Blue Mesa is threatened by a two-decade-long drought and downstream obligations

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July 18, 2022

Blue Mesa Reservoir September 2021. Maltarich/KBUT — *Blue Mesa Reservoir September 2021. Stephanie Maltarich/KBUT*

By Stephanie Maltarich

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The reservoir provides recreation like boating and fishing, powers thousands of homes through hydroelectricity and stores water for Lake Powell and other downstream users. The reservoir is critically low, and it’s possible water levels may be lowered even further in 2022.

Blue Mesa Reservoir once resembled a deep and healthy lake. But a 22-year drought, coupled with obligations to release water to downstream users, has left the reservoir 69-feet below the normal high watermark. Experts say it will take a lot more than one snowy winter to refill the reservoir.

The Gunnison River flows for about 25 miles before it becomes Blue Mesa Reservoir; which stores water, creates power and provides recreation opportunities like fishing and boating.

*Blue Mesa Power Plant supervisor Eric Langley. Maltarich/KBUT*

Erik Knight, a hydrologist with the Bureau of Reclamation, says the reservoir has seen better days.

“Blue Mesa has reached some of its lowest levels on record last year with those emergency releases last year for the drought response operation,” said Knight.

The emergency releases last fall from Blue Mesa dramatically reduced its levels, but kept Lake Powell’s hydroelectric power plant generating. This spring, the reservoir sits at about one-third of what’s called “full pool”, or full capacity. And, it’s estimated that it won’t fill more than halfway by summer’s end.

Knight explains the reservoir is one piece of The Aspinall Unit. The series of dams are named after Wayne Aspinall, a Colorado congressional representative who worked on western land and water issues.

“The Aspinall Unit is comprised of three dams and reservoirs,” said Knight. “We’ve got Blue Mesa Reservoir, that’s the largest one and the furthest upstream and stores the most amount of water.”

Just downstream from Blue Mesa are the other two dams: Morrow Point and Crystal. While storing water is the main function, the reservoirs in the Aspinall Unit also contribute to the grid that supplies power for about 40 million people.

The Blue Mesa Power Plant started generating electricity in 1967. Eric Langley is the plant supervisor.

“Basically these units are ran remotely, out of Page, Arizona,” said Langley. “We’re just basically here doing the maintenance on and making sure that they’re gonna run day to day.”

In the basement of the facility, Langley explained how the facility turns water to power. First, it flows through the dam into the facility through large pressurized pipes called penstocks. Then water spins through turbines creating a magnetic field that puts power onto the grid.

“That’s in a nutshell, there’s a lot more to that, obviously,” Langley said.

The water then flows through Morrow Point and Crystal before joining the Colorado River near Grand Junction. Three similar reservoirs in Wyoming, Utah and Arizona create the entire Colorado River Storage Project.

*Inside the Blue Mesa Power Plant. Maltarich/KBUT*

At the opposite end of Blue Mesa, Nicky Gibney, the aquatic ecologist for Curecanti National Recreation Area and Black Canyon National Park, explained how Blue Mesa’s landscape has changed over the years.

“We call this over here ‘sometimes island’ because right now we’re standing on a peninsula,” said Gibney. “When the water is at full pool, that is actually an island over there, and it seems very far away from being an island right now.”

The park manages activities in and around the reservoir, and keeping the waters accessible to visitors is one of the park’s top priorities. But Gibney said it’s becoming more difficult with low water levels.

“I think we are struggling with how to do that because everything is just unknown right now and that’s a new territory for all of us,” said Gibney.

In mid-May, the park announced the marina would not open for the first time ever.

The Colorado River Compact is a federal agreement between seven western states that defines how water in the Colorado River Basin is divided. Obligations in the compact to release water downstream is one reason for Blue Mesa’s low levels.

But the biggest culprit is the two-decade-long drought.

*Nicky Gibney, aquatic ecologist for Curecanti National Recreation Area and Black Canyon National Park. Maltarich/KBUT.*

Eric Kuhn is the former director of the Colorado River District. He is also the author of “Science Be Dammed”. Kuhn said when the compact was written in 1922, the river was unusually wet – and today it’s unusually dry.

“And climate change has had a big, big impact on the river,” said Kuhn. “So this equitable division that they came up with 100 years ago didn’t consider the impacts of climate change.”

Kuhn says the compact can’t just be re-written or revised. But it may be re-interpreted to reflect modern water supply challenges, like drought and climate change, which are felt at every step along the nearly 1,500-mile river.

KBUT’s Headwaters series was made possible by The Water Desk, an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism.

Crystal River rancher, Water Trust again try to boost flows

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Aspen Journalism

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July 18, 2022

Crystal River rancher Bill Fales stands at the headgate for the Helms Ditch photo — Crystal River rancher Bill Fales stands at the headgate for the Helms Ditch, with Mount Sopris in the background. As part of an agreement with the Colorado Water Trust, Fales could be paid to reduce his diversions from the ditch when the river is low. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

By Heather Sackett

A Crystal River Valley rancher and a nonprofit organization are teaming up for the second time to try to leave more water in a parched stream.

Cold Mountain Ranch owners Bill Fales and Marj Perry have inked a six-year deal with the Colorado Water Trust to voluntarily retime their irrigation practices to leave water in the Crystal River during the late summer and early fall, when the river often needs it the most. In addition to a $5,000 signing bonus, the ranchers will be paid $250 a day up to 20 days, for each cubic foot per second they don’t divert, for a maximum payment of $30,000.

The water would come from reducing diversions from the Helms Ditch and could result in up to an additional 6 cfs in the river. The agreement would become active in the months of August and September any time streamflows dip below 40 cfs and once becoming active, will extend through October. The agreement will lift if streamflows rise above 55 cfs.

The goal of the program is to use voluntary, market-based approaches to encourage agricultural water users — who often own the biggest and most senior water rights — to put water back into Colorado’s rivers during critical times.

The program has the hallmarks of demand management, a much-discussed concept over the past few years at the state level: it’s temporary, voluntary and compensated. Other pilot programs that focus on agricultural water conservation usually involve full or split-season fallowing of fields, but with this agreement Fales still intends to get his usual two cuttings of hay.

“The idea is to find something that is a flexible way for water rights owners to use their water in years where it makes sense for something different than strictly agricultural practices,” said Alyson Meyer-Gould, director of policy with the Colorado Water Trust. “It’s another way to use their water portfolio.”

