of town and

put 50 to 90 percent of it—treated, but not pristine—back in the river at the other end.

Some of the headwaters tributaries are interrupted by dams, creat-ing reservoirs either to collect water for tunnels to the East Slope—in Shadow Mountain and Granby on the Colorado, Dillon on the Blue, and Ruedi on the Fryingpan—or to store it for late-summer irrigation on the West Slope—in Green Mountain on the Blue, Wolford Mountain on Muddy Creek, and Williams Fork Reservoir on the Williams Fork. These reservoirs also provide boating and fishing opportunities that have become substantial parts of the river basin’s economy.

From Kremmling to Glenwood Springs, the Colorado main-stem flows through mountains so rugged that most settlement has occurred south in the Eagle River Valley. There, a mixed heritage of mining and agricultural communities—Minturn, Eagle, Gypsum—have witnessed the more recent development of recreational meccas like Vail and Beaver Creek-Avon.

The Eagle joins the mainstem just above the spectacular

The ColoradoOur Namesake Working River

By George Sibley

Water from the Colorado River’s headwaters is moved east from Willow Creek Reservoir (bottom left) through a canal to Granby Reservoir (top left). From there it is pumped to Shadow Mountain Reservoir, flows by gravity into Grand Lake and crosses the Continental Divide through the 13.1-mile Adams Tunnel to the East Slope. Above, a rainbow trout is caught and released in the Roaring Fork River.


Pete

r McB

ride

(2)

To the casual observer, the Colorado River in Colorado looks like a natural river for the most part, tumbling noisily

down mountain slopes and through canyons, or meandering quietly in open park-like floodplains. Looking more

closely, however, one begins to see that it is a very hard-working river. It may be as much a waterworks as a natural

river today—a waterworks whose many tasks include continuing to look and function as much like a natural river

as possible while carrying out a growing list of other responsibilities.

Glenwood Canyon, where the river turns the turbines of the old, but very important, Shoshone hydropower plant. With a senior, 1902 priority for 1,250 cubic feet per second (cfs), Shoshone ensures that a substantial flow remains in the river from its head-waters tributaries.

Below Glenwood Springs and the mainstem’s confluence with its second-largest tributary, the Roaring Fork, “the middle river” meanders between Grand Mesa on the south and the Roan Plateau on the north, rich in rock-bound oil and gas. It works its way past more agricultural fields and towns—Silt, Rifle, Parachute—and more recently, a lot of gas wells, until it drops down the DeBeque Canyon to the Grand Valley Project Diversion Dam. There, the beginning of a complex of major irrigation works moves up to 2,260 cfs of water in irrigation season—in average or low years, at least as much as the river would naturally be carrying—out of the river and onto the high desert of the Grand Valley, in canals big enough to make one think of the term “hydraulic civilization.” From Palisade and Clifton past Grand Junction to Fruita, the basin’s largest and most productive agricultural area features fruit, vegetables and vineyards as well as hay fields and horse pastures.

After its “Grand Junction” with its largest tributary, the Gunnison River, the Colorado mainstem meanders west through cottonwoods along Interstate 70 before dropping into the canyons

of the Colorado Plateau in Utah. It emerges hundreds of miles later in a huge “delta” for the serious desert hydraulic civiliza-tion bounded by Phoenix to the east and Los Angeles to the west, connected to the river’s flow only through hundreds of miles of pipelines and canals.

For all of the 20th century, Colorado inhabitants along the river’s mainstem have felt pressure from both directions, upstream and down. Some 30 million people depend to some extent on water from the larger Colorado River Basin, nearly a quarter of which originates in the mountains above the tributary valleys just described. More than four million of those people live across the Continental Divide in Colorado and get roughly half a million acre feet of the river’s pur-est water, about the same as what is used within the mainstem basin itself. Downstream, “the Law of the River”—a series of interstate compacts and federal laws—commits Colorado to annually let mil-lions of acre feet of Colorado River water leave the state for the desert empire below. An average of 2.6 million acre feet of the mainstem basin’s water crosses the state line each year.

From the perspective of Coloradans who live along the mainstem and its tributaries, those 2.6 million acre feet are easier to let go of than the half-million that leave the headwaters to cross the Continental Divide. They, and their friends and customers from other regions, get to fish in, float on and otherwise “use” that water as it passes by, while

Faced with growing demands for domestic water supplies and energy production plus the recognition that sufficient water flows are needed to maintain water quality and strong local agricultural and recreational economies, the Colorado Basin Roundtable comes to the statewide discussion advocat-ing against further transmountain diver-sions, at least for now. Their belief in the degree of influence they wield is tempered with the recognition that they hold no offi-cial authority.

“It’s all about the power of voice at this point,” says Jim Pokrandt, chair of the roundtable and communication and educa-tion specialist for the Colorado River Water Conservation District. Pokrandt likens the process to a chamber of commerce, where the business leaders in a community establish a vision for economic development. ”We’re try-ing to create a blueprint for the future.”

The blueprint the Colorado Basin Roundtable is holding up, through its draft vision statement, presses Front Range roundtables to push conservation and reuse to the top of the list as strategies for meeting their basins’ large “gap” between forecasted water supply and demand in 2050. The roundtable believes more transmountain diversions from its wetter basin should be the Front Range’s last resort or “the last tool out of the toolbox, not the first one,” says Pokrandt. “When you’re looking at the last increment of water development, if you maximize transmountain diversions now,

in 2050 you’ll have to go back and do what California, Las Vegas and Arizona are doing already: hyperconservation, less grass. Why not work harder on conservation now rath-er than wait for the crisis and have to resort to the extremes?” Front Range water users, while pursuing conservation to a degree, also appear determined to move forward on some type of large project to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding population, knowing it could take decades to complete.

In December 2010, the Interbasin Compact Committee, composed of two members from each of nine regional round-tables plus gubernatorial appointees, pre-sented a framework for closing the state’s water supply gap to outgoing Gov. Ritter and incoming Gov. Hickenlooper. The framework identifies new water supply projects as well as conservation and reuse alongside alternative agricultural water transfers and completion of current water supply projects as four strategies that must be balanced with protecting flows for rec-reation and the environment—water’s non-consumptive uses.

More than 300 people discussed the draft framework on March 3, 2011 at the first Statewide Roundtable Summit. Many said the framework needs to be more specific before they would feel comfort-able supporting it. This call for specific-ity in planning the way forward belies a major concern summarized by Grand Junction utility director Greg Trainor from

the Colorado Basin Roundtable: “What demands get fulfilled and what don’t? How are the consumptive and nonconsumptive priorities going to be hammered out?”

Bringing more of the public into the process would help ensure a balanced solu-tion, believes Jeff Crane, executive director of the Colorado Watershed Assembly and one of two public members serving on the

Role of the Roundtable By Jayla Poppleton

Jim Pokrandt chairs the Colorado Basin Roundtable.


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the transmountain diversions are forever removed from the river.The Colorado-Big Thompson Project, which moves on aver-

age 230,000 acre feet annually through the Alva B. Adams tunnel under Rocky Mountain National Park, is the biggest transmountain diversion from the headwaters, accounting for nearly half of the basin’s water taken east. Most of this used to be supplemental, late-season agricultural water for South Platte Basin farmers, but today two-thirds of it is owned by municipalities in the northern part of Colorado’s Front Range. Denver and its South Platte suburbs take another 150,000 acre feet per year through the Moffat and Roberts tunnels, and another 130,000 acre feet go to the south metro area and Arkansas Basin through the Twin Lakes, Boustead, Homestake and other smaller tunnels.

Would the Front Range urban corridor that largely drives Colorado’s economy and boasts many of its universities and cul-tural centers be possible without West Slope water? Possibly, but only through the unsustainable and undesirable practices of pump-ing depletable aquifers to exhaustion and large-scale conversion of agricultural water to municipal and industrial use.

Since the 1930s push for a Colorado-Big Thompson Project, the West Slope has fought vigorously for “compensatory storage” from East Slope diverters to make up for the loss of water and its impact on future opportunities. The West Slope had some heroes in that

struggle: Clifford Stone, who helped create and first directed the Colorado Water Conservation Board from 1937 until he died in harness in 1952, and Frank Delaney, who developed the Colorado River Water Conservation District, or “the River District.” Stone and Delaney believed that the East and West slopes could help each other develop Colorado’s share of the larger Colorado River allotment, but encountered short-sighted opponents on both sides of the Divide. They were aided by two multi-term West Slope congressmen—Edward Taylor (1908-1941) and Wayne Aspinall (1948-1972)—who unabashedly used seniority autocratically to serve their underdog district.

The East Slope has also had heroes in the ongoing effort to bring cooperation to a contentious issue: Charles Hansen and J. M. Dille of the South Platte Basin, who worked patiently to develop a Colorado-Big Thompson Project fair to both slopes; Harold Roberts, Denver Water Board attorney, who ended a decade-long standoff over the Blue River through the radical approach of talk-ing to the other side; and Chips Barry, manager of Denver Water, who acknowledged in the 1990s that water allocation involved the negotiation of moral as well as legal issues.

The West Slope was successful in getting two compensatory mainstem reservoirs on Bureau of Reclamation projects: Green Mountain Reservoir on the Blue River as part of the Colorado-Big

IBCC’s Public Education, Participation and Outreach workgroup. “If the public knew more, they might have a better perspective of what should be done or what they’d be willing to do.”

Public outreach is part of the round-tables’ and the IBCC’s legislated charge but has proved to be one of their most difficult tasks. Despite the challenge, John Stulp, who in January left his role as the state’s agricultural commissioner to become Gov. Hickenlooper’s special advisor on water and director of the IBCC, agrees public engage-ment is important: “The more people can discuss things, the better decisions and opinions we get.”

To further the effort, the Colorado Water Conservation Board recently offered $1,800 grants to roundtables ready to implement an education action plan. Money is also available to support water-related projects through state-supplied Water Supply Reserve Account (WSRA) grants. Hickenlooper has assured the roundtables, which screen and prioritize requests before they go to the CWCB for final funding approval, that his proposed state budget cuts will not affect WSRA funds, which for fiscal year 2011 are slated to total $7 million statewide.

Through the WSRA, the Colorado Basin Roundtable has supported both wet-water projects—including the expansion of Eagle Park and Old Dillon reservoirs to ben-efit Vail and Avon as well as Silverthorne, Dillon and Summit County respectively—

and projects to evaluate water needs for energy and the environment. The round-table’s recently-completed second phase of the Energy Development Water Needs Assessment, for example, done in conjunc-tion with the Yampa/White/Green Basin Roundtable, lowered previous high-end estimates for future water-related energy needs from 410,000 to 120,000 acre feet between the two northwestern basins. While 75 percent of that demand would be attributable to oil shale, up to 32,000 acre feet would come from traditional oil, natural gas, coal and uranium development. Establishing these estimates was important for the roundtable as it asserts its own needs into the statewide dialogue. The study reports, “If sufficient water is not available for energy development, we believe other existing uses of water—invariably from agriculture—will be converted for energy development. The East Slope does not want to see extensive ‘buy and dry’ of its agricul-tural water, neither does the West Slope.”

The new governor and IBCC director Stulp have made it apparent that they will be looking to the IBCC and the round-tables for direction and that time is of the essence to begin closing the water supply gap. How, precisely, that will be done no one knows for certain. What the Colorado Basin Roundtable does know is that it wants a say in protecting the myriad water-related values it holds dear and ensuring its rivers aren’t over-extended. q

The Colorado Basin RoundtableThe Colorado Basin Roundtable’s 30-some volunteer advocates hail from local governments, water dis-tricts, farms, nonprofits and the rec-reational community. In accordance with the implementation of the Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act, passed by the state Legislature in 2005, the roundtable has contrib-uted to numerous studies with the Colorado Water Conservation Board in an attempt to accurately quantify future water needs for both consump-tive and nonconsumptive water uses within the basin. Water diversions that consume the river’s flow are considered consumptive, while water uses that do not deplete water from the river are referred to as non-consumptive. The Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act established basin roundtables for each of the state’s eight major river basins and the Denver metro area. It also created the Interbasin Compact Committee to foster cooperative, statewide solutions to future water supply challenges.


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Thompson Project and Ruedi Reservoir on the Fryingpan River as part of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. These reservoirs were designed not only to protect senior water users downstream, but also to provide water for the West Slope’s prospective needs.

Higher on the Blue River, however, for half a century the Denver Water Board vigorously fought the idea that the state’s “great and grow-ing cities” owed any compensation for water appropriated legally from the West Slope. But a number of setbacks in court plus, perhaps, the realization that Colorado’s growing metropolis needed the West Slope at least as much as the West Slope needed the city, brought a change in philosophy around 1990. Denver Water, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, the burgeoning cities north of Denver in the South Platte Basin, and the River District began to collaborate rather than contend and jointly financed and built Wolford Mountain Reservoir above Kremmling, a key element in what is now a complex but integrated trans-Divide water supply system that attempts to nur-ture the growing cities on the east side while sustaining a living river and healthy economies on the west side.

This complex but integrated water supply system may be improved further by a newly proposed Colorado River Cooperative Agreement, five years in the negotiating, that gets one last bit of water for the Front Range cities in exchange for quite a bit of money to reconstruct vulnerable stretches of the mainstem and a commit-ment to “operate” the headwaters tributaries to maximize benefits to both sides of the Divide.

But a big question along the mainstem today is whether it really is possible to operate this heavily managed waterworks enough like a river to maintain the economy through which it runs. Upstream from Glenwood Springs, year-round tourism, recreation and resorts are the major economy along both the river and its tributaries—an economy most needful of waterways that resemble a natural river.

This recreational emphasis is not a new development. The old-est continuing water right in the Colorado mainstem basin is for the mineral baths that drew early tourists to Hot Sulphur Springs. Later, in negotiating the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, headwa-

ters communities wanted protection for fishing streams, already a major part of the local economy.

Today, concern about the life of the river has grown as that econ-omy has grown—even as the flows have grown smaller. And mea-surable economic impacts from visitors say little about the extent to which such “amenities” are part of the reason why 300,000 people put up with hard winters and marginal service economies to live in the basin.

