Two new Colorado River reservoirs are rising on the Front Range, are they the last of their kind?

By

-

August 17, 2022

Chimney Hollow Reservoir under construction photo — *The Chimney Hollow Reservoir under construction in Larimer County. July 8, 2022 Credit: Jerd Smith, Fresh Water News*

As two major new water storage projects designed to capture the flows of the drought-strapped Colorado River are rising on Colorado’s urban Front Range, observers say they represent the end of an era on the river.

The projects, Northern Water’s Chimney Hollow Reservoir west of Berthoud, and Denver Water’s Gross Reservoir Expansion, in Western Boulder County, both more than 20 years in the making, will store an additional 167,000 acre-feet of water, the majority from the Colorado River. That’s enough water for more than 320,000 new homes.

The projects come during a period of crisis on the river, with the federal government in June ordering Western states to find radical new ways of cutting water use by next month to stabilize the deteriorating river system.

“These two projects, [Chimney Hollow] and the Gross Reservoir Expansion, might be the last of their kind. They are coming in under the wire of a change in how we have to see the Colorado River – it’s not something we can keep tapping,” said Jeff Lukas, an independent water and climate researcher and consultant, who spent a decade working for the Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado.

The river basin includes seven states and Mexico. In the U.S., Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming comprise the Upper Basin, while Arizona, California and Nevada comprise the Lower Basin.

One hundred years ago, the Colorado River Compact of 1922 divided 15 million acre-feet of water equally between the Upper and Lower Basin states, but in this drier world, the river likely provides an average closer to 13 million acre-feet. Climate change is expected to further reduce that flow. More water has been allocated to the two basins than is available most years.

Northern Water and Denver Water are building new water storage to meet the demands of a growing urban Front Range and to provide themselves more flexibility in managing their Colorado River supplies.

Northern Water delivers municipal and agricultural water to about a million people over about 1.6 million acres. They bring over about 220,000 acre-feet of water each year from the West Slope to the Front Range via the Colorado Big Thompson Project and Windy Gap. About half is used for agriculture and half for cities and industry.

Joe Donnelly, Northern’s project manager for the Chimney Hollow Reservoir Project, said the project is a major mechanical and logistical feat, with water passing through two pump stations, five hydropower plants, seven reservoirs, and nearly 20 miles of tunnels before reaching Chimney Hollow.

Chimney Hollow will be an off-channel reservoir with 90,000 acre-feet of capacity and will sit just west of Carter Lake in Larimer County. According to the project’s website, it will be the second-ever asphalt-core dam in the United States and, once dam construction is fully underway, the on-site rock quarry “will be producing 63,000 tons of material per day, making it one of the largest mining operations in Colorado.” The project broke ground in August 2021.

Northern Water plans to begin storing water in Chimney Hollow Reservoir upon completion in 2025 and hopes to fill it within three years by storing approximately 30,000 acre-feet of water each year out of the Windy Gap Project’s average of 48,000 acre-feet of water per year.

In Boulder County, less than 50 miles south of Chimney Hollow, sits Denver Water’s Gross Reservoir. Originally built in the 1950s, it was designed with expansion in mind. Construction recently began to increase the height of the dam from 340 feet to 471 feet. This will add 77,000 acre-feet of storage, more than doubling its current capacity. Water from the Colorado River Basin is diverted under the Continental Divide through the Moffat Tunnel into South Boulder Creek, then stored in Gross Reservoir, and then delivered via South Boulder Creek to other Denver Water infrastructure.

Denver Water serves about 1.5 million people, a number that is slated to grow by 1 million residents by 2040, according to its website. All of their water goes to municipal and industrial uses. In 2021 Denver Water diverted about 140,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water, approximately half their supply.

“As the climate warms and the atmosphere becomes wetter because of more evaporation, that causes more significant storm activity. If you look right at the Continental Divide where our facilities are, the climate models are basically split as to whether we’re going to see more or less precipitation,” says Denver Water CEO Jim Lochhead. The expansion of Gross Dam will capitalize on “those significant events that we believe will occur in the future with climate change.”

Denver Water has also cited resiliency goals as part of its motivation for expanding Gross Reservoir’s capacity. “The Buffalo Creek and Hayman Fires caused significant sediment loads [in our water supply] and exposed a vulnerability in our system. Eighty percent of our water supply is in the south end of our system,” explains Lochhead. “The other event was the severe drought in 2002. During that drought, the north end of our system almost ran out of water.”

Northern Water and Denver Water both say that these added storage projects will help them protect their customers from climate variability. They are betting on enough wet years to fill their reservoirs to help get through the more frequent dry years, even as the population in their service areas grows.