Streamflows will be measured by a gauge at the Thomas Road Bridge, which is operated by the Roaring Fork Conservancy. The Helms Ditch is located just upstream of the bridge.

According to the Conservancy’s 2016 Crystal River Management Plan, the river below the Thomas Road Bridge often suffers from low flows and high temperatures, especially in drought years, due to the many agricultural diversions. The Crystal River also has a 1975 state instream flow right of 100 cfs on this stretch, intended to preserve the environment to a reasonable degree, but it is often not met during the late irrigation season.

Fales has often been a prominent spokesman for causes that combine agricultural and environmental interests, like preventing oil and gas development in the Thompson Divide area near Carbondale where he grazes cattle.

“Obviously we are like everybody else — we hate to see the river dry,” Fales said. “Also Marj and I are fairly convinced that if there’s going to be problems and controversies over water, we’d rather be trying to find solutions ourselves than have one imposed on us by somebody else.”

Helms Ditch photo — The Helms Ditch, which takes 6 cfs from the Crystal River and has a water right that dates to 1903, irrigates land on Cold Mountain Ranch. Ranch owners Bill Fales and Marj Perry inked a deal with the Colorado Water Trust that would pay them to reduce diversions from the Helms Ditch when the river needs water. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

Second agreement

This is the second attempt at the voluntary non-diversion agreement. The timing and conditions during the original three-year agreement, signed in 2018, never worked out. 2018 saw flows that were so low that turning off the Helms Ditch would not have made a difference; 2019’s big snowpack meant flows never dipped low enough to trigger the agreement until October, which was not a month included in the original deal; and in the drought year of 2020 Cold Mountain Ranch could not spare any water.

“Three years is not exactly a huge data sample, so we are still optimistic we can get the project to work,” Meyer Gould said.

This time around, the Water Trust is offering Fales and Perry more money to encourage them to retime the irrigation: $250 for each cfs, compared to $175 last time, plus the $5,000 signing bonus, when there was no such incentive attached to the 2018 agreement.

“It’s considerable time and effort on their part,” Meyer Gould said. “We wanted to show appreciation for the thought and effort that has gone into it on the part of Cold Mountain Ranch.”

Pitkin County also had to approve the agreement because it is the co-owner of a conservation easement on the property, which limits development, preserves open space and keeps the water rights tied to the land.

During negotiations for the original agreement, Pitkin County Attorney John Ely voiced concerns about abandonment: If Fales produced the same amount of hay using less water than he historically had, could the unused portion of his water right be subject to Colorado’s “use-it-or-lose-it” principle?

But Cold Mountain Ranch’s water rights are protected. Senate Bill 19, signed in 2013, provides abandonment protection if the water rights are enrolled in an approved conservation program, such as the agreement with the Water Trust.

Also, instead of reducing his total annual water use like with most agriculture conservation programs, Fales will simply shift the timing of his diversions to align with the Crystal’s needs. Ely said his concerns have been worked out.

“It’s not a classic situation where you have a dry-up of an ag property,” Ely said. “It really does protect his operations.”

As demands for water increase across the Colorado River basin and climate change shrinks the amount available, Fales recognizes something’s got to give. And with agricultural users at the center of water issues, they should participate in finding creative solutions.

“It’s not going to be simple,” Fales said. “But we would rather be at the table than on the plate.”

This story ran in The Aspen Times and the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism.

Advocacy and science work together to improve water quality in Coal Creek

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KBUT Community Radio

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July 14, 2022

Ashley Bembenek tests Ph levels in Coal Creek. Maltarich/KBUT. — *Ashley Bembenek tests Ph levels in Coal Creek. Stephanie Maltarich/KBUT.*

By Stephanie Maltarich

Listen here.

Following a legacy of mining, local organizations keep tabs on water quality. Maintaining healthy waters in Crested Butte is critical as a headwaters source of the Colorado River.

The streams, creeks and rivers that run from jagged mountains into Crested Butte’s watersheds are iconic. At a glance, the water in creeks and streams around the area are clear and pristine. But the legacy of mining tells a different story.

About two decades ago, High Country Conservation Advocates, an environmental nonprofit in Crested Butte, noticed that although the streams and creeks flowing into town looked relatively healthy, they were carrying an excess of heavy metals downstream. Since then, the local nonprofit has made protecting water central to their work.

*Tools used for testing water quality along Coal Creek. Maltarich/KBUT.*

Julie Nania has spent nearly a decade with the organization advocating for clean water as the water program director. She explained the water in the valley used to look different.

“For a long time, Coal Creek ran Fanta orange,” Nania said.

Coal Creek, which provides drinking water for the town, was stained from mining runoff containing iron. Other metals like silver, lead, zinc and copper also ended up in waterways. The tainted water could be traced back to the flanks of Mt. Emmons, just west of town.

“And with the passage of the Clean Water Act, we did get a mine water treatment plant up there,” said Nania. “But we still had some of these historic water quality issues in the valley.”

The Clean Water Act passed in 1972, and one of its goals was to keep pollutants, like mine waste, out of rivers. In mountain basins with mineral-rich rocks, it’s normal for some metals to wash downstream during spring snowmelt or summer rainstorms — but the water in Coal Creek was clearly toxic.

The Keystone and Standard mines were the two biggest culprits in polluting Coal Creek. Today, Mt. Emmons Mining Company owns the Keystone Mine and operates the water treatment facility up Kebler Pass. Because the mine operated for nearly 100 years, the company is responsible for testing and treating water.

Calling attention to the Standard Mine’s impact on water led to its designation as a Superfund Site in 2005. Declaring the site an environmental disaster helped get the necessary resources to clean up the site. It helped start a water monitoring program and a new nonprofit: The Coal Creek Watershed Coalition.

On a chilly April morning, staff and volunteers spread out along Kebler Pass for a water sampling day. Ashley Bembenek is the executive director and she’s also a water and soil scientist who isn’t afraid to slip on waders and stand in cold rivers in the name of clean water.

“So this is where the town’s water system begins,” said Bembenek. “And it’s just upstream of the Keystone Mine discharge. And that’s incredibly critical to the safety of our drinking water and to manage the treatment costs.”

The nonprofit holds water sampling days five times a year. Each group spreads out to different sections of Coal Creek with a flow meter, water quality probes and water quality testing kits. While walking up Kebler Pass, Bembenek points out the water treatment plant above and Coal Creek below.