Coloradans on both slopes also recognize that there are eco-logical reasons transcending the economic for keeping a river alive and reasonably healthy, not least being the abundant wildlife that depend on it. In addition, diverse problems with water qual-ity—mine metals high up, dissolved alkaloids below Glenwood Springs—nag most stretches of the river in a water-short situation where “dilution as a solution” is not always an option. The extent to which storage for heavy usage has changed the river’s flow also contributes to the endangered status of four species of warm-water fish near Grand Junction.

Energy production below Glenwood Springs—gas, shale oil, coal for electricity—is another “challenge and opportunity” loom-ing over the basin. Heavy energy development could add another 120,000 acre feet to in-basin consumptive water use—currently around 550,000 acre feet along the Colorado River mainstem, mostly agricultural. Those agricultural users already believe they are 100,000 acre feet short on what they truly need to irrigate the land that has been cultivated. At the same time, additional water demand within the basin will come from a growing regional popu-lation, predicted to more than double by 2050. The combination of urbanization and conversion of agricultural water to municipal uses could result in as much as 30 percent of the basin’s 268,000 current irrigated acres being taken out of production in a basin proud of this industry.

Faced with these pressures, the Colorado Basin Roundtable, a legally constituted “grassroots voice” for the river and its people, economy and ecology, lays its position on the line in a draft vision statement: “Any additional transmountain diversions [from the Colorado River mainstem and its tributaries] must be considered as the last resort to support Front Range growth.” The proposed Colorado River Cooperative Agreement seems to affirm that—after just a little more mainstem diversion.

Eight years ago, in Congressional testimony, Colorado River District general manager Eric Kuhn said, “To develop Colorado’s unused Colorado River water, we either need to devise projects that better manage existing supplies and use more wet year water or go farther west.” He cited the example of a “Big Straw” study to pump water from the Colorado River below Grand Junction all the way back to the Continental Divide: “[That] may seem like an extreme example. However, the reality is that in all of 2001, all of 2002, and most of 2003, one would have had to go all the way to Grand Junction to find any water that was available for use for a new appropriator.”

The mainstem and tributaries of the Colorado River in Colorado are on the front lines of America’s 21st-century challenge: balanc-ing the desire to eat the cake with the desire to have it too. There is hope in the high level of democratic collaboration that is occur-ring across the state. But it remains a lot to ask of an increasingly overworked river.

In an interconnected Colorado, where residents benefit from a strong agricultural economy, abundant recreational opportuni-ties and the cultural offerings of the larger cities, all dependent on Colorado River water, a current awareness campaign by the River District and Northwest Colorado Council of Governments serves as a poignant reminder of the resource’s ultimate limitations: “It’s the same water.” q

Major Exports from the Colorado Basin (Average number of acre feet per year from 2000-2009 Source: Colorado Division of Water Resources)

H e a d w a t e r s | s u m m e r 2 0 1 1 1 1

Meeting target habitat flows set by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for a critical river seg-ment called the 15-Mile Reach, which is directly upstream of Grand Junction, is the essential pur-pose of the Phone Call, although, since its inception in 1995, the agenda has broadened to other matters.

Today, the Phone Call illustrates the pervasive-ness of management in river flows. Here and there, creeks look much as they might have 150 years ago. But in the larger aggregation, little is left to chance. Big dams provide the means to regulate flows, and Colorado’s first-in-time, first-in-right doctrine of prior appropriation furnishes the legal structure for water’s administration.

But the law alone explains only so much. Despite the well-worn but rarely documented stories of bludgeonings by irrigation shovels, colorfully captured in the adage about whiskey being for drinking and water for fighting, there has always been a strong element of neighborly coop-eration that serves as a caulking between the letter of the law. The Phone Call continues and expands this same spirit of cooperation. It’s not entirely a

voluntary cooperation. The fish silently command all ears to the telephone. But it is cooperation, whatever the motivation, that is less forced and more genial than it used to be.

“I was just floored,” says Eagle-based consul-tant Caroline Bradford, remembering her reaction after first listening to one of the weekly conversa-tions. Here, she realized, the decisions were being made about how much water would flow in every tributary and the mainstem itself. “They don’t just do it once, but every week. If the flow in your river goes up or down, it’s likely because the people in this group decided it.”

The Phone Call is launched from an ordinary office building in Glenwood Springs. The building houses Water Division 5 of the State Engineer’s Office, which has responsibility for the book-keeping and administration of water along the Colorado River’s mainstem and all its tributaries within Colorado except for the Gunnison River. It’s a tall task, more challenging yet as incremental demands are imposed on the river outside the tra-ditional bounds of state water law.

Phoning for Flowsin a system where timing is everything,

reservoir operators and water managers work behind the scenes to tweak flows for fish

By Allen Best

The endangered razorback sucker, bonytail chub and Colorado pikeminnow (bottom to top), pictured in an aquarium in Phoenix.

Those who manage the Colorado River sometimes refer to it simply as the Phone Call. Weekly from late June through October, it lasts an hour, maybe two during perplexing weeks. Fifteen to 20 people, sometimes even 30, participate, reporting plans and voicing needs in an effort to create semi-natural flows in a river system that is anything but natural. Their most basic aim is to recover four species of endangered fish native to the Colorado River Basin that, according to the accounts of early settlers, were nobody’s first choice for a meal. Too many bones!

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By Colorado standards, the Colorado mainstem is a big river, the native flows in the basin constituting 32 percent of the state’s surface water. Fifteen percent of those flows are forced to reverse direction, however, directed eastward through canals, tunnels and pipes in order to irrigate farms as far away as the Nebraska and Kansas borders, but especially to nourish the urban corridor from Pueblo to Fort Collins.

Colorado River water that does continue downstream, if not detained by one of many dams, has a long journey. It takes three days for water to flow from its headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park to the Colorado-Utah state line. Driving would be faster—five hours—unless you shadow the river on gravel roads as it wiggles through its canyons. To explore its tributaries—the Fraser, Williams Fork, Blue, Eagle and Roaring Fork rivers being just the start of the list—could take weeks, or maybe a lifetime.

A registry of who’s on the line starts the Phone Call each week. Voices sound off from offices in Loveland and Denver, Boulder and Lakewood, Berthoud and Colorado Springs, plus many loca-tions within the basin itself. A hydrologist in Salt Lake City reports modeled flows based on temperature and precipitation forecasts, and a meteorologist from Grand Junction issues a 10-day weather forecast. If it’s going to rain on the alfalfa farms and orchards, less water needs to be released from reservoirs in the headwaters.

Water managers live by numbers. Weekly they listen to read-ings of gauges on the river at Kremmling, Dotsero and other loca-tions. Next come reports from reservoir operators. A representative from Denver Water, talking from the agency’s headquarters along Interstate 25, Invesco Field in the distance, might report levels at the Williams Fork Reservoir, which sits just south of Parshall. From Loveland, a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation representative gives status reports for reservoirs that are part of the Colorado-Big Thompson project: Green Mountain, Granby and Shadow Mountain, plus Willow Creek and Windy Gap.

The 154,000 acre-foot Green Mountain Reservoir stores water on its way down the Blue River to the Colorado. In 2010, nearly 58,000 acre feet of water released from Green Mountain was purposefully timed to benefit endangered fish.

Upper Colorado river endangered Fish reCovery program

Four endangered fish species: Colorado pikeminnow, razorback sucker, humpback chub and bonytail

Critical habitat: The Colorado River from Rifle, Colorado, to Lake Powell as well as large stretches of the Gunnison, Yampa, White and Green rivers.

Colorado River mainstem focus area: The 15-Mile-Reach directly upstream of Grand Junction

Program elements:

Habitat management—Maintaining base flows in places like the 15-Mile-Reach in late summer and early fall through cooperative management via the Historic Users Pool Phone Call, and augmenting spring peak flows through Coordinated Reservoir Releases (CROS)

Habitat development—Building fish passages to help fish cross diversion dams, screening off irrigation diver-sions to keep fish from getting swept down canals, and acquiring floodplain habitat in the Grand Valley

Non-native fish management—Controlling non-native species, which compete with the endangered fish for resources, by working with the state to limit stocking locations of non-native sport fish and by actively remov-ing non-natives across several hundred miles of river, with a focus on smallmouth bass and northern pike

Propagation and stocking—Raising and releasing two species, the razorback sucker and bonytail, which had been virtually eliminated from the Upper Colorado River Basin when the recovery program was established

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These reservoirs near Granby, combined with Denver’s diver-sions from the Fraser and Williams Fork valleys through the Moffat Tunnel, remove 60 percent of the Colorado River’s flows near its headwaters before it has a chance to fully flex any muscle. The river segment from Granby to Kremmling was long ago declared a Gold Medal trout fishery by the Colorado Division of Wildlife, and in some years it still can be. But in 2006, for many reasons that unwel-comingly aligned, the river was reduced to little more than wet rocks. The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which operates the Colorado Big-Thompson Project in conjunction with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, is required to release just 20 cfs from Granby Reservoir, and that’s about all that was in the river for the 28 miles between Windy Gap and Kremmling, where it is forti-fied by the Blue River and Muddy Creek. Pumps used by ranchers to irrigate their hay fields were left high and dry. Moss created in the low water and high temperatures was everywhere—and it stank.

Anglers went home, and county officials went to work. Grand County that year secured water, now up to 3,500 acre feet annually, from surpluses at Windy Gap Reservoir. For $75,000 each year in electricity, the water is pumped back up to Granby Reservoir for storage until late summer, when it is released. This dribble can double the river’s flow, giving brown trout a place, as W.C. Fields said, “to do it.” Taxpayers have told county commissioners that the pumping costs are money well spent, says Lurline Underbrink-Curran, county manager. And now, at least in late summer, Grand County’s status has routinely become part of the Phone Call.

RiGHTS TO RivER WATERThe broader brushes of the Colorado River Basin are painted boldly by large transmountain diversions, as well as other major water rights and sizeable dams. More than a dozen ditches, tunnels and other devices defy the central definition of the Continental Divide in parting the ways between those of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. From the perspective of many who live on the Western Slope, this all amounts to moral grand larceny, whatever else the Colorado Constitution may say about the right to appropriate water never being denied.

Regardless of end use, dams are indispensable to the Phone Call’s goal of ensuring sufficient flows reach the endangered fish in the Grand Valley while protecting other water uses. Five of the six largest reservoirs—Granby, Williams Fork and Wolford, plus Dillon and Green Mountain—are clustered in the broad basin upstream from Gore Canyon, the region most heavily tapped for diversions to the Eastern Slope. The sixth, Ruedi, is near Basalt.

The federal government has a powerful hand on the levers of this plumbing. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service oversees interests of the fish, having say-so in how much water must be delivered downstream. It does so steadily, if with some restraint. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation owns and manages two key dams. Ruedi Reservoir was built to serve the needs of Western Slope residents as mitigation for transbasin diversions through the federally-financed Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. Green Mountain Reservoir, which is older and larger, similarly was built to accommodate Western Slope parties in compensation for the Colorado-Big Thompson Project.

Green Mountain Reservoir last year contributed 59 percent of the 97,575 acre feet released from reservoirs either directly or indirectly to benefit the fish at Grand Junction, while Ruedi Reservoir delivered another 21 percent. The balance came from Wolford Mountain, Williams Fork and Granby reservoirs.

Because of this strong federal presence, Ron Thomasson, calling in from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation office in Loveland, moderates the Phone Call. He is politely but firmly insistent on forging consensus about how to get water to the fish. “There were some difficulties in the early years,” he says, “but a significant

Boating down Gore Canyon’s steep chasm (above) is not for the faint of heart. While working on Colorado River: Flowing Through Conflict with pho-tographer Peter McBride, author Jonathan Waterman hangs onto his guide, who attempts to free their boat (below). The canyon is run only at specific water levels where boaters can safely navigate dangerous, jagged rocks like these, remnants of railroad bed construction.

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level of trust has been built up, creating a highly functional group that I think manages the river pretty darned well.”

Colorado’s first-in-time, first-in-right doctrine of prior appropriation still provides the basic bones for administration. By that system, the oldest water right in the Colorado River Basin was in French Gulch, near Breckenridge, dated 1860—for gold-mining purposes, although now abandoned. Now the oldest water right is on Maryland Creek, north of Silverthorne, a decree for 5 cubic feet per second for meadow irrigation. It has a seniority of July 1, 1869. Not that it matters all that much. There aren’t any upstream users on Maryland Creek. In fact, it’s a measure of how water-rich the Blue River Valley is that no full-time water commissioner was assigned there until 1990.

The single most important water right in understanding management of the Colorado River, however, is far from the oldest. It belongs to the Shoshone hydroelectric plant in Glenwood Canyon. Driving through the canyon since the completion of Interstate 70, it’s easy to miss the pumpkin pie-colored buildings now located below road grade. Water people don’t. They understand the influence of the water rights there, which affect the distribution of water both east to Denver and west to Fruita. Owned by Xcel Energy, Shoshone’s 1902 water right is for 1,250 cubic feet per second, enough to suck the river nearly dry for about three miles during the winter, making a substantial dent even in summer.

When Shoshone is running, it creates certainty for river users. Those with upstream water rights more recent than 1902—which includes most transmountain and other diversions of any size—cannot remove or hold back water from the river if Shoshone has not received its full share. For downstream users, regardless of seniority, the water that returns to the river after being used to produce electricity is guaranteed to be coming their way.

Any interruption of Shoshone’s call for water is an upset of the apple cart. It is so unsettling to all users that they have at times agreed to a protocol that assumes the Shoshone call is “on” even if the plant experiences an outage.

COOPERATiNG TO SuSTAiN ADEquATE FLOWSThe crux of the weekly conversation is about flows farther down-stream and the effect upon endangered fish. Three major ditches withdraw water from the lower Colorado River upstream of the critical 15-Mile Reach for the fish. Often these diversions are col-lectively referred to as the Cameo call, after a former coal mining community located nearby. Together, they draw about 80 percent

of the river’s flow there to irrigate 70,000 acres of peaches, pears and corn, but also alfalfa, winter wheat and exurban lawns, and in recent years, vineyards. Representatives of the irrigators, working out of Palisade and the Grand Junction area, are wont to remind those on the Phone Call that it’s hot and dry in their valley.