“If we’re thinking about putting in new water storage projects, all the risk is really on the dry side. Are we going to be able to fill this and get the yield we’re assuming in our economic analysis for the project?” cautions Lukas. “I would be much more focused on all of the dry scenarios, the lower runoff outcomes coming out of the climate model informed projections, than the relatively fewer projections that suggest we could get more runoff in the future.”

In the face of shrinking river flows, some environmentalists and other experts are critical of building more water storage when existing reservoirs struggle to stay full and river ecosystems are more stressed than ever.

Save the Colorado sued both storage projects as part of its mission to oppose dams and diversions on the Colorado River. Director Gary Wockner takes a hard stance, saying “These two projects will further drain and destroy the Colorado River at the exact moment the system is collapsing.”

But other environmental organizations take a more pragmatic position. Legal Counsel for the Colorado Water Project at Trout Unlimited, Mely Whiting, said that her organization didn’t oppose these two storage projects because they were a preferred alternative to building the Two Forks Dam, a vetoed project that would have inundated some of the headwaters of the South Platte under 1 million acre-feet of water.

Whether a warming climate will create more precipitation and improve storage levels is a major question.

While Chimney Hollow and the Gross Reservoir Expansion are underway, any future storage in Colorado or elsewhere will be problematic, Lukas says.

“Climate change cuts both ways with respect to storage. It both makes it more appealing, and it is a potential tool for resilience, but only if that reservoir can be filled enough to create the benefits that are expected,” explains Lukas, “If those storage projects involve transbasin diversions from the Colorado [River], that is looking increasingly untenable in a multi-state and a national-political sense, let alone at the local, East Slope-versus-West Slope context. To propose new diversions out of the Colorado River Basin to anywhere, for anything, is really going to be looked at sideways unless things really improve in the basin.”

Olivia Emmer is a freelance journalist based in Carbondale, Colorado. She can be reached at olivia@soprissun.com.

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.

After initial failure, new effort could bring green hydrogen pilot project to Yampa River Valley

By

Fresh Water News

-

August 10, 2022

Friends of the Yampa board members and members stand in Juniper Canyon, scouting the Maybell Irrigation Ditch, a diversion that takes water off the Yampa River into the Maybell Valley west of Craig. Photo courtesy of Friends of the Yampa by Kent Vertrees.

By Jerd Smith

After an attempt last year to secure funding for a green hydrogen pilot in the Yampa River Valley failed, state officials and Tri-State Generation and Transmission, among others, are taking another run at the idea, using a new program launched earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Energy.

In February, the U.S. Department of Energy announced it would make available $8 billion from the new bipartisan federal infrastructure funding package to create hydrogen hubs across the country. In March, Colorado New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming formed a partnership to compete for the financing, a process that is likely to take months, if not years, to complete.

According to the Colorado Energy Office, the idea would be to create multiple sites in each state, in part to boost each state’s chance of winning some of the funding to build the hydrogen plants and to use each state’s unique natural assets to test different scenarios, such as whether to use hydropower or solar, and which storage and transmission systems could work best.

The Yampa River Valley’s coal-fired power plant at Craig, which is operated and partially owned by Tri-State, will be decommissioned beginning in 2025, with the process set to be completed in 2030. The plant once employed more than 300 people, but is now down to roughly 100 employees, according to Tri-State’s spokesman Mark Stutz.

Last year, Tri-State, Xcel and the State of Colorado applied for a federal grant to begin a feasibility study on producing green hydrogen, a process that could use hydropower, solar energy or wind to create the electricity needed to split water atoms into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen can be emitted without increasing greenhouse gases, while the hydrogen can be stored and used to create electricity.

But Colorado’s proposal was rejected. Now, with an eye on helping the Yampa River Valley protect its water and its economy from the loss of coal jobs, the utilities, the state, Yampa Valley economic development agencies, and Colorado State University are looking at other routes to a green energy transition.

“We’re listening to every and all options,” Stutz said. “We will be a small player in this. But we have a site, and we believe Craig is a good location because of the transmission, water and site availability.”

There is also some interest in building a small nuclear facility at the site, because the hydrogen technology has yet to be perfected and costs remain high, Stutz said.

Still, hydrogen has been described as the missing link in the transition away from fossil fuels. It can be produced in several ways. Green hydrogen, the subject of the proposal at Craig, is made from water using electrolysis. The oxygen separated out of the H2O can be vented, leaving the hydrogen, a fluid that can be stored in tanks or, as is in a demonstration project in Utah, in salt caverns. The hydrogen can then be tapped later as a fuel source to produce electricity or, for that matter, put into pipelines for distribution to fueling stations.

How much water would be needed to produce green hydrogen isn’t clear. But the Yampa Valley’s existing coal-fired plants have strong water portfolios that could be used.