We carefully walk down a short and steep hill to Coal Creek where Bembenek sets up her instruments on a level platform she carefully digs out in the snow. She’s here to test for three things. First, she wades into the creek to measure streamflow. Then she pops sensors into the water to measure things like temperature and ph levels.

“So today’s water is a frigid 0.9 degrees celsius, flowing just above freezing, the ph today is 7.03 which is, nearly neutral, no concern whatsoever,” said Bembenek.

Last, she tests for water quality by squirting water through small filters into squishy plastic bottles. She’ll send these samples to a lab in Steamboat Springs to test for 30 different metals.

A river’s health depends on who or what uses it. Human life, irrigation and aquatic life are all examples of users. Bembenek says the water sampled in Coal Creek is tested for the most sensitive of users – fish and insects.

*Ashley Bembenek clears snow along Coal Creek. Maltarich/KBUT.*

“So the standard to protect aquatic life is 10 times more sensitive than the standard to protect human life,” said Bembenek. “So what makes the Clean Water Act so cool, is that by picking the most sensitive use, you protect all of the other uses.”

Bembenek said while the water in Coal Creek is plenty safe for humans to drink following treatment, a few metals remain too high for fish and insects during spring and summer runoff.

The organization will monitor Coal Creek four more times in 2022 to keep tabs on water quality in and around Crested Butte. And, the coalition is embarking on a new initiative, the gossan restoration project, where they will plant trees and restore native vegetation. The project, ten years in the making, will further decrease metals flowing into Coal Creek.

Healthy water flowing from the mountains is essential for the roughly 40 million people who depend on water in the Colorado River Basin. Julia Nania says it’s an important responsibility.

“So in terms of being a headwaters community, usually that means we get to start off with some of the best quality waters, there are some exceptions to that,” said Nania. “Sometimes historic mining tends to be one of the issues we face in this basin But we also are, you know, kind of the first stewards of those water resources.”

Nania says High Country Conservation Associates will continue to use science to inform their work to make sure the Gunnison Valley gets the highest quality water the basin deserves.

KBUT’s Headwaters series was made possible by The Water Desk, an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism.

Water Desk offers support for coverage of Colorado River Basin

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The Water Desk

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July 13, 2022

The Central Arizona Project crosses the Sonoran Desert just north of Bouse, Arizona. Photo by Ted Wood/The Water Desk

The Water Desk is now accepting applications for grants of $2,500 to $10,000 to support media outlets and individual journalists covering water issues related to the Colorado River Basin.

The deadline for applications for the 2022 grants is Wednesday, September 21, 2022, at 11:59 pm Pacific.

This grantmaking program is only open to journalists (freelance and staff) and media outlets.

The Water Desk is interested in supporting a wide variety of media and journalistic approaches: newspapers, magazines, websites, video, television, radio, podcasts and other channels.

The Water Desk will support journalism that focuses on water issues involving the seven states of the Colorado River Basin—Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming—as well as the borderlands of Northwest Mexico.

Proposals related to areas that lie outside of the hydrologic boundaries of the Colorado River Basin’s watershed must have a strong connection to the basin and its water resources.

Because water is intertwined with so many issues, we are open to proposals covering a broad spectrum of topics: climate change, biodiversity, pollution, public health, environmental justice, food, agriculture, drinking water, economics, recreation and more. We are especially interested in stories that explore inequities in our water systems.

Funding for these grants comes from the Walton Family Foundation. As a journalistic initiative, The Water Desk maintains a policy of strict editorial independence from our funders, as well as from the University of Colorado Boulder. Funders of The Water Desk have no right to review nor influence stories or other journalistic content that is produced with the support of these grants.

Our grantmaking page has more details about the program. You can apply on this page.

See a list of prior grantees on this page and view their work here.

Questions? Please contact Water Desk Director Mitch Tobin at mitchtobin@colorado.edu.

60 days and counting: Colorado River cutbacks achievable, experts say, as long as farm interests are on board

By

Fresh Water News

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July 5, 2022

*Glen Canyon Dam creates water storage on the Colorado River in Lake Powell, which is just 27% full. Credit: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation*

By Jerd Smith

Colorado River Basin states will succeed in complying with an emergency federal order that came just last week to slash water use by millions of acre-feet, experts said, but it will take time plus major deals with farm interests and tribal communities, and will likely require that the basin, whose flows and operational structure were divided by the 1922 Colorado River Compact, be united and managed as one entity.

“The world has shifted under our feet this week,” said Doug Kenney, former director of the Western Water Policy Program at the University of Colorado Boulder. “We are all being asked to innovate at a pace and scale that I don’t think we were thinking of. Sometimes a big threat from the federal government is what you need.”

The states have 60 days to come up with a water reduction plan.

Kenney’s comments came June 17 at the Getches-Wilkinson Law Conference on Natural Resources at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Kenney was referring to a June 14 emergency request from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton, telling the seven states that comprise the Colorado River Basin that they will need to find 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of water use reductions in the next 18 months to stave off a potential collapse in the Colorado River system.

Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, in comparison, use roughly 3.5 million acre-feet (maf) annually.

Lake Powell, which can store roughly 26 maf of water when full, and its sister reservoir, Lake Mead, with 29.4 maf of storage, are two of the largest reservoirs in the United States.

A 20-year megadrought, considered to be the worst in 1,200 years, including two back-to-back intense drought periods during 2020 and 2021, has left each of the reservoirs well below their former levels, with Lake Mead just 24% full, and Lake Powell down to about 27% of capacity.

Touton’s order came just six weeks after the federal government and the states approved two other major agreements, one to hold 500,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Powell that would normally have been released to Lake Mead for Arizona, California and Nevada, and another releasing 500,000 acre-feet from Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Utah-Wyoming state line to further boost levels in Lake Powell.

Under the terms of the 1922 Colorado River Compact, the Upper Basin is made up of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, while the Lower Basin comprises Arizona, California and Nevada and Mexico.

*Colorado River Basin: Credit: Chas Chamberlin*

Each basin was given the rights to 7.5 million acre-feet of water, with an additional 1.5 million acre-feet of water for Mexico. But the river has generated much less than that for decades, and since the megadrought began in the early 2000s, the river’s flows have declined and stored water supplies in Powell and Mead have shrunk as well.