The Grand Valley water infrastructure begins in DeBeque Canyon, 23 miles northeast of Grand Junction. There, the pictur-esque roller dam, marked by sentinels with fire truck-red tiles, rais-es the water level, prodding water into the Government Highline Canal. This large ditch, part of the Grand Valley Project, was creat-ed in a partnership between Reclamation and a local nonprofit now called the Grand Valley Water Users Association. It began delivering water to farms in 1917 and now creates greenery to within five miles of the Utah border, 55 miles away. Before the river flushes out of the canyon, a portion of water from the Government Highline Canal is diverted to a pipeline that burrows under the Colorado River and Interstate 70, delivering water to another canal on the opposite canyon wall. From the highway, it looks like a retaining wall. It carries the water used to irrigate the orchards and vineyards of Orchard Mesa. In Palisade, the Grand Valley Irrigation Company headgate draws more water, as it has since 1884, for distribution to Grand Junction and beyond.

Like Shoshone, the Cameo water rights are for large volumes and with seniority, the oldest dating to 1884 and another with a priority date of 1914. Altogether, these ditches draw up to 2,260 cfs from the Colorado River. At times, such as in late September, that’s enough to completely drain the river, which is at the heart of this need for steady, intense oversight.

If it weren’t for cooperative management, the federal Endangered Species Act, passed in 1973, would have sweeping consequences for the Colorado River. This powerful but indelicate tool would have been triggered each time a federal action, for everything from a permit to an annual operating plan, was needed for a new or exist-ing water project on the river or its tributaries, potentially resulting in the reallocation of water to provide flows for endangered fish. Under an agreement struck in 1988, however, the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program provides an umbrella of mitigation for water projects’ impacts on the fish, in part by obtaining flows through cooperative agreements. So far, 443 water projects in the mainstem basin have benefitted from the program.

The quid pro quo is that the fish get the water they need. Part of this is the result of greater efficiency wrung from the delivery of irrigation waters in the Grand Valley. Before, some unused water from the 150 miles of canals there returned to the Colorado River—but below the critical 15-Mile Reach—in what is called an “administrative spill.” Through both physical improvements financed by the recovery program and more savvy manage-ment, the Grand Valley Project reduced diversions from the Colorado River. The savings have been substantial, reports Brent R. Uilenberg from Reclamation’s office in Grand Junction. Before 2002, the project’s irrigators diverted 285,217 acre feet annually. Since then, they draw 240,000 acre feet annually, leaving more water in the river for the fish.

“It has been quite a balancing act—and still is,” explains Tom Pitts, the principal of Water Consult, of Loveland. As a representa-tive of water users, he helped structure the recovery program. “We have changed the paradigm from conflict to cooperation, because it’s in the best interests of all parties, including the U.S. govern-ment, to do so. Water users are protected, federal projects can continue to provide water, and the endangered fish are recovering.” And, he adds, all this is accomplished within the context of the federal law, interstate compacts and Colorado water law. By work-ing together, Colorado has avoided the teeth-gnashing, bruised feelings and litigation-swamped situations found on the Klamath

Shoshone hydropower plant has the most senior, large-volume water right on the Colorado mainstem. The bonus for other users is that the water returns to the river after producing electricity.

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River in Oregon—which was knotted in controversy for years surrounding impacts to salmon—and other regions.

CONSENSuS ON RELEASESHydrologist Jana Mohrman has represent-ed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the Phone Call since 2008. She confides that she was “scared to death” when she was first assigned to the project. But with the aid of others, she has grown more com-fortable in her role and finds it rewarding after 20 years of modeling water needs at wildlife refuges. “It’s real, hands-on opera-tion,” she says. “There are consequences. It’s not all theoretical.”

Voluntary—but essential—are large vol-umes of spring runoff. The large flows scour gravel beds of mud and algae, making room for invertebrates—the fishes’ food—to sur-vive. The high flows also strip river vegeta-tion, keeping the channel clean so it acts more like a river and less like a ditch. Last year was an unlikely one for big water. The snowpack was 71 percent of normal on May 1. But because of the flows coordinated by Mohrman and water providers, coupled with a fortuitous warm spell, the peak runoff was the third highest in 20 years.

For July and August last year, Mohrman set target flows of 1,240 cfs for the 15-Mile Reach, which she scaled back to 1,000 cfs in September. In meeting these targets, water users have agreed to deliver 10,825 acre feet annually, split evenly between the Front Range and West Slope. Some water comes from the Colorado River District’s Wolford Mountain Reservoir and Denver’s Williams Fork Reservoir, but far more comes from the two federal reservoirs—Ruedi but especially Green Mountain, which has an allotment called the historic users pool. That pool is intended to benefit those holding decrees for domestic and irrigation water prior to October 1977, and those beneficiaries must declare a surplus in the pool before water can be released for the fish.

In the beginning, Grand Valley irrigators tended toward cau-tion, protesting release of water from these upstream reservoirs

lest the next winter bring drought—and heightened dependence on stored water. Memories of 1977 and 1981 were still fresh in their minds when 2002 arrived, seared and parched. Colorado River flows fell to just 60 cfs downstream of the Cameo diversions. Ditches had more water, but not a lot until a timely rain in late August. “People were running crippled,” says Phil Bertrand, superintendent of the Grand Valley Irrigation Company.

The decision about when water from these upstream federal reservoirs will be released for the fish is the hardest part of the Phone Call. “That really is something to which all parties must agree,” says Dan Luecke, who represents two environmen-tal groups, Western Resource Advocates and The Nature Conservancy. He believes that after 16 years irrigators have become more comfortable with the releases for fish and, partly because of Congressional appro-priations that paid for millions of dollars in infrastructure to help protect fish, they do not see protecting the species as onerous.

Mohrman also reports revised atti-tudes. “I think it was combative at the beginning, but now we’re collaborative, working together—although sometimes there are still issues at Basalt.”

FiSH FLOWS AND OTHER RivER uSERSAlong with endangered fish, Basalt and the Fryingpan River that runs through it represent a significant shift in Colorado River uses in the last 40 years. From the town to Ruedi Reservoir, peach-colored sandstone in the background, lies 14 miles of lovely fly-fishing river. But in August 2009, Mohrman asked for more water than usual to be released from Ruedi Reservoir to benefit the endangered fish, as water from Green Mountain was not yet avail-able. When flows in the Fryingpan below the dam hovered at 500 cfs for more than a week, fishing guides were outraged. Mohrman went to Basalt three times to meet with guides. The next year, Ruedi Reservoir released a maximum of 256 cfs in late summer.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hydrologist Jana Mohrman sets target flows for endangered fish.

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Guides say that releasing water from the reservoir in August creates an artificial flow—and a danger. “The Fryingpan itself would never have that much water in August were it not for the dam,” says Will Sands of Taylor Creek Flyfishing. At 150 to 250 cfs, the natural flows of August, clients can stand in the water. Flows of 400 and 600 cfs hurt fishing quality and challenge even sturdy young anglers. “At 800,” he says, “it’s kind of a whitewa-ter tunnel.” Clients go elsewhere, impacting restaurants, lodges and other businesses in Basalt.

In the Grand Valley, such notions are sure to ruffle feathers. “Sometimes fishing becomes more important than releasing water for senior water rights,” Richard “Dick” Proctor, manager of the Grand Valley Water Users Association, notes dryly.

The evolving, more complicated nature of Colorado River water can also be found among whitewater boaters. Some 50,000 boater days were recorded in 2010 in the area between

Kremmling and Glenwood Springs, a few of them in the steep chasm of Gore Canyon. In the 1970s, only a few brave kayakers ventured into the canyon. Then, rafters arrived, soon accompa-nied by paying customers.

Technological upgrades and moxie combined to produce the change. Self-bailing boats allow greater maneuverability, and hand grips offer more stability for paddlers. Another factor, says Darryl Bangert, one of the canyon’s pioneering rafters, was simple brazenness. After a trip in 1985 in which he saw boaters in New Zealand and elsewhere, he returned with new ambitions. “I said, ‘What wussie boys we were in Colorado.’”

In Gore Canyon, it’s still not a big business. Timberline Tours, an Eagle-based company, has about 100 customers per year for the $175 adventure—provided the water levels are right. They raft only when the river is running between 750 cfs and 1,250 cfs. And they take what they can get. But members on the Phone Call have been

In what has been heralded as an historic peace accord, Denver Water and 34 West Slope entities have proposed a Colorado River Cooperative Agreement to settle long-time water disputes. What was previously referred to as “the global negotiations” lasted five years, required the help of a professional mediator, and was “painful all around,” according to David Little, Denver Water’s planning director. And yet, despite the expectation that they would not find common ground, as noted by Gov. John Hickenlooper at the April 28, 2011 press conference where the agreement was made public, the parties have reached what he called “more than a truce.”

“For too long people who had so many interests in common saw each other almost as enemies. The relationships built here will have an enduring impact,” the governor said.

Indeed, the proposed agreement rep-resents a new way of doing business, says attorney David Taussig, who represents the Grand County Board of Commissioners.

“It cements or changes a culture that future development on the Colorado River will be accomplished through cooperation rather than confrontation,” said Colorado River District general manager Eric Kuhn at the press conference.

The agreement was spurred in part by Denver Water’s proposed Moffat Firming Project, a plan to add storage on the East Slope that would give the utility opera-tional flexibility and enable it to add 18,000 acre feet to the annual yield of its Moffat Collection System, which diverts from the Fraser and Williams Fork rivers as well as South Boulder Creek. This supply would buffer Denver Water’s northern service area, which it says is critically water-short in dry

years. In the give-and-take of the agreement, West Slope signatories pledge not to oppose the proposed project, which wouldn’t be completed until 2017 and is still awaiting a federal permit to proceed.

In exchange, Denver Water will work to improve the health of headwaters streams. This goes beyond any actions required to mitigate the Moffat Firming Project’s impacts by the federal permitting process. Because of the added flexibility the project will give the utility, Denver Water agrees to contribute up to 2,000 acre feet of water annually for release during low flow periods or for other environmental benefits in the Fraser and Colorado rivers. “It’s water that they could have otherwise diverted,” says Taussig. “We can put 5 or 6 cubic feet per second in the upper Fraser Basin. Up in those streams, 1 or 2 cfs can make a huge difference.” Denver Water will also give the county $4 million for improvement of aquatic habitat and other environmental enhancements. And Denver Water is committed to partnering with the Colorado River Basin entities in a process called Learning by Doing, or adap-tive management, says Taussig. “We will all watch what happens and adapt to make the river better.”

The agreement also resolves a decades-old disagreement in Summit County over how Denver Water is legally entitled to use water diverted through the Roberts Tunnel per the 1955 Blue River Decree. The Blue River Decree requires Denver Water to use its Blue River water, stored in Dillon Reservoir, within the utility’s combined service area. From the West Slope’s point of view, that stipulation referenced the service area as it was defined in 1955 when the decree was issued, effectively setting an

upper limit on how much water the utility could ultimately divert. Denver Water has countered that the decree allowed its ser-vice area to grow, and as the utility annexed new areas, expanding, as Little put it, “like an amoeba on steroids,” it has served an ever-growing customer base. Now, Denver Water agrees it will not expand its service again after receiving West Slope support in its effort to share water with South Metro communities through its WISE project. Those communities face a looming crisis if they don’t move beyond non-renewable groundwater as their primary water source.

For water received through the WISE project—where re-useable water would be re-routed via Aurora’s Prairie Waters recy-cling project to the Rueter-Hess Reservoir in Parker—the South Metro communities will incur a 12.5 percent surcharge. The money will go into a fund, to be adminis-tered by the Colorado River District, with 20 percent stipulated for forest health and restoration projects in Grand and Summit counties and the rest for environmental and water supply projects along the Colorado River from the headwaters to the state line. In exchange, South Metro beneficiaries will agree not to go to the Colorado River main-stem basin upstream of its confluence with the Gunnison River for a transbasin diver-sion project. And Denver Water will only develop additional Colorado Basin water in cooperation with West Slope entities. Denver Water has also agreed to pursue more aggres-sive conservation measures and to use more of its re-useable water itself. In Colorado, diverted water can generally be used only once before it is allowed to return to the stream. In the case of water transported from another basin, however, water can legally be

East-West Peace Pact By Jayla Poppleton



used again and again “to extinction.” In addition to water offered to Summit

and Grand counties for environmental, municipal and snowmaking purpos-es, Denver Water will provide use of its vast collection system, including Dillon Reservoir, as a means of storing and mov-ing water for headwater communities. “This makes it possible to have water for future growth here,” says attorney Barney White, who represented Summit County in the negotiations. “Without this agreement, it’s difficult [for Summit County] to get any firm yield above Dillon.”

With Denver’s help, the yield in Clinton Reservoir on Freemont pass will be enhanced, providing additional snowmaking water for

the major ski resorts in the area. And in Eagle County, Denver agrees not to pursue any water supply project without the express support of the county and the various water entities operating there.

Another $8 million will go into a pot to subsidize projects for West Slope water users. And there will be another $10 mil-lion for wastewater treatment improve-ments to address nutrient-loading in water bodies throughout the river basin.

For both the middle river near Glenwood Springs and the lower river’s Grand Valley, the most important element of the agreement revolves around protect-ing the Shoshone hydroelectric plant’s his-toric call for water. The Xcel Energy-owned plant, which has a senior right for 1,250 cubic feet per second, pulls relatively clean water steadily down from the headwaters, says Mark Hermundstad, who represented several Grand Valley entities in the negotia-tions. Shoshone outages have temporarily affected the river—when the plant is out, it can’t call for water—with greater fre-quency, and those who rely on it fear the possibility that it could go out of business or that Denver could ultimately buy the water right, though Xcel has said it is not for presently for sale. In the agreement, all parties consent to mimic the Shoshone call as though it is always on except under extreme drought circumstances—if Denver were forced to ban outdoor watering.

An additional operational agreement is being developed for Green Mountain Reservoir that would ensure water that is supposed to be stored there for West Slope users is actually accounted for and available through the reservoir’s releases. In some years, under certain conditions, Denver Water stores

water in Dillon Reservoir, which sits upstream of but has a junior water right to Green Mountain, that should have been released to fill Green Mountain, says Hermundstad. “We want to make sure [Green Mountain] gets its legal fill every year.”

In September 2010, the proposed agree-ment was filed with the federal court where the case is pending. The agreement has yet to pass review by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Colorado State Engineer’s Office, two organizations critical to its implementa-tion. According to Little, as it is currently structured, the agreement will either be 100 percent successful or 100 percent failure.