Craig Station, in 2022, is projected to use 7,394 acre-feet of water, according to a Tri-State filing with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. By 2029, the last year of coal generation at Craig, Tri-State projects water use will decline to 4,270 acre-feet.

With drought depleting streamflows across Colorado and the West, the Yampa River is being watched closely, in part because it is a major tributary to the Colorado River.

Environmental groups have long hoped that either the state or environmental coalitions could purchase the water rights from the utilities in order to keep more water in the river and improve its health. But because hydrogen production would likely use less water than coal production, there could still be an environmental benefit in the conversion of the plants to hydrogen production, according to Jennifer Holloway, executive director of the Craig Chamber of Commerce who also serves on the Yampa/White/Green River Basin Roundtable.

“There are a lot of scientists who think it is a great opportunity for our area to use the hydrogen to repurpose our infrastructure. We have a lot of skilled workers that could easily be shifted into a hydrogen production scenario,” Holloway said.

But she said she would like to see as much water as possible left in the river.

“My concern with hydrogen is are they going to take too much? Everything they’ve told me is that the hydrogen would use less water. If that is indeed the fact, that is good news,” she said.

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.

Opinions differ on timeline as Crystal River Wild & Scenic efforts move ahead

By

Aspen Journalism

-

August 10, 2022

State Highway 133 crosses the Crystal River several times as it flows downstream to its confluence with the Roaring Fork River in Carbondale. Some proponents of a federal Wild & Scenic designation are pushing for a quick timeline while others want a more cautious approach. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

By Heather Sackett

A campaign to protect one of the last free-flowing rivers in Colorado is moving forward, but some proponents say not enough progress has been made over the past year.

Last spring a handful of advocates led by Pitkin County revived an effort to secure a federal Wild & Scenic designation, which would protect the upper Crystal River from future development, dams and diversions. A year into the effort, some say a planned stakeholder process is moving too slowly, while others say a designation can’t be rushed and must be approached carefully and inclusively.

The different philosophies underscore a rift between those who say a cautious and thorough multi-year approach is what’s needed to ensure success and those who say mounting threats to the river, driven by the climate crisis, demand bold and immediate action.

“That difference of opinion concerns me a great deal,” said Kate Hudson, Crystal River Valley resident and western U.S coordinator for Waterkeeper Alliance. “We are at an existential moment both in terms of water and climate and our congressional balance of power that requires we at least try and do this faster. We should at least try to move this as quickly as possible.”

In 2021 Pitkin County Healthy Rivers granted $35,000 to Carbondale-based environmental conservation group Wilderness Workshop to start up a public outreach and education campaign, with the goal of laying a foundation of grassroots support for the effort. The organization has built a website, held events and collected about 1,000 signatures on a petition supporting the designation. The next step will be working with Pitkin County to hire a facilitator for a formal stakeholder process.

At the June Healthy Rivers board meeting, Wilderness Workshop’s Wild & Scenic campaign manager Michael Gorman gave a presentation about progress so far. Board member Wendy Huber asked about the timeline and whether the process should be moving faster. Gorman said a designation could take several more years.

“I’m feeling a little urgency,” she said. “To sort of dilly dally seems to be losing opportunities.”

Grant Stevens, communications director for Wilderness Workshop, said that while he understands the community’s urgency, it’s important to develop a proposal that Colorado’s congressional representatives can get behind. A designation must be approved by Congress and advocates have been in contact with representatives from Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper’s offices.

“We want to make sure we have something that a federal elected official will support, and we need to make sure we go through a community-driven process to get to that point,” Stevens said. “We don’t want to rush that.”

The view looking upstream on the Crystal River below Avalanche Creek. A Pitkin County group wants to designate this section of the Crystal as Wild & Scenic.
CREDIT: CURTIS WACKERLE/ASPEN JOURNALISM — The view looking upstream on the Crystal River below Avalanche Creek. A Pitkin County group wants to designate this section of the Crystal as Wild & Scenic.CREDIT: CURTIS WACKERLE/ASPEN JOURNALISM

Designation details

The U.S. Forest Service first determined in the 1980s that the Crystal River was eligible for designation under the Wild & Scenic River Act, which seeks to preserve rivers with outstandingly remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic and cultural values in a free-flowing condition. There are three categories under a designation: wild, which are sections that are inaccessible by trail, with shorelines that are primitive; scenic, with shorelines that are largely undeveloped, but are accessible by roads in some places; and recreational, which are readily accessible by road or railroad and have development along the shoreline.

The potential proposal for the Crystal includes all three types of designation: wild in the upper reaches of the river’s wilderness headwaters, scenic in the middle stretches and recreational from the town of Marble to the Sweet Jessup canal headgate. Each river with a Wild & Scenic designation has unique legislation written for it that can be customized to address local stakeholders’ values and concerns.