How the new reduction orders will affect supplies in Colorado and other Upper Basin states, who have never used their full entitlements to the river’s flows, isn’t clear yet.

To find ways to cut 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of water will require intense negotiations, and maybe even legal action, according to Bill Hasencamp, who manages Colorado River supplies for the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 19 million people in Los Angeles, San Diego and elsewhere.

Under the terms of the 1922 compact and subsequent agreements, California was entitled to use 4.4 million acre-feet of Colorado River Water, but because supplies were abundant and the river generated millions of acre-feet of extra water every year, California routinely used more than its share. That changed in 2003, when the federal government ordered it to cut back.

With last week’s announcement, Hasencamp said, “It feels like I am going through 2003 again. The lessons are still applicable today. Having a federal threat is a pretty good motivator.”

Despite the enormity of the challenge, Hasencamp said he was optimistic that the states would reach a deal, just as they did 20 years ago.

“It’s going to be painful,” Hasencamp said. “Some people will lose their jobs. These are such tough decisions that there could be fallout…but we have some pretty smart people in the basin. Let them be creative.”

Twenty years ago, California was able to reduce its use by arranging intermittent land fallowing deals with major agricultural irrigators, such as the Imperial Irrigation District. It also made deals with Arizona and Utah to stabilize its water supplies.

Now, Hasencamp said, California is down to using just 4.2 million acre-feet of Colorado River water annually, below its formal allocation.

Some 30 tribes in the seven-state basin control millions of acre-feet of water, or an estimated 22% to 26% of the basin’s annual water supplies, some of which has never been diverted or stored due to a lack funding, pipelines and reservoirs.

Tribal concerns will have to be addressed to reach a deal, said Lorelei Cloud, a council member with the Southern Ute Tribe in southwestern Colorado.

Even now, she said, “Tribes are not compensated for their water that is in Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Everybody is depending on tribes not to use their water. But the federal government needs to fulfill its trust responsibilities to the tribes.”

James Eklund, a water attorney and former director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, said that the federal government and the states will have to relax or eliminate the divisions between the upper and lower basins, because they sharply limit flexibility in managing the drought-strapped river system.

“We are in a crisis and we have an opportunity to reexamine [the 1922 compact]. Even five years ago, I would have said that is too much. That’s going too far.

“But a whole-basin approach is much more appropriate than continuing this fiction of an artificially bifurcated basin,” Eklund said.

Colorado officials have said repeatedly that they have always had to live with cutbacks as a result of lower flows that naturally occur in the system when you’re up high in the headwaters and don’t have substantial water storage to fall back on.

They also point to the two emergency releases from Flaming Gorge in 2021 and 2022, and releases from Colorado’s federally owned Blue Mesa Reservoir, as evidence of their having already given plenty of water to help stabilize the system.

And though Lower Basin states have already begun implementing cutbacks involving hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water, this new ask is much larger and must be answered quickly, experts said.

Because farm interests control roughly 80% of the river’s water supplies, farmers are going to be asked to fallow land and to put a price on how much that will cost other water users and federal government.

Peter Nichols is a Colorado water attorney who helped craft a large-scale farm fallowing program in the Lower Arkansas Valley that was modeled after work that California’s Metropolitan District did in the early 2000s. Rather than buying farm land and drying it up, what’s known as the Super Ditch project allows farmers to lease their water when it is convenient and in times of drought.

The Super Ditch took years in water court and three trips to the Colorado legislature to finally implement, but it serves as an example of what can be done through the seven-state basin to achieve the federally mandated cutbacks, Nichols said.

“Irrigators are going to be willing to do this,” Nichols said. “But they’re going to be interested in three things: price, price and price.”

“They are also interested in flexibility,” Nichols said. “They don’t want to be tied in forever. If the price of onions goes through the roof, they will want out. They will want to be able to grow onions.”

Still the framework is out there and is workable, he said.

“[California’s] Metropolitan proved you can do this. But you can’t do it quickly. Reclamation has drawn a couple of lines in the sand and it has changed what we have to do and the amount of time we have to do it in,” he said.

Correction: An earlier version of this article failed to note that the four Upper Basin states combined use roughly 3.5 million acre feet of water annually.

Jerd Smith is editor of Fresh Water News. She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email at jerd@wateredco.org or @jerd_smith.

Fresh Water News is an independent, nonpartisan news initiative of Water Education Colorado. WEco is funded by multiple donors. Our editorial policy and donor list can be viewed at wateredco.org.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism.

Race is on for Colorado River basin states to conserve before feds take action

By

Aspen Journalism

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July 5, 2022

This photo from December 2021 shows one of the intake towers at Hoover Dam. Federal officials said basin states must conserve 2 to 4 million acre-feet to protect reservoir levels in 2023. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

By Heather Sackett

As water experts gathered this week for an annual conference in Boulder, it was with the sobering knowledge that despite everything they have done so far, it is still not enough to keep the Colorado River system from crashing.

Federal officials this week made the earth-shaking announcement that the seven basin states must quickly conserve an enormous amount of water and threatened unilateral action if they do not. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton, testifying at a U.S. Senate hearing on drought on Tuesday, said an additional 2 to 4 million acre-feet of conservation was needed just to protect critical reservoir levels in 2023.

Department of Interior Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Tanya Trujillo reiterated this position in a talk at Thursday’s Conference on Natural Resources at the University of Colorado Law School. She said the federal government has the responsibility and authority to take action to protect the system and the infrastructure if the states can’t reach an agreement on their own.

“We are facing the growing reality that water supplies for agriculture, fisheries, ecosystems, industry and cities are no longer stable due to climate change,” Trujillo said. “Our collective goal is to be able to very quickly identify and implement strategies that will stabilize and rebuild the system so we don’t find ourselves constantly on the brink of a crisis.”

Houseboats on Lake Powell on Dec. 13, 2021, near Wahweap Marina, where the quarter-mile-long boat ramp is unusable due to low water levels. Federal officials have threatened unilateral actions to prop up levels in the nation’s largest reservoirs and protect the Colorado River System. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

Worsening conditions

Over the past year, water managers have implemented measures to keep water levels from falling below critical thresholds for hydropower production in the nation’s two largest reservoirs, including a plan for holding back water in Lake Powell, emergency releases from upstream reservoirs, and a much-celebrated plan to save 500,000 acre-feet in Lake Mead.

The actions taken in the 2022 Drought Response Operations Plan will add about 1 million acre-feet, or 16 feet of elevation, to Lake Powell.