As those sitting outside the confidential negotiating room, including the Colorado Basin Roundtable, worried from the side-lines, they were assured that their concerns were being represented. Those of the “not one more drop” camp may, however, be disappointed by the outcome, says Jim Pokrandt, who chairs the Colorado Basin Roundtable and works as the Colorado River District’s communication and edu-cation specialist. But failing to negotiate a settlement could have cost the West Slope much more than agreeing to support Denver’s plan to take more water from the headwaters of the Colorado River and to expand its service area one last time.

Little believes the long-term relationship that has been fostered through more peaceful negotiations—as well as the environmental improvements that are part of the deal—would have lost out if litigation ensued.

At the end of the April press confer-ence, Grand County Commissioner James Newberry said, “We talked about trying to get peace in our time. This is a great step toward that.” q


reminded of an annual boating festival, the Gore Canyon Race, and how releases from Green Mountain might adversely affect it. “If they are going to do something funky, they work around our races,” says Lisa Reeder, a part-owner of Timberline.

Another new twist is a recommendation by a group of fed-eral, state and local agencies, along with environmental and recreational interests, that would affect 54.4 miles of the river, from Gore Canyon through Glenwood Canyon. The group pro-poses this segment be managed to protect and perhaps enhance the existing “outstandingly remarkable values” as defined by the federal Wild and Scenic River Act, but without formal designa-tion. Instead, they’re suggesting something similar to the model used to ensure water for endangered fish while retaining flex-ibility for water users and yields for water projects.

True, these are far more complex times for the Colorado River than in the 1860s and 1870s, when Colorado’s original

laws for administration of water were institutionalized. It’s still first in time, first in right—but now there may be asterisks.

Eric Kuhn, manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, sees the weekly teleconference as reflective of the changes he has observed since the late 1970s. “In 1977, Denver’s demands were not what they are today, because they were serv-ing 700,000 to 800,000 people, not 1.4 million. Things were not as tight.”

The future, as Kuhn points out, will be one of greater finesse yet. “It is continually evolving, but those [phone] calls have been very, very helpful in having the various parties understand the limitations and the problems they face—and really leading to a lot of cooperative effort on an annual basis, not in the sense of agreements and decrees, but in the operational sense. I actu-ally see them becoming more valuable as things get a little more complicated and a little tighter in the future.” q

Eric Kuhn heads the Glenwood Springs-based Colorado River Water Conservation District, comprising 15 West Slope counties.

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Keeping it CleanProtecting and enhancing water quality on the Colorado

By Jerd Smith


Mesa County and its Grand Valley are the agricultural mecca of the Colorado River Basin in Colorado. Fruit dominates the economy here—and it

shows. Endless rows of peach trees, apple trees and grapevines line the highways and back

roads. Packing sheds with rusted metal roofs dot the fields, and tall steel towers topped with

giant fans stand sentry over the orchards and vineyards, prepared to pull warm air down

from the sky to the ground to battle late spring freezes and early fall snow.

In the midst of all this sweet growth, Mel Rettig’s road-side vegetable farm stands out, plain and sturdy, offering corn, tomatoes, green peppers and pinto beans. A faded red and white wooden sign on Highway 141 directs customers back to the vegetable stands behind his home, which sits in the middle of a flat 60-acre spread his father began acquiring in the 1930s. Rettig is at home today, a rarity in the winter. Typically, he and some of his neighbors are on the road, travelling to water meetings in Denver, Glenwood Springs and other points in between—or beyond. He is one of a small posse of de facto, volunteer and self-taught water experts who have worked for decades to understand and master the chemistry of the Colorado River. If you’re a fruit or vegetable grower in the Grand Valley, you’re a water expert or you’re out of business. It’s that simple.

On Rettig’s dining room table, pages of soil reports from Colorado State University labs give him the most recent take on the chemistry of his soil, its nutrient levels and equally important, its salt content. Salt and other dissolved solids have naturally flowed in Colorado River water for centuries, largely because local Mancos shale formations and hot mineral springs introduce them to the river. But as water utilities and irrigators have taken larger amounts of its flows, the river has effectively lost its ability to dilute itself. And return flows from irrigation carry more of these impurities, plus nitrates from fertilizers, back into the river and its streams. The river’s water quality deteriorates as it moves downstream, with California’s irrigators feeling the biggest impacts.


Mel Rettig on his vegetable farm on Orchard Mesa.

Mesas flank grapevines grown by Canyon Wine Cellars along the Colorado River at Palisade, where vineyards and wineries began to spring up 30 years ago among peach, cherry and apple orchards. Photos by Kevin Moloney.


Rettig, like dozens of other farmers in the region, has partici-pated in the Federal Salinity Control Program for nearly 30 years to take advantage of new irrigation techniques and water delivery systems that keep salt out of the river. He and other growers, thanks to years of research and modernization, have learned how to use special pipes and sprinklers to keep irrigation water to a minimum and, as a result, reduce the amount of salt in return flows that make their way back to the river.

In the Grand Valley, the Salinity Control Program has been so successful that most new, federal investment is scheduled to wind down in two years. Salt levels in the river here and farther down-stream in Arizona and California are down by roughly 1 million tons per year, according to Jim Currier, basin states salinity pro-gram manager for the Colorado State Conservation Board. “They have documented substantial decreases,” he says.

But living with the Colorado River, maintaining the delicate bal-ance between the soil, the groundwater and the river, requires con-stant vigilance. Changes upstream—such as new diversions by the Front Range or by rapidly growing towns in the basin itself—could alter the river’s chemistry and throw these farms back 30 years.

“When I grew up, we had a big white spot out front because it was so salty,” says Rettig. It took years to return the soil to health, but that same field is now one of Rettig’s most productive vegetable plots. The key is careful management of water—in the river and on the soil. “Anywhere you irrigate, you can manage salinity on the farm,” Rettig says. “There is a fine point in managing it.” Apply too little water, and salty groundwater can rise to the soil’s surface and damage already-stressed fruit and vegetable crops. But, “If you put on too much water, it picks up the salt, and the water carries the salt out to the river,” says Rettig. And it becomes the next down-stream user’s problem.

High salinity levels aren’t just hard on fruits, vegetables and other agricultural products. Salt is corrosive and can damage water treatment systems or destroy household pipes and faucets. Domestic water providers in the Grand Valley, such as the Clifton Water District, know the struggle well. The Clifton Water District diverts directly from the river, where salinity levels can exceed 500 milligrams per liter, the upper limit of what’s considered accept-able for municipal use. In 1997, Clifton built an innovative—and expensive—plant to remove salt and other dissolved impurities from its water using membrane-filtering technologies known as reverse osmosis and nano filtration. It costs about 15 cents more per thousand gallons to treat water this way compared to more traditional methods.

Dale Tooker, manager of the Clifton Water District, doesn’t want to give the Colorado River a bad rap, though. He says his district treats its water carefully in part to meet stringent regulations and to improve aesthetics, such as taste, odor and hardness. “There is an unfair notion out there that the Colorado River is unsuitable for human consumption,” Tooker says. “Is there more [salinity] than in a high mountain stream? Yes. Is it unsuitable for humans to drink? No.”

BEyOND SALiNiTyIt’s not just salt that haunts the river. Selenium, which is even more difficult to treat, may be the most worrisome, recent issue on the Colorado. “They sell selenium in the health food stores as a ben-eficial thing, but in high doses it’s toxic to aquatic life,” says Steve Gunderson, director of the Colorado Department of Public Health

and Environment’s Water Quality Control Division. Although geography helps determine the chemical makeup of

water, what humans do often exacerbates the problems. “Selenium is naturally occurring,” Gunderson says, “but it’s mobilized by human activity.” The Grand Valley, for example, has prevalent Mancos shale deposits that are laden with selenium. Irrigation water percolates through the shale formation, gathering selenium and delivering minute yet harmful doses of the trace metal to the stream. To combat these types of issues, Gunderson and others have encouraged farmers to use sprinklers instead of flood irriga-tion and to replace earthen water delivery systems with pipes to reduce the amount of water seeping back into the soil, the ground-water, and ultimately, the river.

Sonja Chavez de Baca, coordinator of the Gunnison Basin/Grand Valley Selenium Task Force, says the Colorado mainstem, thanks to improvements in irrigation, has seen selenium levels drop by about 40 percent at the state line—to 4.6 parts per billion down from 7.8 ppb—since 1986, according to a USGS study undergo-ing review. But more work remains. To maintain compliance with Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment standards to protect aquatic life, the river needs to register at 4.6 parts per billion for the entire length of the mainstem. While the Colorado River currently meets that standard upstream of the Grand Valley, it picks up significant amounts of selenium as it travels through the agricultural region, and gets another dose from the incoming Gunnison River. The Gunnison, a major tributary to the Colorado, is the source of approximately 52 percent of the selenium load at the state line while the remaining load is attributed to the Grand Valley. Too much selenium causes curvature of the spine in young fish, making them poor swimmers and more susceptible to preda-tors, and can also harm aquatic birds.

More work with irrigators in the Gunnison Basin, and equally important, with new development there and in the Grand Valley, will be key to achieving permanent reductions in selenium on the mainstem, Chavez de Baca says. “It’s not just about agriculture anymore. We’re focusing more on urban development in areas in the Grand Valley because it will occur on previously undisturbed or unirrigated adobe soil, which are, on average, 34 times higher in soluble selenium. If it’s not handled properly, these types of developments will be the main source of selenium contamination in the future.”

Chavez de Baca says the task force will have a draft selenium management plan out this summer and that the group hopes to make use of existing federal and state funds to continue bringing selenium concentrations down through water efficiency improve-ments and public outreach.

Still another water quality concern on the river is the tempera-ture of its flows. Gunderson, who lives and breathes water quality statistics, monitors stream temperatures closely because of their direct impact on aquatic life and the endangered fish the state is legally obligated to protect. Rising temperatures caused by dimin-ished streamflows are regulated like a pollutant in Colorado.

Levels of salinity and selenium and water temperatures could all increase if new water diversions occur. Existing diversions have already dangerously lowered streamflows, causing ecologic prob-lems in the headwaters in Summit and Grand counties and exacer-bating problems with water quality farther downstream.

To compensate for these diversions, West Slope water managers have worked hard to ensure that replacement water supplies from

In the Grand Valley, the Salinity Control Program has been so successful that most new, federal investment is scheduled to wind down in two years.


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West Slope reservoirs such as Wolford Mountain, Williams Fork and Green Mountain is released at times and in adequate quanti-ties to dilute water that would otherwise be excessively high in salt and selenium and harmfully warm for fish and other aquatic life. Although water from these reservoirs is of lower quality compared to headwaters flows being diverted out of the basin, improved technology has allowed water managers like the Colorado River District to optimize releases to minimize water quality impacts. For example, a multi-level outlet was designed and constructed at Wolford Mountain Reservoir to enable operators to draw colder and denser water from the bottom of the reservoir to cool the river. Operators can also manipulate the reservoir’s outlet control to release lighter, less saline waters to benefit the river system.

On the Fraser River in Grand County, water quality concerns center on sediment, the loading of nitrates and phosphorous, and water temperature. To combat these problems, Grand County water and sanitation districts have hired engineers to work with developers to keep soil from migrating off newly developed properties, altering stream beds and harming aquatic habitat. And the Colorado Department of Transportation, Grand County and Denver Water are teaming with local agencies on a $300,000 project to transform a Denver Water collection pond at the base of Berthoud Pass into a settling facility to help remove thousands of pounds of road traction sand from the river.

New wastewater treatment plants are able to remove roughly 98 percent of the nitrates in the water, says Kirk Klancke, manager of the Winter Park Ranch Water and Sanitation District, and in the next decade new nutrient standards from the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission will require the treatment plants to remove much of the phosphorous—which stimulates the growth of stream-choking algae—as well.

Aging treatment plants and water delivery systems are a con-cern statewide. Gunderson says several Colorado communities have been able to upgrade their water systems thanks to federal stimulus funds. But more money will be needed. West slope com-munities may get additional funds from large utilities such as Denver Water and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which have pledged financial help in exchange for local blessing over new diversion projects.

But the list of water quality issues doesn’t end there. In Garfield County, concern about potential groundwater contamina-tion related to natural gas drilling has grown since 2004 when a

resident of Silt discovered benzene, a known carcinogen found in natural gas, in West Divide Creek. Stormwater runoff, surface spills and leaking waste pits associated with drilling operations have also polluted springs and streams, most notoriously in Garden Gulch, which drains the Roan Plateau to Parachute Creek. And undisclosed hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” chemicals used by energy companies to extract natural gas from local rock formations may be an additional cause for concern. A current study by the Environmental Protection Agency is examining the potential health and environmental effects of fracking, with initial results expected in 2012.

In the upper river, Gunderson and dozens of others continue to look for ways to manage metals, such as cadmium and zinc that leach from dozens of abandoned mines into the rivers. The state maintains what’s known as a “303(d) list,” a tabulation of stream segments where water quality standards are not being met. In all, 1,797 miles of the mainstem Colorado Basin’s streams are on the state’s 303(d) list for various impairments, many of them appearing because of runoff from old mines—or for exceeding temperature limits.

“Having more water would be the ideal way to deal with some of this,” says Klancke, “but we’re dealing with a de-watered river.”

ADAPTiNG TO AN ALTERED RivERBruce Talbott, a fifth-generation fruit grower in Palisade, is one of the largest growers in Mesa County. He’s also part of the reason Colorado harvests the nation’s seventh largest peach crop and is famous for its Palisade peaches.

He would like to see any new water developed from the Colorado be placed in a new storage project for the farmers of the West Slope so that they can augment streamflows to help main-tain water quality, minimize water shortages and possibly expand irrigated acreage.

Like Mel Rettig, he carefully manages soil chemistry. He’s altered his fruit crops and spread expensive chemicals to bring down pH levels in the soil. He irrigates his peaches and grapes from five different canals, and he also diverts directly from the river. He’s battled river water so filled with debris that it clogs his diversion structures.

“We live in a high desert and that’s just the kind of water we get,” Talbott says. “But I am always reluctant to see our best water go to the other side of the hill.” q


Visit any ranch house in Colorado and there is almost always an expansive kitchen table and a wide picture window looking out over the home pasture. Wendy Thompson’s modest ranch house is like that. Backing up to Highway 9 just outside Kremmling, the house faces the hay meadows she irrigates each year. The Thompsons have operated this spread since they were newlyweds. They’ve reared two children here, the view from the picture window changing with the seasons, the coffee pot set in an almost-always-on mode for sisters, nephews, ranch hands and neighbors who gather at the kitchen table.

The ranch draws its water directly from the Colorado River. For years, the meadows flooded naturally in late spring, soaking in the clear, frigid snowmelt flowing down from the Never Summer Mountains. That changed after the late 1950s, when the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, the state’s largest transmountain diversion system, began taking about 230,000 acre feet of water to the Front Range each year. Now such flooding is rare.

In bad drought years, such as 2004, the river ran so low that the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which distributes Colorado Big-Thompson Project water, installed rock berms to raise the water level up to the irrigation structures that Thompson and other ranchers rely on. In a wistful moment, Thompson will tell you she would like to see those meadows flood on their own again, just to know the river had reclaimed some of its former self. “Our children are never going to see this area like it was,” she says.

Thompson spent her childhood on Troublesome Creek, just up the road. Grand County lore has it the creek was so-named for two reasons—old men died trying to cross and they battled endlessly over its supplies. The history of Troublesome Creek has played out again and again on the Colorado River, but never with so many people in the fight and so little water in the stream.

As Colorado faces an increasingly water-short future, it is look-ing at the Colorado River Basin to determine how much, if any, new water can be set aside and stored to meet the demands of a state population expected to grow from roughly 5 million in 2008 to between 8.6 million and 10 million in 2050. Colorado’s West Slope rivers, all of which feed into the larger Colorado River Basin, are the only rivers in the state that may still have water available to develop, a fact that makes Thompson and others nervous.

But it’s not just the Front Range that needs more water. Local communities along the Colorado River mainstem and its tributaries are expected to grow even more dramatically on a percentage basis during that same period, from 307,000 to between 661,000 and 832,000 within the basin’s six counties—Grand, Summit, Eagle, Pitkin, Garfield and Mesa—according to the Statewide Water Supply Initiative 2010. Local water needs for municipal and industrial uses are expected to more than double as well, from about 68,500 acre

feet to between 130,000 and 180,000 by 2050. An acre foot of water is enough to serve about two urban households for one year.

The updated SWSI 2010 study, contracted by the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the state’s Interbasin Compact Committee, is a continuation of the effort the CWCB began in 2002 to determine how much water the state currently has available, how much it actually uses in its factories, farms and cities, and how much it will need by 2050. Since 2005, state-sanctioned com-munity roundtables in each of the state’s major river basins have contributed to the effort by doing similar analyses at the local level. For example, an energy water needs study, recently completed by the Colorado and Yampa/White/Green basin roundtables, identified as much as 120,000 acre feet of future water demand for a growing energy industry in the state’s northwest corner.

Statewide, Colorado will need between 600,000 and 1 million acre feet of new water by 2050, including energy-related demand. That number factors in 150,000 acre feet of water expected to be freed up through so-called passive conservation if water-saving appliances are mandated for new construction. Approximately 350,000 acre feet could be supplied through projects that are already planned or underway, assuming a somewhat optimistic 70 percent success rate—and additional development of Colorado River Basin water.

THE LAST iNCREMENT OF WATER DEvELOPMENTHow much more water is really available for the state to draw from the Colorado River Basin on a reliable basis is still a fairly open question. The Colorado River Water Availability Study, conducted by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, has concluded pre-liminarily that somewhere between zero and 900,000 acre feet may still be available annually, depending on climate change and how various rules in the 1922 Colorado River Compact and subsequent agreements are interpreted. It’s a wide range, and there are more questions than answers.

“There is no more conventional wisdom about how much water is left to develop,” says Eric Kuhn, general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District. “The most prevalent answer to the question is that we don’t know.” Before the drought of the early 2000s, Kuhn says most people believed Colorado could develop at least some additional water because it was only using about 2.6 million acre feet of the roughly 3.8 million acre feet it could take while still fulfilling downstream obligations under the 1922 com-pact and the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact of 1948. “The safe number we thought we could develop was about 400,000 to 500,000 acre feet.”

But climate change projections are throwing those already tenta-tive numbers up in the air. A gradual warming could lower flows

The Coveted Coloradoin the rocky Mountain state, where most water

is already claimed, the Colorado river carries the last reserves of the life-giving liquid. But how

much can safely be developed and at what cost?By Jerd Smith


by 10 to 30 percent. Even a 10 percent reduction, coupled with the fact that the river already doesn’t produce as much water as its users are legally entitled to—as a 2007 hydrologic study by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation concluded—would make a 250,000 acre foot diversion project, such as those Front Range utilities have discussed, risky. If warming steals 30 percent of the river’s flows, it would catapult the whole system into crisis, leaving Colorado with less water now than it has historically used, according to a new report by the Western Water Policy Center at the University of Colorado entitled “Rethinking the Future of the Colorado River.”

At the same time, the river is having difficulty keeping Lake Powell and Lake Mead at their historical levels. Lake Powell is the primary water bank for the upper basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. Water stored there ensures that even in dry years, the upper basin can meet its obligation to the lower basin—Arizona, Nevada and California. Since 1999, however, Lake Powell has dropped from 97 percent full to 53 percent full as of May 2011. And it is only due to balancing guidelines adopted by all seven basin states and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 2007 that Lake Mead’s levels are approaching the 50 percent-full mark. In an April 2011 press release, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said, “Drought conditions over the past 11 years had raised the possibil-ity of water shortages in the lower basin over the next year, but thanks to good precipitation, wise planning and strong collaboration among the states, we are able to release additional water and avert those shortages.” Reclamation’s plan, as of April, was to release an additional 3.3 million acre feet of water to Lake Mead from Lake Powell, which is expected to receive 159 percent of average inflow this year. According to Ted Kowalski, chief of the Colorado Water Conservation Board’s Interstate and Federal Section, the additional release planned from Lake Powell rose by another 1 million acre feet after April and May continued to yield remarkable precipitation. “It’s going to be a banner year, a recovery year,” says Kowalski. “It’s good news for now, but it could get dry again.”

Additional water development in Colorado could potentially put the state in a position where, on a regular basis, it is no longer able to meet its compact obligations—at least not without requir-ing some water users to discontinue diversions. That risk is being weighed against the alternative of forgoing the Colorado Basin as a source for new water, especially for the Front Range. Many state water officials and utility managers believe Colorado must fully

develop whatever may be left of its compact apportionment in the river to protect its water future. “The water users within the state of Colorado need to figure out how to develop that compact entitlement safely and reliably to maximize the beneficial use,” says Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District general manager Eric Wilkinson.

BRACiNG FOR A TiGHT WATER FuTuRESeveral major transmountain diversion projects have been

discussed during the past decade. Most of these are still simply plans on paper, with few firm water rights or legal water court decrees ready to go. These projects were analyzed for water yield and cost by the latest SWSI study. What’s known as the Flaming Gorge Pumpback would pipe Green River water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in northeastern Utah all the way across southern Wyoming to deliver it to the Front Range. Another competing proj-ect would take water from the Yampa River near Maybell and pipe it across northern Colorado, again for delivery to the Front Range. Still another project would pump water back from the Gunnison River Basin from Blue Mesa Reservoir.

Assuming one project was built to deliver roughly 250,000 acre feet of water—a figure some consider too high but others think is realistic—the price tag would run between $5 billion and $9 bil-lion, according to the SWSI study, roughly the cost to build one or two more Denver International Airports. How such a project would be financed isn’t clear yet, although the project’s beneficiaries would likely have to pay for it via increased water rates and taxes. And although none of these projects would develop water directly from the Colorado River mainstem, they would affect future in-basin water development by eating up much of what could still safely be developed under the terms of the compact.

The possibility that drought, climate change and the phenom-enon known as “dust on snow”—where dust-coated mountain snowpacks absorb heat and melt faster—may drastically reduce in-state flows weighs heavily on the minds of policy makers. “No one really knows how climate change will impact the basin,” says Taylor Hawes, director of The Nature Conservancy’s Colorado River Program. “The promising part is that it has gotten the people’s attention and the attention of policy makers, decision makers and leaders. Now there is an awareness that we need new ways of man-aging the river that reflect the fact that we may have less water and

The Colorado River looks modest as it flows through Kremmling, Colorado, but it supplies more water than any of the state’s other rivers.

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increasing demands. Our hope is that we can get ahead of the crisis and develop solutions for managing the river in an adaptive way.”

Dick Wolfe, Colorado State Engineer, is likely to be the admin-istrator who would be forced to rule on which water users are shut down if there were a curtailment where Colorado was legally required to use less water in order to meet downstream compact obligations. “You can imagine the complexities,” says Wolfe. He anticipates the rule-making process alone—which won’t start until the Colorado River Water Availability Study is completed sometime in 2011 or 2012—will take three years.

Water planners are also preparing for a potential curtailment by studying the creation of a West Slope water bank. West Slope irrigators with pre-1922 water rights could fallow a portion of their farms and store their unused water for use by West Slope or Front Range utilities if those utilities are forced to shut down. Farmers would be paid for their water and have the ability to use it again when the river’s flows were higher. “A water bank could act as broker, as a temporary exchange of water rights,” says Hawes. “Our hope is that we would have a year or two of warning so that we could fallow these rights in advance.”

BALANCiNG FuTuRE WATER SuPPLy NEEDSIf Colorado and its namesake river have never faced so many chal-lenges, never have so many people been working cooperatively to reshape how the river’s supplies are doled out. Jennifer Gimbel, executive director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, tracks almost every water study underway. “Now we have better information and better tools to analyze possibilities for the future than we ever have before,” she says. “And we have the Interbasin Compact Committee, where people are actually talking about this rather than ignoring it.”

The IBCC was established in 2005 to facilitate water supply discussions between Colorado’s eight major river basins and metro Denver area. The group is also being used as a sort of think tank to help Gimbel and the CWCB develop water policy. Currently, three of the nine gubernatorial appointees on the CWCB’s board of direc-tors are also part of the 27-member IBCC. The most recent CWCB board addition is none other than the man who conceived the IBCC in the first place, Russ George.

There is some consensus from the IBCC, Gimbel says, that any approach the state takes must look concurrently at conservation, re-use, non-permanent farm to city transfers, completion of exist-ing projects and new water development. But even as the IBCC and CWCB work to plot a strategic and agreeable path forward, individ-ual water providers continue moving to secure scarce water supplies.

Denver Water, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District and the Colorado River District, along with county govern-ments, irrigation districts and watershed groups, have been diligently working to resolve various disputes surrounding Colorado River Basin water, knowing that without definitive action in the next three to five years, shortages are possible. “We’ve been in negotiations with the West Slope for the past several years on an agreement that deals with a number of different issues, from Grand County to the Grand Junction area,” says Denver Water’s manager Jim Lochhead. The terms of the tentative Colorado River Cooperative Agreement benefit the West Slope by buffering streams during periods of low flows and supplementing its future water supply, but also pave the way for Denver to divert more from the headwaters during high flow periods.

While Denver Water awaits permits on a project that will take an additional 10,000 acre feet each year from the Fraser and Williams Fork rivers in the Colorado Basin—plus 5,000 acre feet annually via its other system on the Blue River—and deliver it through the

The wind-borne phenomenon known as “dust on snow,” shown here on Snowmass Mountain above the Roaring Fork River, causes snow to melt prematurely, before irrigators really need it. Captured runoff will suffer higher evaporative losses during a prolonged reservoir storage period. Many attribute the incoming dust to both climate change and the disturbance of desert soils associated with residential and industrial development throughout the burgeoning Southwest.

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Moffat Tunnel into Gross Reservoir in Boulder County, the Municipal Subdistrict of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District is doing the same for the Windy Gap Firming Project. That project would add an average of 30,000 acre feet—over 2003 conditions, when the permitting process began—to diversions from the headwaters of the Colorado each year. The water would be pumped up to Granby Reservoir and through the Adams Tunnel to a proposed, new reservoir called Chimney Hollow for cities such as Loveland and Broomfield.

Grand County manager Lurline Underbrink-Curran, who has spent more than 25 years negotiating thorny water issues with the large Front Range water providers who rely on the county’s rivers, says she is pleased with the level of cooperation Grand County is seeing from Northern and Denver Water. She believes that the two water providers’ current efforts to improve water quality and streamflows will determine how the West Slope will respond to any future efforts to develop more water out of the Colorado River.

Her colleagues on the Front Range understand this and appear committed to shifting the way they do business. Says Lochhead, “It’s a true partnership in terms of how we move responsibly into the future, how we deal responsibly with the environment and the economies of everyone we deal with.” Northern, looking for ways to win the federal permit for its Windy Gap project, is also actively negotiating with Grand County to improve water treatment and streamflows and to provide additional storage in Windy Gap for the Middle Park Water Conservancy District, which serves small com-munities in the Fraser and Williams Fork region of Grand County.

Windy Gap, coupled with future projects Northern Water hopes to do with water from the Cache la Poudre and the South Platte riv-ers, should take care of the district’s growing needs, Wilkinson says. “We don’t anticipate going to the Colorado River for more water. But we’re hoping the state will find ways to fully develop our compact entitlement. If that is not done, there is going to be a commensurate impact on irrigated agriculture, particularly in the South Platte Basin. For every acre foot of compact entitlement that we can develop, it will mean an acre foot that won’t come out of agriculture.”

Managers in the Colorado River Basin share a sense of urgency regarding future development of the river for their own needs. Growing communities, such as Grand Junction, are forecasting dramatic jumps in water demand during the next 35 years. Steve Ryken is assistant manager of the Ute Water Conservancy District and sits on the Colorado Basin Roundtable. Ute, which serves about 80,000 people in the Grand Valley, expects to need an additional 21,000 acre feet of water by 2045, up from the 15,000 acre feet it

currently uses. Ryken said his district has spent roughly $1 mil-lion during the past eight years laying the groundwork to expand a nearby reservoir. “There is no guarantee, given federal permitting requirements, that anything will ever get done,” Ryken says. So he is hopeful the state will move to protect whatever may be left of Colorado’s share of the river. If that entitlement isn’t developed, Ryken, like others, believes that agricultural water will continue to be purchased and transferred to municipal use.