But these actions are not enough.

“It’s buying us a bit more time, but not much,” said James Prairie, the upper Colorado basin research and modeling chief for the Bureau of Reclamation.

Prairie kicked off the conference by sharing numbers from the Bureau’s June 24-month study, which predicted that 2022 will be another anemic year for spring runoff into Powell at just 55% of average. Total Colorado River system storage stands at about 35% full; last year at this time it was about 42% full. In March, Lake Powell dipped below a critical threshold of 3,525 feet, just 35 feet above the minimum level needed to generate hydropower for millions of people in the southwest.

The announcement of what one water expert dubbed the “2-to-4-million-acre-foot challenge” overshadowed many of the conference’s planned topics and left some presenters scrambling to change their talks or at least their tone. Debating the finer points of the Colorado River Compact, which divided the waters between the upper and lower basin states and marks its 100th anniversary this year, all of a sudden took a backseat.

“Everything has changed beneath our feet with Commissioner Touton’s announcement Tuesday,” said author and conference moderator John Fleck.

Touton gave the states until Aug. 16 to figure out a path to conservation before Reclamation would take unilateral action to protect the system. That’s when Reclamation’s August 24-month study comes out, which lays out a plan for how the agency will operate its reservoirs in the coming year.

Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Ariz., forms Lake Powell. It’s still unclear how Colorado would participate in a federally mandated plan to conserve 2 to 4 million acre-feet water to protect the Colorado River system.
CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM — Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Ariz., forms Lake Powell. It’s still unclear how Colorado would participate in a federally mandated plan to conserve 2 to 4 million acre-feet water to protect the Colorado River system.CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

Upper basin contribution

Federal officials made it clear that conserving the 2 to 4 million acre-feet is the responsibility of all seven basin states: Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, Nevada, California and Arizona. But they were not prescriptive about how to do it or how the shortages should be shared; that’s for the states to figure out among themselves.

“Do we have any specific recipe in mind? The short answer is no, we don’t have a formula already pre-baked and pre-worked,” Trujillo said. “We are likely going to be in a situation of doing things we have never done before.”

How Colorado will conserve is unclear, especially since the state’s exploration of a demand management program that would have paid water users to cut back has been shelved for now. The program proved a hard sell, especially for some agricultural water users who questioned why Colorado should send water to prop up Lake Powell and fix a problem that is caused by what they say is over-use in California, Nevada and Arizona.

The compact divided the flows of the Colorado River equally between the upper and lower basin at 7.5 million acre-feet each. But the upper basin has never come close to using its full allocation, while the lower basin, by some estimates, uses more than 8.5 million acre-feet. Meanwhile, climate change and a two-decade-long drought have diminished river flows basin-wide in the 20th century by about 20%; scientists say about one-third of that loss can be attributed to warmer temperatures.

Chuck Cullom, the executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, said that while all seven states share the resource of the Colorado River and have an obligation to contribute to conservation, most of the water savings should come from the lower basin.

“Everyone needs to participate, but the vast majority of the effort needs to come from the lower basin because that’s where the preponderance of the uses are,” he said.

Upper basin water managers point to the emergency releases of 161,000 acre-feet last year from Blue Mesa, Flaming Gorge and Navajo reservoirs as a way they have responded to the crisis. But that decision was made unilaterally by Reclamation and is not the same as conservation.

Colorado’s commissioner to the UCRC and head of the Colorado Water Conservation Board Rebecca Mitchell did not give specific examples of where Colorado could increase its water conservation, but said the state will continue to work with other basin states, the federal governments and tribal nations to find solutions.

“Colorado water users are on the front lines of climate change,” Mitchell said in an emailed statement. “We are continuing to work closely with our federal and state partners across the basin to address water shortages.”

Fleck ended Thursday’s session by striking an emotional tone that captured the mood in the room. We are at a moment of reckoning and realizing the West of the future will look much different than it does now, he said.

“We are in a moment of grieving,” he said. “The tools we developed were not enough.”

This story ran in the June 17 edition of the Vail Daily, the June 21 edition of The Aspen Times, the Craig Press, the Steamboat Springs Pilot & Today, the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent and the Aurora Sentinel.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism.

Scientists in the East River watershed collect ‘mountains of data’ to understand water in the West

By

KBUT Community Radio

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July 1, 2022

*The Xband radar on Crested Butte Mountain Resort. Maltarich/KBUT*

By Stephanie Maltarich

For nearly a century, scientists from around the world have studied water and climate in the north end of the Gunnison Valley. In 2021, the high mountain watershed entered a new chapter: a first-of-its-kind project where scientists will trace snow from where it arrives in the atmosphere, to where it melts into the ground.

Listen to this story.

The research aims to understand water and snow in mountain systems for the first time.

Dozens of instruments were placed in the north end of the valley starting last fall. A state-of-the-art radar is located at the intersection of popular ski trails on Crested Butte Mountain Resort. And rows of tan shipping containers and shiny instruments line the meadows along the East River from Mt. Crested Butte to Gothic.

Rosemary Carroll lives in Mt. Crested Butte and works as an associate research professor in hydrology at the Nevada-based Desert Research Institute. Her work studies the snow and streams that span from Paradise Divide – all the way down to Almont.

“I try to do the whole water budget of the basin,” said Carroll. “Which ties snow all the way down through deep geology.”

Carroll’s work is part of a national science research campaign, the Surface and Atmospheric Integrated Field Laboratory, OR SAIL. Over 150 scientists will spend two years measuring snow and water by using dozens of scientific instruments. The goal is to better understand mountain watersheds, and mountain climates, around the world.

“Why this area why mountain systems,” said Carroll. “It’s because these are the systems that some would call a canary in the coal mine for climate change. One-sixth of the global population receives its water from snow-fed rivers of mountain systems. So it’s not trivial. And the systems are also experiencing a lot of change.”

Ken Williams, The SAIL program’s senior scientist, is a geologist who has studied groundwater with Carroll since 2014. The pair worked together on the Watershed Function Science Focus Area.

After years of working in the area’s streams and rivers, Williams said he noticed a glaring hole in his research: understanding how snow falls from the sky.

“And so if you really are interested in designing a scientific experiment, that’s looking at the future of water in the West, you have to understand all the processes that impact the flow of that water from the time it arrives in the atmosphere, to the time it eventually makes its way into bedrock, and then into streamflow,” said Williams.

On a sunny day in January, Williams shuffled through the lift line at Crested Butte Mountain Resort with Dan Feldman to check on the project’s scientific instruments. Feldman is the principal investigator of the SAIL program. His work focuses on atmosphere and weather patterns to determine how and when rain and snow fall in the mountains. To do this, he uses radars that track precipitation.

*Dan Feldman does fieldwork near Gothic. Maltarich/KBUT*

The pair rode to the top of Red Lady Express to check on an xband radar. The radar is 25-feet-tall and resembles an oversized golf ball because of its white plastic covering. It’s reached by a narrow ladder that can be difficult to navigate in ski boots.

Feldman explained the importance of the xband radar in the larger SAIL program research.

“The x band radar measures precipitation, it also measures what type of precipitation is occurring,” said Feldman. “So not just how much, whether it’s rain or snow, and where it’s occurring all, you know from here to a radius of about 40 kilometers.”

The instruments being used in the SAIL program are on loan from the Department of Energy’s Atmospheric and Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility. The mobile research facility moves around the world to conduct atmospheric and climate research.

*A sign on Crested Butte Mountain Resort explains the Xband radar. Maltarich/KBUT*

Williams says the radar on the mountain, coupled with the one in Gothic, will provide a highly detailed understanding of weather patterns in the mountains. While the group is interested in learning about the East River Valley, the information they collect will tell a bigger story about mountain watersheds.

“We are utilizing this watershed as being one that’s representative of many watersheds within the western United States,” said Williams. “We want our research and our research findings to be broadly representative, or broadly relevant to the future of water in a variety of mountainous systems.”

The SAIL program will continue until next June with support from the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory – and – the data will be available to everyone. As water levels reach historic lows in the Colorado River Basin, understanding how water travels from mountain headwaters to dams below – couldn’t come at a better time. What water managers choose to do with the data is yet to be seen.

KBUT’s Headwaters series was made possible by The Water Desk, an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism.

Declining levels at Lake Powell increase risk to humpback chub downstream

By

Aspen Journalism

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June 30, 2022

The confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers in the Grand Canyon, shown here in a September 2020 aerial photo from Ecoflight, represents an area where the humpback chub has rebounded in the last decade. That progress is now threatened by declining water levels in Lake Powell, which could lead to non-native smallmouth bass becoming established in the canyon. CREDIT: JANE PARGITER/ECOFLIGHT

By Heather Sackett

As climate change continues to shrink the nation’s second-largest reservoir, water managers are scrambling to prevent the release of an invasive fish into the Grand Canyon.

Smallmouth bass, a voracious predator and popular game fish, have been introduced into reservoirs throughout the Colorado River basin, including Lake Powell. The looming problem now is that as lake levels drop to historically low levels, the invasive fish are likely to escape beyond Glen Canyon Dam, threatening endangered fish in the canyon, whose populations have rebounded in recent years.

Smallmouth bass are a warm-water-loving species, hanging out in the top part of the water column, which is warmed by the sun. Until recently, the intakes for turbines at Glen Canyon Dam had been lower in the water column, where colder temperatures kept the fish away. But as the lake level falls, the warmer water band containing the smallmouth bass is sinking closer to the intakes, making it more likely that they will pass through the dam to the river below.

Warmer water below the dam also means a more ideal environment for the bass, which thrive in temperatures above 61 degrees Fahrenheit (16 degrees Celsius).

“With the levels we are expecting to get to this coming year, water temperatures are going to be warmer than they’ve been in 52 years in the Grand Canyon,” said Charles Yackulic, a research statistician with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center.

The research center has been modeling the likelihood that smallmouth bass will become established below the dam under different scenarios and providing that information to decision-makers and water managers.

Jack Schmidt, a Colorado River researcher at Utah State University and former director of the research center, co-wrote — along with Yackulic and others — a March 2021 paper that sounded the alarm that future warming is likely to disproportionately benefit nonnative fish species to the detriment of native species. The problem from which all others stem, including the changing fish communities, and the reason Powell is so low in the first place is the climate-change-driven supply-demand imbalance, Schmidt said.

“If we are going to continue to load the atmosphere with carbon such that the atmosphere warms and the runoff in the Colorado River keeps getting lower and if we are going to keep consuming water, … then you can only play this game of staving off the inevitable for so long before it’s game over,” he said.

This infographic shows how as Lake Powell water levels decline, warm water containing smallmouth bass gets closer to intakes delivering water through the Glen Canyon Dam to the Grand Canyon downstream. CREDIT: U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

Threat to humpback chub

Although the trout fishery and other native fish around Lees Ferry would also be hurt by the bass, the biggest risk would be to the fish listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), including the humpback chub.

“The biggest concern for a lot of stakeholders is how it could affect humpback chub and razorback sucker,” Yackulic said. “Over 90% of humpback chub are found in the Grand Canyon reach, and they have been doing really well over the last 10 years.”

So well in fact that in 2021 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service down-listed humpback chub’s status from endangered to threatened, a decision based partly on the thriving populations in the Grand Canyon. The down-listing means the chub still retains some ESA protections, but it is no longer at immediate risk of extinction.

Scientists think that smallmouth bass are responsible for decimating humpback chub populations in the upper basin — for example, near Echo Park, at the confluence of the Green and Yampa rivers.

“We are very concerned that if they get into the Grand Canyon, they could have a similar impact on the humpback chub and, through predation and competition, could jeopardize that new listing of being threatened,” said Melissa Trammell, a fisheries biologist with the National Parks Service. “Our efforts to try to restore that species in the canyon would definitely be impacted.”

This invasive smallmouth bass is eating a native flannelmouth sucker. The smallmouth bass is a predation threat because it can eat fish up to half their own length and become fish-eaters when they are only a few inches long. CREDIT: MELISSA TRAMMELL

‘No low-hanging fruit to prevent this’

The Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program has formed a technical work group subcommittee to address the problem. Several ideas have been floated: installing a bubble curtain that could keep fish away from the dam intakes; electro-fishing and removal of smallmouth bass below the dam; selective withdrawal devices that allow dam operators to pull from different parts of the water column; or releasing colder water from the deeper jet tubes once a week to make the temperatures below the dam inhospitable to the invasive fish. This, however, would mean bypassing the turbines that make hydropower.