The SWSI 2010 study indicates that statewide, Colorado could lose 15 to 20 percent of its irrigated farm land by 2050 due to urbanization and water transfers to supply municipal needs. The mainstem Colorado River Basin could lose as many as 77,000 acres, or 29 percent. With shrinking farm economies, the rural ranching culture that has historically shaped the West Slope will fade.

Hawes, like others, believes Colorado is on the verge of a series of major breakthroughs in water management that may serve as models for the rest of the region, but these breakthroughs will come at a cost. “We do believe we can manage the river to meet everyone’s needs, but we are not going to be able to support as much agri-culture,” she says. “We’re also probably going to lose some rivers.”

Some streams, for instance, like the Gila in New Mexico and Arizona, once flowed year round but are now only intermittent. Hawes believes this will occur more often with other streams as well, as population growth, climate change and drought continue to take their toll. “The question is, ‘Can we prioritize the places that are too important to lose? And are there agricultural areas that are too important to lose?’ The tradeoff on the municipal and industrial side is that we’re going to have to be more efficient and to be more careful about land-use decisions.”

Ultimately, she says, “We’re going to have to recognize that the river has limits.”

This is something that ranchers like Thompson have known for decades. If she could wave a magic wand, Thompson would advocate for minimum streamflows for the river that current water rights holders help support. Donating a portion of a valuable water right to protect the stream is a fairly radical idea in Colorado, where such minimums have typically come about only under pressure from the state or the U.S. Forest Service and which require expen-sive, complex water court cases to finalize.

But Thompson says it is time for everyone to sacrifice in order to protect the river for generations to come. “I think the river needs a minimum flow. In a drought, that’s tough. But everybody who has water rights should be willing to do something.” q

Each year, in an ancient ritual, the Colorado River Basin’s mountain watersheds graciously give up their melting snows to the river as it winds some 1,450 miles from its headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park to the Gulf of California. But while water managers along the river’s path consider increasing demands due to population growth, they’re also expecting the river’s bounty to shrink under the influence of prolonged drought and climate change.

As states and various interest groups stake out their positions, the health of the river itself suffers. “The overarching issues of the main river are often neglected because people are so up in arms protecting their own private Edens,” says Jonathan Waterman, who has traveled the river from its headwaters to its delta and written about it exten-sively for the National Geographic Society. “Meanwhile, no one seems to put much stock in the fact that the river no longer reaches the sea and hasn’t for more than 12 years. “

Under the 1922 Colorado River Compact, the seven states that comprise the basin must share its water. At the time the compact was signed, the river’s average annual flow was thought to be 17.5 million acre feet (maf). The three lower basin states—Nevada, Arizona and California—were allotted 7.5 maf per year, and the four upper basin states—Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico—expected to receive the same amount. The compact requires, however, that a flow condition be met at Lee Ferry in Arizona, the dividing line between the upper and lower basins—75 maf over a 10-year running average—resulting in the upper basin bearing the impact of shortage created under lower flow conditions.

In addition, the lower basin states received the option to develop an additional 1 maf, apparently accounting for the Gila River’s flows in the lower basin. And Mexico, by a treaty in 1944, was awarded 1.5 maf annually, an obligation currently shared equally by the upper and lower basin states, but which raises significant legal issues that remain unsettled.

Any excess, historically, has been stored by the upper basin in Lake Powell and by the lower basin in Lake Mead. But over the last decade there has been little excess, in part because the lower basin is consistently overusing its share by 1.5 maf each year, but also because the original allocation of the river was based on a decade of exceptional moisture. In fact today, based on ancient tree-ring studies, modern water measurement techniques and sophisticated weather forecasting, the river is believed to produce no more than 14.7 maf on average. Thanks to drought and climate change, that figure may continue to shrink.

The good news for Colorado, which, until recently, believed it had room under the compact to safely develop as much as a half million more acre feet, is that the harsh, exposed shorelines of Lake Powell and Lake Mead are forcing all seven famously combative states to try new arrangements. Some are starting to pay off.

In 2002, California signed an historic quantification agreement that reduced its use of the river from 5.2 maf to 4.4 maf. For decades, thanks to surpluses in the river, few ever thought California would agree to such a reduction. But growth in the other lower basin states and painful droughts helped push the parties to finalize the agreement.

Then, in 2007, with the help of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Department of the Interior, the basin states adopted a more flexible management regime for Powell and Mead, allowing the reservoirs to operate in tandem to ensure their storage levels are kept roughly equal. This reduces the likelihood of either basin hitting the low levels that could lead to a compact curtailment situation and allows the whole river system to both take advantage of good years and make water deliveries easier in dry years.

Another important new agreement was triggered in the spring of 2010 by a major earthquake in Mexicali, Mexico. The quake damaged a critical irrigation system, causing physical shortages in Mexico. For the first time, rather than taking its full share of the river’s flows each

The Larger BasinBound for the delta, through seven states and Mexico

By Jerd Smith

Glen Canyon’s sandstone walls, bleached to Lake Powell’s high-water line, are telltale reminders of the reservoir’s shrunken bounty.


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The 1922 Colorado River Compact divvies the river’s flow between the seven states that compose the upper and lower portions of the basin. The compact provides the three lower basin states with a mini-mum of 7.5 million acre feet annually on a 10-year running average by stipulating that the four states of the upper basin cannot cause the river’s flow to fall below that volume as it passes the official measur-ing point at Lee Ferry in Arizona. In theory, the upper basin is meant to receive the same amount. The 1948 Upper Colorado River Basin Compact further allocates the upper basin’s share according to the following percentages:

Colorado = 51.75%, Utah = 23%, Wyoming = 14%, New Mexico = 11.25%

Subject to interpretation of the compacts and other laws, as well as the amount of water available in the river, Colorado’s con-sumptive use rights for Colorado River water vary. The following calculation demonstrates how water available for consumptive use by the upper basin states in an average water year might translate

into water available to Colorado. (Colorado is currently consum-ing an average of 2.6 million acre feet annually, according to the Colorado Water Conservation Board.)

Acre feet per year Provisions

14,700,000Total average annual water production in the Upper Colorado River Basin

Minus 7,500,000Or the amount released to the lower basin annually under the current management strategy to assure the 10-year running average is met

Minus 750,000Release for Mexican Treaty purposes equal to one-half of the U.S. obligation (a disputed point)

Minus 50,000For portion of Arizona above upper/lower basin dividing point (above Lee Ferry)

= 6,400,000 Total Annual Average Available to Upper Basin

51.75 percent (3,312,000) Total Annual Average Available to Colorado

The Law of the River

year, Mexico agreed to a multi-year accounting program like the one that allows the upper basin states to meet their downstream obliga-tions over a 10-year running average. One year may be short, but as long as the multi-year average is maintained, Mexico cannot declare a shortage, or at least that’s the hope. In exchange, Mexico will be allowed to store up to 260,000 acre feet of unused water in reservoirs in the United States for later release.

Even as the states and Mexico race to find ways to make their short supplies stretch, conservationists worry about the river’s parched delta at the Gulf of California. In habitat that bears little resemblance to the soaked wetlands that were once the river’s last resting point before it reached the sea, endangered fish, subtropical songbirds and other spe-cies are just hanging on.

The work of groups such as The Nature Conservancy, the

Environmental Defense Fund and the Pacific Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank that closely tracks Colorado River issues, is beginning to shift the debate and, in some instances, the flow of water to the Delta. Such groups are buying water rights in Mexico to aid the stream. They are also pushing the U.S. and Mexican governments to find ways to purchase additional water rights and to re-operate some reservoirs to restore 50,000 to 60,000 acre feet in annual flows along with flushing flows—of about 260,000 acre feet every four or five years—to mimic the his-torical flooding that occurred before the river was dammed.

Waterman has seen the river’s distress first hand. “This is the most beautiful place in the river,” he says of the delta. Yet, “Here, there is a crisis of cultural and environmental proportions. We have denied the most iconic white water river in North America its exit to the sea.” q


Dendrites indicate the path of rising tides over the mudflats of the Colorado River’s delta at the Gulf of California, where the river no longer meets the sea.

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Watered-Down River

An interpretive sign overlooking the Colorado River near Windy Gap Reservoir heralds “The Mighty Colorado.” It’s a long-time moniker for the artery that drains nearly a quarter-million square miles through seven states before terminating at the Gulf of California in Mexico. Yet the vista below the sign is of a river that is dammed and diverted, harnessed and held back.

Last year, the Upper Colorado was designated one of America’s Most Endangered Rivers, earning the number-six spot on American Rivers’ 2010 list. Potential new water diversion projects could sap the life from the Upper Colorado, the conservation group noted, threatening already-challenged trout fisheries, boating and long-term sustainable water supply.

“We are currently at the point of an ecological collapse on por-tions of the upper part of the river,” says Ken Neubecker, execu-tive director of the Western Rivers Institute and past-president of Colorado Trout Unlimited. “We’re losing a tremendous resource here that’s going to be hard to get back.”

A survey of stonefly and fish populations on the Upper Colorado from 1980-2009 conducted by the Colorado Division of Wildlife confirms a basis for concern. The 2010 report notes the virtual disappearance of the large stonefly P. californica, which it refers to as “one of the single most important species of the Windy Gap Reach of the Colorado River,” in the six miles below Windy

Gap Dam. The mottled sculpin, another indicator species that is reliant on cobbles and riffles to reproduce, is also vanishing from stretches directly below dams in the Upper Colorado River. Loss of biodiversity in the river may have major ecological impacts for the future, especially if more water is removed from the Colorado via additional diversions, according to the report.

“At some point, if you’re losing a lot of water during runoff, you don’t have flushing flows, which can result in incremental degradation of the habitat quality,” says Barry Nehring, a biologist with the divi-sion’s Aquatic Wildlife Research Group and one of the report’s authors.

Back in 1890, water from the Colorado headwaters began flowing over La Poudre Pass via the hand-dug Grand Ditch, bringing water to farmers and settlers on the arid, eastern plains. More than a century later, 10 transbasin diversions move water from the state’s wettest basin—the Colorado River mainstem and its tributaries—to the drier South Platte and Arkansas river basins, where most of the state’s usage occurs. The reservoir at Windy Gap, built in 1985, is but one compo-

By Wendy Worrall Redal

Looking west across the 445 acre-foot Windy Gap Reservoir, which straddles the Colorado River.


nent in that eastward transportation process in which nearly two-thirds of the Colorado River headwaters in Grand and Summit counties is now diverted to the Front Range.

The ability to obtain pristine, mountain snowmelt is a tremendous asset to historic agricultural areas and growing cities, but Tim O’Keefe, education director for the Roaring Fork Conservancy, a watershed group based in Basalt, believes it can result in people seeing the river as nothing more than a system of buckets and pipes. “Just looking at a river and seeing that it’s clean, clear and relatively full-flowing does not necessarily mean it’s a healthy river,” says O’Keefe. Rather, it’s essential, he says, “to understand and appreciate the importance of fluctuations and flows in a river over the course of a year or even a day.”

A drive along the Colorado River Headwaters Scenic Byway between Granby and Kremmling offers a case in point. In this iconic western landscape, a blue ribbon of river snakes through tawny gorges and sage-dotted hills, its banks edged with green willows and cotton-woods. You’ll almost certainly see some fly fishermen, as this is designated Gold Medal trout country. By all appearances, the river and its environs look healthy enough. But looks can be deceiving.

With so much water taken out of the headwaters, the temperature in this stretch regularly exceeds state-designated levels necessary to protect trout health. Shallow flows, sun-warmed rocks and less oxygen in the water cause stress that can be lethal to insects and detrimental to the fish that feed upon them. “If the base of the food chain, in this case the insects, disappears, the fish that eat them will soon follow,” says Neubecker. “They’ll either die off themselves or migrate out of the area in search of food.”

Nehring’s research group has been monitoring stonefly populations on the Colorado River below Windy Gap since 1980, before construction of Windy Gap Reservoir began. The big flies, a favored food of trout, were abundant in the early 1980s at a monitoring site about two miles below the present dam. “We have a very good baseline of what was there then,” says Nehring. “Now there are hardly any there at all.”

Nehring and other researchers think alterations in the river’s flows are likely to blame. Windy Gap’s original permit required minimum bypass flows ranging from 90 to 150 cubic feet per second (cfs) be maintained below the dam with flushing flows of 450 cfs once every three years, but, based on data the Colorado Division of Wildlife has collected, those minimums may not have been enough—not that Windy Gap is the only project diverting water in the region.

Not only are historical flow levels down—by 65 percent, according to U.S. Geological Survey data, at Kremmling, where the last of the upper headwaters tributaries, the Blue, joins the Colorado—but the whole flow regime has been altered.

PEAK FLOWS MATTERThe Colorado River’s natural hydrograph was dynamic. Fed by melt-ing snowpack, the river roared down the West Slope in late spring, topping its banks into the meadows that line its course, flushing its bed and moving sediment downstream while rejuvenating the riparian zone. By late summer, flows would be low and the river would mean-

der into new channels, establishing more riparian vegetation. When spring floodwaters are diverted and dams regulate flows, the

river’s seasonal fluctuations become less pronounced. In extreme cases, on certain river reaches, the river’s hydrograph, or charted rise and fall, can become nearly flat. With high water no longer spilling over the river’s banks, the protected pools and eddies that nurture small fish fry and insects vanish. Another casualty may be cottonwoods, the classic marker of a West Slope riparian zone. Normally, peak flows support a finely synchronized process in which flooding and the germination of new cottonwoods go hand in hand, especially on the lower river.

Again, appearances can be deceiving. “While you may look at what seems to be a healthy, dense grove of cottonwoods, you get into it and don’t see any young trees,” says John Sanderson, a biologist and co-director of The Nature Conservancy of Colorado’s Center for Conservation Science and Strategy. “Where are we going to be in 40 or 50 years when all those trees have died?”

According to Dee Malone, an ecolo-gist with the Colorado Natural Heritage Program who conducts habitat assess-ments in the Roaring Fork watershed, an important feeder to the Colorado, cottonwoods provide a multitude of functions. They hold onto riverbanks, prevent erosion and stave off aggressive non-native vegetation such as tamarisk and Russian olive. They also provide homes for mammals and birds.