Clarence Fullard, acting program manager for the Bureau of Reclamation’s Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program, said they are considering all options to prevent smallmouth bass from becoming established, but there is still a lot of uncertainty about a way forward.

“There’s really no low-hanging fruit to prevent this,” he said. “The scale of Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell make it hard to come up with solutions. We don’t know what we could do operationally.”

One thing that has seen some success on the Green River below Flaming Gorge Dam is something called a flow spike. A carefully timed, short, high-flow release from the reservoir can knock the fish off their nests and wash their eggs downstream. According to Trammel, this tactic has reduced the reproduction of smallmouth bass in that area by about 30%.

And because of the planned releases this year from Flaming Gorge under the Drought Response Operations Plan (DROA), this spike flow is scheduled again for later this month.

“The extra water being released from Flaming Gorge to go down to Powell is actually being reshaped to help endangered fishes in the upper basin,” Trammell said. “We would not have had that experimental flow this year without the DROA.”

For now, members of the technical work group are creating a strategic plan, a draft of which will be released in August. Scientists will continue monitoring in places where the smallmouth bass are likely to try to establish. Each year for the past decade, Yackulic said, monitoring efforts have caught up to three smallmouth bass who made it through the turbines and ended up below the dam.

“The thing about fish is for every one you catch, there’s probably quite a few you don’t catch,” he said.

Still, scientists don’t think the fish have become established enough yet for there to be a reproducing population below the dam. But time is of the essence.

Although the invasive-fish issue may get overshadowed by the crush of bad news surrounding the Colorado River — record-low reservoir levels, shortages, emergency federal actions, potential loss of hydropower — scientists say there is still an urgent need to act on it.

“The long-term cost of trying to control that species maybe doesn’t feel as urgent as losing hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam, but once they are established, it is almost impossible to get rid of them,” Trammell said. “There’s no agency in the world that says, ‘I wish I had waited a little longer to try and control this invasive species.’”

But any operational changes to combat an invasion of smallmouth bass in the Grand Canyon are likely to be just a stopgap measure.

“We should never forget that the fundamental problem is much bigger than how to operate Glen Canyon Dam; it’s about the balance between watershed runoff and consumptive use,” Schmidt said. “And until we get consumptive use matching the available supply, we are always going to be flirting with disaster. We can only hold off these changes for so long before we lose the battle.”

Aspen Journalism covers water and rivers in collaboration with The Aspen Times. This story ran in the June 13 edition of The Aspen Times and the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism.

Ute Mountain Ute Tribe faces another devastating drought year, but recent rain, wheat prices bring hope

By

Fresh Water News

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June 28, 2022

Pot that was used to hold water by the Anasazi People photo. — Eric Whyte, Hay Manager for the Ute Mountain Ute Farm & Ranch Enterprise near Towoac, Colo., holds a pot that was used to hold water by the Anasazi People in the Four Corners area of Colorado thousands of years ago. The pot was found in a field when work began clearing land for the farm and ranch enterprise. Credit: Dean Krakel, special to Fresh Water News

By Rachelle Todea

Low snowpack and soaring temperatures made 2020 the third-driest year on record in Colorado. When similar conditions repeated in 2021, tribal farmers in southwest Colorado had to scramble, fallowing thousands of acres of land and laying off workers at the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s farm and ranch outside of Cortez.

“It made me very aware that our farm is in the desert. We have to look at it that way,” says Simon Martinez, general manager for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Farm and Ranch Enterprise and the Bow and Arrow Brand non-GMO cornmeal business. The 7,700-acre farm is located on the tribe’s 553,008-acre reservation in southwest Colorado, less than 20 miles from the Four Corners.

When Dolores River flows below McPhee Reservoir were reduced to just 10% of normal in 2021, the tribe was able to operate only eight center pivot sprinklers, compared to its usual capacity of 110 sprinklers. A single center pivot sprinkler system irrigates circles of crops ranging from 32 to 141 acres in area. Lack of water meant fallowed acres, leaving the tribe to use only 500 acres in 2021, compared to 4,500 acres of alfalfa alone grown in 2020.

Without irrigation water, the farm’s ability to grow its mainstay crops of alfalfa and corn was majorly reduced, and without crops to harvest, employment, too, was cut to 50%. Twenty farm workers lost their jobs.

This year the tribe is expecting slightly more water, 20% to 25% of its normal allocation, or roughly 6,000 acre-feet of water, according to Mike Preston, president of the Weenuch-u’ Development Corporation, which oversees the farm’s operations. But some 6,000 acres of its 7,700-acre farm remain fallowed, a situation that requires the tribe to spend millions of dollars to keep weeds in check.

There is also hope in rising wheat prices, which are expected to reach $11.16 a bushel by December, according to Wall Street Journal crop pricing data. Preston said the tribe hopes to plant a late wheat crop this year to capitalize on the world-wide wheat shortages triggered by the war in Ukraine.

Overall, the tribe’s farm and ranch enterprises operate for economic empowerment and employment. And operations are largely successful—before the drought, the farm had been productive and profitable since it began operating in the late 1980s.

For Bow and Arrow Brand, operations didn’t slow, even last year. The cornmeal operation was launched years ago in order to stretch the shelf life of the tribe’s corn. Fresh sweet corn can last about two weeks, but by creating cornmeal, the produce remains profitable for around 18 months. Even during the drought and pandemic, sales continue. Full staff employment has been maintained.

Sustaining everything has been a challenge, but Martinez is up for the challenge, as he must be, he says. “We’re going to do our best to keep employment.”

Some help and funding is available to make up for losses, such as drought impact funding. And Martinez is working to help the farm adapt. He’s spreading the limited amount of water as far as possible through work with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to upgrade sprinkler nozzle packages and continued consultations with agronomists on crop selection for increased drought tolerance. But those efforts can only go so far.

Martinez is hopeful that McPhee, the third-largest reservoir in Colorado, which serves the tribe, will see its water levels restored to meet tribal needs.

“We’re kind of teetering on the brink,” says Preston. The Dolores River watershed relies entirely on snowpack. But conditions aren’t looking great—100% of Montezuma county remains in severe or extreme drought, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. Forecasts for the Dolores River Basin, as of June 1, project 45% to 60% of water supply availability this year, according to the Colorado River Basin Forecast Center.

What seems clear to many in the region is that desert-like conditions are likely to continue and that means the Ute Mountain Utes must shift their operating plans to accommodate drier conditions.

“We’ve got to adapt,” Martinez says.

An earlier version of this article appeared in the Spring 2022 edition of Headwaters magazine. Additional reporting was contributed by Fresh Water News Editor Jerd Smith.

Rachelle Todea is Diné and a citizen of the Navajo Nation. She is a freelance reporter based in Westminster, Colo., who reports on climate change and Indigenous peoples.

Fresh Water News is an independent, nonpartisan news initiative of Water Education Colorado. WEco is funded by multiple donors. Our editorial policy and donor list can be viewed at wateredco.org.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism.

Pitkin County agrees to fund ditch piping project

By

Aspen Journalism

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June 28, 2022

This Parshall flume on Red Mountain photo. — This Parshall flume on Red Mountain measures the amount of water diverted by the Red Mountain Ditch. Pitkin County commissioners approved a roughly $48,000 grant to pipe the last 3,600 feet of the ditch in the Starwood neighborhood. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

By Heather Sackett

The Pitkin County Board of County Commissioners has approved one year of funding toward completing a ditch piping project with the aim of keeping more water in Hunter Creek.

Over the past two decades, the Red Mountain Ditch Company has been working to pipe the entirety of its 12-mile ditch system — a $3.8 million cost so far — paid for by the ditch share owners. But to complete the final 3,600 feet, the ditch company is turning to public sources of money because they say the project will have the public benefit of keeping between 0.5 and 1 additional cubic feet per second of water in Hunter Creek.

The Pitkin County Healthy Rivers board recommended the county grant nearly $48,000 toward the project in April and county commissioners approved the request on Tuesday.

“I think this is the first time when I’ve been on the board that I’ve seen this type of project and I really think it’s valuable,” said commissioner Kelly McNicholas Kury. “It’s a conservation-first type of program and to me this is the way I think the treatment of ditches should head in the future around the Western Slope.”

Red Mountain Ditch, whose horizontal scar across Red Mountain features prominently in the view from across the valley, has senior water rights that date to 1889. It irrigates about 380 acres of grass pasture on Red Mountain and in the exclusive Starwood subdivision with water from Hunter Creek.

A herd of elk feast on a sprinkler-irrigated meadow in the Starwood subdivision photo. — A herd of elk feast on a sprinkler-irrigated meadow in the Starwood subdivision. The area is irrigated with water from Hunter Creek via Red Mountain Ditch. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

More water in Hunter Creek

Jim Auster, who has managed the ditch since 1983, said before the capital improvement project, the high-maintenance, open ditch lost water to seepage and evaporation and had problems with blow outs and beaver activity that caused flooding. Now that the majority of the ditch is piped underground, he said it’s easier to get water during low-flow times of year and the company has reduced the amount it diverts from Hunter Creek by up to 6 cfs.

Auster said before the piping project, the ditch used to divert about 14 cfs on average; now it takes about 8 to 9 cfs. Numbers from the Colorado Division of Water Resources indicate the ditch has in fact diverted less in recent years.

“Technologically, we are progressive,” Auster said. “I don’t know of any other ditch company that is doing 100% piping like we are. It’s certainly the future. Open ditches are obsolete.”

Recent ditch inventories conducted by conservation districts across the Western Slope hint at widespread problems, disrepair and inefficiencies with irrigation infrastructure. Environmental groups often back irrigation efficiency projects because they could result in reducing the amount irrigators need to divert, thereby leaving more water in the river to the benefit of the environment.

But repairs and upgrades are often expensive. And most projects don’t put a number on how much water will be left in the stream. In most cases, paying irrigators for their extra water is the only way to ensure an environmental benefit.

Aaron Derwingson, water projects director for The Nature Conservancy’s Colorado River Program, has worked on efficiency projects with irrigators. He said it can be hard to quantify a project’s environmental benefits and success often depends on the willingness of the irrigators.

“I think the challenge with our team that we run into is we are never going to have enough money to buy the water to really make a difference for a lot of streams and where does that leave us?” Derwingson said. “That’s why some of these efficiency projects can be great because it’s a one-time investment and you get continued benefit.”

Open ditch through properties in the Starwood subdivision photo. — This is part of the open ditch through properties in the Starwood subdivision that would be piped if Red Mountain Ditch company can secure the funds. Manager Jim Auster said up to an additional 1 cfs could be left in Hunter Creek if the last 3,600 feet of ditch is piped. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

How to protect the water

McNicholas Kury brought up an unanswered question in Tuesday’s discussion: how to legally protect the water the piping project leaves in Hunter Creek. Under Colorado water law, another water user could pick up that water and put it to beneficial use, canceling out any environmental benefit to the stream. And as stream flows continue to dwindle due to climate change, an environmental benefit may be short-lived, especially if the water is not legally protected.

“I have some concern about the water that is going into Hunter Creek,” McNicholas Kury said. “That is fantastic; I don’t want others to pick it up along the way.”

McNicholas-Kury suggested the Red Mountain Ditch Company look into an agreement with the non-profit Colorado Water Trust, which helps water rights holders lease their water rights for the purpose of boosting environmental streamflows.

In addition to finishing the piping, Auster said $25,000 of the grant money will go toward installing remote monitoring and headgate controls, which will allow him to be more precise and reduce the amount of excess water that is run through the system.

Auster said the total cost of the project for the final 3,600 feet of piping is $680,000, and the ditch company is also applying for grants from the Colorado River Water Conservation District and the National Resources Conservation Service. The ditch company may return to the county in 2023 and 2024 to request additional funding.

Board of County Commissioners Chair Patti Clapper and Vice-Chair Francie Jacober questioned whether the residents of one of Aspen’s wealthiest subdivisions couldn’t pay for their own ditch piping project, but in the end, backed the grant request.

“The best interest of this community is keeping water in our rivers and that is a benefit to everyone,” Clapper said.

Editor’s note: Aspen Journalism is supported by Pitkin County’s Health Community Fund. Aspen Journalism covers water and rivers in collaboration with The Aspen Times. This story ran in the May 28 edition of The Aspen Times.

The Water Desk’s mission is to increase the volume, depth and power of journalism connected to Western water issues. We’re an initiative of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Water Desk launched in April 2019 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism.

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Second agreement

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Worsening conditions

Upper basin contribution

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Threat to humpback chub

‘No low-hanging fruit to prevent this’

More water in Hunter Creek

How to protect the water

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