When rivers don’t overbank and riparian areas don’t form, the river also loses its own flood control sys-tem. “Riparian areas act like a huge sponge that soaks up excess water,” says Malone. Not only does this mitigate floods, but the water that is absorbed slowly percolates back into the river, supplying late-summer flows for agri-culture and recreation.

Sanderson further explains that the flushing of sediment by high water vol-umes keeps the river open to carry big flows and reduce flooding. “If you limit those flows, over time you get more sediment deposition, more vegetation filling the channel, and the channel becomes smaller.” That smaller channel is more likely to flood.

Sanderson says the probability of flooding this year is high, given that Granby Reservoir, upstream of Windy Gap, is expected to spill for the first time in 11 years thanks to this year’s exceptional snowpack. The spill could have positive ecological effects, he says, if reservoir operators coordinate their releases during the big spring flows for greater impact. Fortunately, such coordination is already happening.

As part of the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program, a group called CROS, short for Coordinated Reservoir Operations, works to enhance the river’s peak flows. These operators are already required to release a certain amount of water for endan-gered fish downstream under an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and can create even bigger flushing flows by work-ing together rather than independently. Such complementary releases could help achieve the USFWS goal of running 23,500 cfs through part of the fishes’ critical habitat near Grand Junction in June once every fourth year. That kind of flow will go a long way toward improv-ing the river’s overall ecology, says Sanderson.

CROS has successfully coordinated peaks topping 23,500 cfs in

Avid fly fisherman Ken Neubecker, director of the Western Rivers Institute, prepares to cast a well-trained line into the Colorado River below its confluence with the Roaring Fork.

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1997, the group’s first year, and again in 2008 and 2010, but they release water to augment lesser peaks much more often than that. This year, CROS does not plan to contribute any additional water to the peak as the USFWS pre-dicts a 50 percent chance that the river on its own will reach 36,000 cfs, well above the 25,400 cfs that is considered flood level at Grand Junction.

POTENTiAL FLOW REDuCTiONSThe challenge of supplying sufficient peak flows will be compounded if two new diversion proposals currently in the permitting process are approved. While some 65 percent of the Upper Colorado’s historical flows are now diverted to the Front Range, that fig-ure could jump to 80 percent by 2030 with the Moffat Collection System and Windy Gap firming projects fully in place. Respective projects of Denver Water and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, both are designed to improve the reliability of diversions, via existing projects, by building or expanding storage reservoirs on the East Slope. While both entities already hold the necessary water rights, their proposed actions would increase the volume of water currently diverted and reduce flows during peak runoff season and therefore need a number of state and federal permits and approvals to proceed.

Under state law, the Colorado Wildlife Commission is asked to review plans to mitigate impacts to fish and wildlife developed by proponents of new water projects that require a federal permit. While Northern and Denver Water have proposed mitigation plans, some fear they will be inadequate to compensate for the new diversions. The current proposals, for example, “are offering a flushing flow of up to 600 cfs, but there has been a lot more in the river than that, and sedimentation is still a problem,” says Fritz Holleman, a water attorney representing ranchers in the Upper Colorado watershed.

The flushing flows are an issue, acknowledges Windy Gap Firming Project’s project manager Jeff Drager, that has been repeat-edly raised at public hearings held by the commission. But, he points out that 600 cfs is the flow the Grand County Streamflow Management Plan recommended and would be an improvement over flushing flows required under the original Windy Gap Dam’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which stipulated that 450 cfs be maintained for a period of 50 hours once every three years.

Holleman and others argue, on a more fundamental level, that the data used to estimate the river’s baseline flows, and therefore determine appropriate mitigation, was flawed. Drager, however, believes such arguments are based on the expectation that the EIS examine historical river conditions—as in, what existed prior to today’s diversions—as a baseline. But, while the EIS compares three different conditions to help the federal agencies make their deci-sions, historical flows are not one of them. Rather, the two agencies currently involved, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, consider how the proposed action will affect existing conditions on the river today and require mitigation to offset those impacts.

Going beyond that, to improve the river beyond existing condi-

tions, is not required under the National Environmental Policy Act, which gov-erns the federal permitting process. Such improvement is, however, the goal of voluntary, cooperative enhancement plans that have been submitted by both project proponents, which attempt to address concerns about the river’s cur-rent health status. “Our goal is that if we build the projects and follow through with mitigation and the enhancements, conditions in the river will be better than they are today,” says Drager.

The final EIS for each project is expected this summer, at which point the public will have opportunity to pro-vide further input.

TOWARD A HEALTHy RivERIn the meantime, a range of local efforts are underway to rejuvenate the health of the Colorado and its tributaries. The Grand County Water Information Network, established in 2004, has developed a system of monitors to test water quality and temperature and supplies data to Grand County water stakeholders and the public to inform decision-making. Both Denver Water

and Northern Water help finance the network’s efforts as part of their ongoing work to keep tabs on what is happening in the eco-systems they divert from.

GCWIN director Jane Tollett says that while her organization is concerned with water quality, quantity matters, too. “There is a need to add in other efforts to provide water for the environment in the headwaters. The Grand County Streamflow Management Plan is being used to inform some of the conversations and to determine what segments could be helped with more water.”

The Roaring Fork Conservancy, which also does extensive monitoring, is completing a watershed planning effort, says Sharon Clarke, the organization’s land and water conservation specialist. The plan, sponsored by the Ruedi Water and Power Authority, calls for urgent action on several items, including the addition of environmental and recreational needs in water availability studies, quantifying site-specific nonconsumptive flow needs, and restoring crucial riparian areas through invasive species removal and stream channel restoration.

The Eagle River Watershed Council likewise is monitoring water quality and fish and insect health in its region and beginning to restore sections of rivers and creeks such as a 1.6-mile stretch of the Eagle as it flows through Edwards. Melissa Macdonald, executive director of the Eagle River group, says they will turn their attention to the Colorado mainstem in August with an inventory and assess-ment of the river in Eagle County. They will examine water qual-ity, quantity, wildlife, riparian values and recreation aspects, with stakeholder input, to form action plans to protect the river’s health. The group is currently seeking grants to fund the project from Eagle County, the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the “Save the Colorado River” campaign.

The Colorado Basin Roundtable has also performed an exten-sive assessment of similar environmental water needs throughout the entire river basin. Phase I of this nonconsumptive needs study included a comprehensive stakeholder-driven mapping effort of environmental and recreational focus areas. It identified 65 sites

Melissa Macdonald shows off a stretch of the Eagle River near Edwards that was recently restored by the group she directs, the Eagle River Watershed Council.

Kevin

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“Colorado is My Place...”

“ Growing up with Colorado’s wild rivers and mountains was a major influence on who I am. When things get intense, I draw on my experiences in nature to recharge, get inspired and reconnect with my roots. I applaud The Nature Conservancy for its work to ensure that my children will also be able to experience our state’s awesome natural legacy.”

-Johnny Spillane, triple Olympic medalist and World Champion Nordic skier

© Jim Steinberg Photography

What if everyone took responsibility for one small piece of the planet? Now you can. Join Johnny and others in supporting The Nature Conservancy’s Colorado River Project by visiting nature.org/mycolorado. Together we can make a difference.

where additional flows are warranted. Many of these sites are in the headwaters and Roaring Fork watersheds, both regions with extensive existing diversions.

Figuring out exactly how much water to leave in the river is a challenge. “We don’t know what the breakpoints are in terms of flows,” says Clarke. Trying to factor in enough water for climatic vari-

ability and predictions of more intense drought makes it difficult for stakeholders to even start talking, let alone reach consensus, she says.

The river itself is also a stakeholder. “We have to recognize what the river needs as a river,” says Neubecker. “We must incorporate the biology into our management as much as the engineering. We have to treat the river as more than a conduit to deliver water.” q

Windy Gap, an on-channel reservoir formed by a dam that crosses the mainstem of the Colorado River just below its confluence with the Fraser River, is required to maintain a minimum river flow of 90 cfs between the dam and the river’s confluence with the Williams Fork. The required minimum stream-flow rises to 135 and 150 cfs between there and the confluences with Troublesome Creek and the Blue River respectively. By contrast, the project can divert up to 600 cfs and discharge, via the 345-foot-long spillway shown here, up to 23,000 cfs.

Jeff

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CWCD

Beneath skyscraping walls of sandstone and lime-stone, the Colorado River bubbles and bursts through Glenwood Canyon as it leaves the Rockies and heads toward the desert. The 12.5-mile stretch is punctuated by Shoshone Rapids, a whitewater obstacle course of standing waves and drops with names like “Maneater,” “Pinball” and “The Wall.” Through much of the summer and early fall, Shoshone’s intermediate Class III rapids are packed with commercial float trips and individual paddlers, making the run second only to the booming Arkansas River in terms of boating popularity in Colorado. According to the Colorado River Outfitters Association, commercial trips in Glenwood Canyon equaled nearly 62,000 user days and brought in $18.2 million in 2010.

Shoshone’s popularity is buoyed by the easy access

along Interstate 70. The highway sinuously curves through Glenwood Canyon, although its design—and the crushing sound of the rapids—hides the elevated roadways from many vantages along the river. Another reason so many are drawn to this stretch of river is that flows are dependable.

“We’re really lucky in our area that we always have at least a steady flow,” says Susi Larson of Whitewater Rafting, a Glenwood Springs company first started by Larson’s father in 1974. “The low water season is actually our busiest season, and we definitely need the water we have. We couldn’t do with less.”

Regardless of drought or seasonal river fluctuations, the run is sandwiched between two senior water rights holders—the Shoshone hydroelectric dam and power plant, just upstream, and downstream Grand Valley irrigators—which basically guarantees that at least 1,250 cubic feet per second of water

Joy Ride Beauty sets the stage for an economy based on outdoor play, water fuels the fun

By Joshua Zaffos


© iS

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.com

rush through the reach. The convenient arrangement for boaters and outfitters

is also the crux of the tenuous position of river recreation: Rafting, fishing, and other riverside leisure often occur as a fortuitous benefit of other water uses. Tailwater fisheries below reservoirs provide some of the best fishing in the state, and many boating runs thrive as side effects of flow alloca-tions for agriculture and other downstream legal obligations.

Communities and businesses in the Colorado’s mainstem basin, from Grand County to Grand Junction, are fully aware that their economies also ride the flows and would likely run aground without river recreation. Commercial boat trips along the Colorado River mainstem in the state contributed more than $33.6 million in total economic ben-efits in 2010, not to mention the effects of private paddling excursions and fishing activity. And that says nothing about the state’s $2 billion ski industry, much of it concentrated along the mainstem and its tributaries, which counts on river flows and reservoir storage for snowmaking.

The basin’s rivers also contribute to the region’s overall scenery, attracting visitors for other forms of pleasure seek-ing, such as riding a bike or driving a car through a river valley, says Ken Ransford, a Carbondale tax attorney and

kayaker who participates as a recreational representative on the Colorado Basin Roundtable. And, he adds, “Tourism—hunting, skiing, fishing, backpacking, rafting—is really a big part of western Colorado’s economy.”

LuRiNG viSiTORSThe Roaring Fork Valley, which feeds into the Colorado just downstream of Glenwood Canyon, has the state’s longest stretch of Gold Medal trout-fishing waters: 42 continuous miles on the Fryingpan and Roaring Fork rivers. Downstream of Ruedi Reservoir, the tailwater fishery on the Fryingpan is known for its hefty-sized trout, which attract plenty of anglers. A 2002 economic study completed by the Roaring Fork Conservancy tallied more than 34,000 angler user days, including permitted, guided trips, on the lower reach of the Fryingpan in one year, and the report estimates fishing there brings in $4 million annually.

“It really shows the direct value of fishing to the economy,” says Will Sands, guide and manager at Taylor Creek Fly Shop in Basalt. “Fly fishing in our valley is a very significant economic stimulator for the towns and communities.”

Upstream reaches of the Colorado River in Grand, Summit and Eagle counties hold their own in terms of fishing appeal and



economic importance, and a number of local fly shops and guide services do brisk business on the Upper Colorado and tributary streams, such as the Blue and Fraser rivers.

Of course, it’s the ski industry that paces the economy of the Upper Colorado counties. A 2001 Colorado State University report found that 25 percent of Summit County’s total income comes from ski tourism, and 37 percent of the county’s jobs are related to skiing. “It’s very clear the ski areas are the economic driver of both Summit and Eagle counties,” says Tom Allender, director of resort planning for Vail and Beaver Creek ski areas.

Skier turnout might fluctuate based on daily snow reports, but the ski areas depend on the annual flows of the Colorado and its tributaries to operate. “We rely completely on our water rights for snowmaking,” Allender says. Like most other ski areas, Vail Resorts stores a multi-year supply of water in several reservoirs to protect against drought and ensure it can make snow during dry winter periods.

PROTECTiNG A FLOuRiSHiNG iNDuSTRyTom Kleinschnitz grew up outside of Denver, and he drew his first paycheck as a raft guide for Adventure Bound River Expeditions forty years ago. “I knew from the first moment I jumped on the water in June of ’71 that it was going to be incredibly important in my life,” Kleinschnitz recalls. Fifteen years later, he bought the Grand Junction-based rafting company, which guides trips through the tran-quil waters of Ruby and Horsethief Canyons and the wild rapids of Westwater Canyon on the Colorado near the state border with Utah. Since then, he has watched business flourish as people’s appreciation

for the environment and outdoor experiences has swelled. A majority of his clients now come from out of state, and

Kleinschnitz partly attributes this to the boating industry’s suc-cess. He figures that former seasonal guides and past clients get hooked on boating, and they are among numerous boaters who have settled down locally or on the Front Range and now organize their own floats. “From when I bought the company 25 years ago, the state population has gone up quite a bit, and a lot of the reason people come to this area to live is simply because of all the won-derful opportunities, and not only rafting,” says Kleinschnitz, who recently served for three years on the Colorado Tourism Office’s board of directors.

The commercial boating season through Westwater Canyon lasts from April through September. However, Kleinschnitz says local boaters hit the rapids year round. Like the Shoshone run, the flows aren’t entirely natural: Westwater is downstream of the Colorado’s confluence with the Gunnison River, which adds stable flows from the Aspinall Unit of dams, including Blue Mesa Reservoir, in order to help endangered fish downstream. It’s another case of recreation on the Colorado inadvertently benefiting from a separate legal priority for water.

Kleinschnitz and others recognize it’s a precarious situation given the water-development interests for the Colorado River Basin from Front Range communities and the oil shale industry, not to mention the looming threats of downstream calls through the seven-state Colorado River Compact and climate change impacts.

Some communities have sought to protect flows through rec-

Along the Colorado River, farmers in the Grand Valley hold senior water rights, ensuring they will get their legal shares to use, or consume, water for their fields and pastures. Relatively junior rights for instream flows and recreational in-channel diversions (RICDs) can maintain river flows to uphold recreational and envi-ronmental purposes, although typically such nonconsumptive uses must rely on whatever water passes downstream— someone else’s eventual consumptive flows—rather than legal protections. Still, because RICDs and instream flow rights can serve to protect existing flows from future changes, the question is whether more of these decrees are necessary to maintain a variety of noncon-sumptive values.

A subcommittee of the Colorado Basin Roundtable has been study-ing regional nonconsumptive needs and trying to determine how future water development could affect the river’s ecological health and recreational economy. Subcommittee members worked with consul-tants and scientists from Colorado State University and The Nature Conservancy to develop the Watershed Flow Evaluation Tool. The tool will be used to model how changes to flows could impact aquatic and riparian environments and recreational river use as part of a $315,000 project, funded through Water Supply Reserve Account grant funds. The Yampa/White/Green Basin Roundtable is also utilizing the tool for the same purposes.

“It’s a tool that could really change the way we, in Colorado, look at how water is used for nonconsumptive needs and recreation,” says Lane Wyatt, a subcommittee member who works for the water quality and quantity committee of the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments. “And like anything that’s new and different, it’s con-troversial because it’s trying to put numbers on this and people get nervous about numbers.”

While the tool itself calculates the range of environmental risk

linked to flow, pointing to stream segments in need of a closer look, it is no substitute for site-specific flow evaluations. Initially, some stakeholders, including Front Range water interests, questioned the tool’s application, not only because of its inability to measure site-specific conditions, but because they wondered how results would be applied to management scenarios, says Mark Pifher, director of Aurora Water. After all, the optimal flows for boating recreation along one reach can differ from ideal environmental conditions in another, and protecting nonconsumptive flows might interfere with development of the state’s last, unused share of water from the Colorado River. Open discussions among the different parties and subsequent changes to the program have alleviated many of those concerns and garnered wide support. After a few pilot projects, the tool may be deployed this summer.

Site-specific quantification, completed from Kremmling to Glenwood Canyon, was also supported by the WSRA-funded study. The data has helped with calibration of the Watershed Flow Evaluation Tool for accuracy and could also inform measurements of peak flows needed to flush sediment, generate new cottonwood stands and cre-ate fish habitat. The site-specific data is also serving as the basis for recommending a minimum instream flow right, on approximately 70 miles of the river, to the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the state agency authorized to hold such water rights for flows to be left in the stream. Just under 58 miles of streams are currently protected by instream flow rights in the mainstem Colorado River Basin.

Colorado River Basin water users, such as Grand Valley agricultural interests, and Front Range entities including Aurora Water are backing the tool and its purpose. Roundtable members realize the noncon-sumptive needs assessment isn’t going to take away water rights, Wyatt says, but could help preserve Western Slope values and the regional economy built around hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation. q

How Much Water for the Streams?By Joshua Zaffos



Protecting Western Colorado Water Since 1937

reational in-channel diversions (RICDs) and instream flow water rights, both relatively junior in priority but crucial to protecting flows against upstream changes of water rights. RICDs can protect a minimum streamflow in a whitewater park while instream flow rights can do the same for a popular fishing run. Both must be approved by the district water court.

In late 2010, Grand County applied for a RICD on the Colorado River to stake out rights for two whitewater parks, and Carbondale and Pitkin County have pending applications for RICD decrees on the Roaring Fork. However, Glenwood Springs’ new whitewater park has no legal protection against extreme low flows; the city abandoned its effort to secure an RICD in 2009, citing cost issues for legal and technical studies.

The RICDs represent a step toward recognizing the beneficial use of river recreation. But so far, discussions on how to develop the state’s unused share of the Colorado River, based on the terms of the Colorado River Compact, have not sufficiently valued recre-ational use and environmental needs, according to Ransford.

Ransford remains hopeful that the Interbasin Compact Committee can meet its original intent to facilitate cooperative agreements between different users and regions in the state and protect the Colorado River’s remaining range of flows in order to support both recreation and the environment. “It’s hard when you compare rafting and fly fishing with big industries [like agriculture and energy] in Colorado,” Ransford says, “They may pale in com-parison statewide, but what you really need to look at is the impact on local economies here.” q

Tom Kleinschnitz has owned Adventure Bound River Expeditions in Grand Junction since 1986. He attributes part of the state’s rapid population growth to its recreational draw.

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Nolan Doesken, Colorado’s State Climatologist, proclaims the weather like a prophet the scriptures or a farmer the rain cloud. He stands tall at a podium, black moustache and lanky arms. At the most recent Colorado Water Congress Aspinall Award program, his colorful talk highlight-ed how extraordinary it is that Colorado “for the first time ever” had achieved its third-in-a-row average water year.

For Colorado, an average year is 17 inch-es of precipitation averaged from weather station data statewide. John Wesley Powell told us in his 1878 Arid Lands Report that any place with less than 20 inches per year requires irrigation to grow crops and reser-voirs to manage floods and drought.

The Climate Center Nolan heads at Colorado State University is responsible for monitoring climatic conditions across Colorado. The agricultural, municipal and recreational economy of the state depends upon the careful conservation and use of an often scarce water supply. Farmers and water utility managers, drought and flood

response planners, rafting companies and engineers who testify in water court about water availability and crop water consump-tion all depend upon the data and reports Nolan and his colleagues faithfully prepare and make available to the public.

When I hear him speak and learn about his life, I am reminded of the Scripture, “I am poured out like water” (Psalm 14). Nolan grew up in a rural area of central Illinois, his father a Lutheran preacher and his mother a seventh grade geography and English teacher. He recalls, at five years of age, running out the door at a thunder-storm’s clap to see the clouds boil up. The gift he most liked giving his father in those

years? A rain gauge.“In high school I was good at math and

history but didn’t like it much and wasn’t thrilled with education.” Nolan says his English teacher, Mrs. Curry, pushed him into writing. “She had me write about the weather and big storms, because she could tell those topics stirred me.”

He entered the University of Michigan’s engineering school and took all the meteo-rology and oceanography courses he could find. Returning closer to home, he explored atmospheric science at the University of Illinois for his master’s degree.

Ask Nolan why he loves so much what he gets to do. His answer: “The atmosphere in motion, the tilt of the axis of the earth, its progress around the sun, the marvels of the seasons, the solar forces of the sea, the drum-beat of nature, all that energy, it’s so beautiful.”

In this we hear the voices of his preacher father and his teacher mother. We can also hear the Old Testament poets: “Lord, I have loved the habitation of your house, and the place where your glory dwells” (Psalm 26).

How fortunate and fortuitous are we to have him in Colorado? He spotted a thumb-tacked job announcement on his grad school’s bulletin board. The assistant

2011 President’s Award& Emerging Leader Award

The Colorado Foundation for Water Education is proud to

honor Nolan Doesken with its 2011 President’s Award in

recognition of his work to advance the understanding of

how climate shapes Colorado’s land, wildlife, people and,

especially, its water. The award pays tribute to those who

demonstrate steadfast commitment to water resources edu-

cation and embody the Foundation’s mission. CFWE has also

bestowed its 2011 Emerging Leader Award upon Hannah

Holm to honor her work in promoting better understanding

of water resources and issues in the Colorado River Basin.

These awards were presented during CFWE’s annual fund-

raising reception held at the National Center for Atmospheric

Research in Boulder on April 8.

Nolan DoeskenPresident’s Award Honoree

By Justice Greg Hobbs

Colorado Foundation for Water Education


state climatologist for Colorado had taken a better paying job in Canada. “This is what I’d been waiting for!”

Nolan came to work as assistant to State Climatologist Tom McKee at Colorado State University. It was the drought year of 1977. “My job was to collect the data from 200 weather stations around the state and plot the figures on a map.” Plotting the maps then took him into the field, to such places as the potato research center at Center, on the bor-der of Saguache and Rio Grande counties, and the Gunnison Valley’s weather station.

“McKee said, ‘Go visit and listen, don’t say much. Especially don’t say ‘drought.’” The cautionary lesson sticks. Named State Climatologist in 2006, Nolan peppers his enthusiastic talks across the state with care-fully arrayed statistics and graphs that paint a picture of Colorado’s climate. “I’m not much of a futurist,” he says, “I consider myself an historian, and I think religion and climate are pretty much interrelated. Like the Anazasi.”

What most amazes him? “The physical properties of water: Liquid, solid and gas can co-exist at the same time. The ocean currents move huge amounts of energy across the globe. I like wild asparagus along the ditch banks.”

He and his wife, Kathy, a soils scientist,

have a place with a big garden outside of Fort Collins and two grown children. “She’s got me looking at the ground—whether it’s healthy with microbes—and community-based food.” They irrigate off the 1862 Pleasant Valley Lake and Canal Company where Nolan serves as vice president. They’re at the end of their lateral, “where you know what the value of water is. Every inch counts. It’s a civics lesson.”

Nolan recently led the American Association of State Climatologists as its president from 2008 to 2010. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has honored him with its Environmental Hero award for creating a nationwide amateur precipitation monitoring program. Known as CoCoRaHS (Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network), the program orga-nizes more than 15,000 volunteers nation-ally—1,000 in Colorado—to gather climate data that could make a difference in people’s lives. Nolan began this project after an ill-detected storm in Fort Collins caused a dev-astating flood in 1997, killing five people.

He also publishes a bi-monthly newslet-ter, “The Catch,” on the Web and gener-ously credits his staff for the meticulous work needed to keep up with a rapt and growing audience that includes farmers,

rafters, water managers, scientists, teach-ers, and student “backyard and down-the-creek” weather watchers.

Nolan mourns the loss of Odie Bliss who worked with him at the Climate Center for thirty years before her unexpected illness and death in 2008. “She didn’t want the credit or the visibility, but she personified ‘climate service’ as she helped thousands of individuals and organizations find and use the climate information they needed.”

For the 2012 year of water celebration throughout Colorado, Nolan would like to see a rain gauge in every school yard. Rain, hail and snow data from each location will be mapped daily and made immediately available to the public. “Historically, we’ve had somewhere between 200 and 300 data points each day to observe and map the vagaries of Colorado precipitation, but as a part of Water 2012 this may grow to between 2,000 and 3,000 points, allowing for a much more elegant and accurate view of our climate in action.” The schools will also be able to use the data to compare their local climate and precipitation resources with previous years and with other parts of the state, the country and the world.

Nolan is still a kid at heart, as big as the sky dreaming. q

2011 President’s Award& Emerging Leader Award

Hannah Holm, coordinator of the Mesa County Water Association, organizes water education activities in Colorado’s Grand Valley. “Taking over the role of the legendary Ruth Hutchins was no easy task,” says Greg Trainor, utility director for the city of Grand Junction. “We had only a couple of months worth of association funds to pay Hannah when she started in 2008, but she took it on and she’s been highly persistent ever since.”

In service of public outreach, Hannah ranges that great stretch of country from Grand Mesa to the Book Cliffs and Palisade to the Colorado National Monument. She currently spearheads forma-tion of the Water Center at Mesa State College, co-facilitates the lower Gunnison Wild and Scenic River discussions as a consul-tant, writes a monthly e-newsletter, and arranges water courses and tours for citizens.

Many new subdivisions have sprung up in the Grand Valley in the past two decades. Homeowners typically water their land-scapes from irrigation canals and receive their drinking water from one of four area water utilities. Hannah has helped bring together residents, water managers, water efficiency experts, and local, state

and federal agencies in her additional role as facilitator for the Wise Water Use Council.

“She helped us get irrigation standards in place with develop-ers. She’s even-handed and understands policy and people issues,” Trainor observes. “She’s a self-starter.”

Hannah grew up in a farming family south of Olympia, Washington. She graduated from Macalester College in Minnesota, with a dual major in anthropology and international studies. She then got a joint master’s degree in community and regional plan-ning and Latin American studies from the University of Texas in Austin. She and her husband, David Collins, who is a professor at Mesa State, have two young children.

Hannah previously worked on air quality, water quality and floodplain legislation for the North Carolina Legislature and then job training programs for the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After a time with the Western Colorado Congress, where she gained respect in the environmental community, she helped revive the nonprofit Mesa County Water Association by gaining funding support from businesses like Grand Junction Pipe, EnCana, Chevron, Xcel Energy and Williams Energy. The Colorado River District has also been an important working partner and financial supporter.

“Water is the lifeblood of our community!” says the persistent Hannah, same as the peppery Ruth before her. q

Hannah HolmEmerging Leader Award Honoreeby Justice Greg Hobbs

1580 Logan St., Suite 410 • Denver, CO 80203

NONPROFIT ORGU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDDENVER, CO

PERmIT NO 178

Water 2012 is an innovative initiative to engage Coloradans statewide in a celebration of water—past, present, and future! The year is a milestone for Colorado’s water as the anniversary of several water districts and the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Led by CFWE, a coalition of more than 200 diverse partners is busy planning Water 2012 to reach the following goals:

• Raise awareness about water as a valuable and limited resource• Increase support for management and protection of Colorado’s water resources

and waterways• Showcase exemplary models of cooperation and collaboration among Colorado

water users• Connect Coloradans to existing and new opportunities to learn about water• Motivate Coloradans to become proactive participants in Colorado’s water future

Whether you have background in media, youth programs, fine arts or public institutions, everyone with an interest in celebrating Colorado water is invited to participate! Partners are needed to support events and activities in every corner of the state. To get involved, contact Water 2012 coordinator Wendy Newman at [email protected]. Visit cfwe.org/2012 for more information.

Water 2012

Headwaters Summer 2011: The Mighty Colorado

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Transcript of Headwaters Summer 2011: The Mighty Colorado