Despite its renowned river rafting, fishing and scenic beauty, which contribute to the recreation-based economy of many Western Slope communities, Colorado has just 76 miles of one river — the Cache La Poudre — designated as Wild & Scenic. This underscores the difficulty of trying to preserve free-flowing streams, especially in a water-scarce region where some would like to see rivers remain available for future water development.

This map shows the sections of the Crystal River that could be designated wild, scenic and recreational according to the finding of eligibility by the U.S. Forest Service.
CREDIT: COURTESY ROARING FORK CONSERVANCY — This map shows the sections of the Crystal River that could be designated wild, scenic and recreational according to the finding of eligibility by the U.S. Forest Service.CREDIT: COURTESY ROARING FORK CONSERVANCY

Stakeholder participation

Since the Crystal flows through Gunnison County and the town of Marble, advocates say getting those residents and elected representatives on board will be key to moving the effort forward. A first attempt at a Wild & Scenic designation, which sought to prevent the possibility of a future dam and reservoir project, couldn’t get buy-in from some Marble residents or Gunnison County. Advocates shelved the discussion in 2016 with the election of President Donald Trump. This time around, they hope to secure at least the participation if not the support of past opponents.

Marble Town Administrator Ron Leach acknowledged there is still a lot of work to be done as far as gauging public sentiment and building awareness.

Leach has been heavily involved in the town’s multi-year process to address overcrowding on the Lead King loop, a popular off-highway vehicle route near Marble. He said when it comes to these things, slow and methodical is the right strategy and that town officials are totally supportive of the Wild & Scenic stakeholders group, in which he participates as the Marble representative.

“The more process, the better the product,” Leach said. “I’ve learned that the hard way. Take it easy and make sure it’s right.”

Gunnison County Commissioner Roland Mason agreed. He said more conversations need to happen before he could say whether Gunnison County would support a designation.

“I appreciate the fact that they are not trying to rush the timeline,” Mason said. “From my perspective it’s moving at a little bit of a slow pace because of trying to get everyone on board but at the same time, it’s kind of necessary.”

But supporters may never get everyone on board. Larry Darien, who owns a ranch on County Road 3 that borders the river, was one of the early opponents to the designation and still remains opposed to Wild & Scenic because of its potential effect on private property.

While the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act does give the federal government the ability to acquire private land, there are many restrictions on those abilities. Condemnation is a tool that is rarely used, according to a Q&A document compiled by the Interagency Wild and Scenic Rivers Coordinating Council.

“I’m not in favor of a dam on the Crystal River and I’m not in favor of water being taken out and sent someplace else and I’m not in favor of Wild & Scenic designation,” he said. “There are other ways we can manage this besides Wild & Scenic and I think that’s the way we need to go instead of getting the federal government involved.”

The alternate route Darien is referring to is a collaboratively created alternative management plan on the Upper Colorado River, which offers some of the same protections as Wild & Scenic, but still allows for some water development.

Advocates will have to decide whether total consensus is a realistic goal and if they should move forward even though some opposition remains.

The headwaters of the Crystal River include the tributary of Yule Creek, the drainage seen to the left from an Eco-Flight, where Colorado Stone Quarries’ marble quarry is located. Some, including Pitkin County, would like to see the Crystal River designated under the federal Wild & Scenic River Act.
CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM — The headwaters of the Crystal River include the tributary of Yule Creek, the drainage seen to the left from an Eco-Flight, where Colorado Stone Quarries’ marble quarry is located. Some, including Pitkin County, would like to see the Crystal River designated under the federal Wild & Scenic River Act.CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

Threats to the Crystal?

While there may be a general feeling of worry about drought and falling reservoir levels in the Colorado River basin overall, it’s unclear what — if any — specific, imminent threats there are to the upper Crystal River. In 2012, conservation group American Rivers deemed the Crystal one of the top 10 most endangered rivers. This was spurred by plans, which have since been scrapped, from the Colorado River Water Conservation District and the West Divide Conservation District to preserve water rights tied to reservoirs near Redstone.

Still, in a place where much of the state’s headwaters are taken across the Continental Divide to thirsty Front Range cities, Wild & Scenic proponents say it could happen on the Crystal, even if those threats are currently hypothetical. Many of Colorado’s rivers have been overly tapped, but there’s still water left to develop on the Crystal.

“To me, the greatest threat to the Crystal isn’t so much the storage facility, it’s that there’s still water in the Crystal,” said Pitkin County Attorney John Ely. “The biggest risk to the Crystal is just taking water out of the drainage. That’s why I think the (Wild & Scenic) effort is still worth doing.”

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.

Some still don’t have a reliable water source near the headwaters of the Colorado River

By

KBUT Community Radio

-

August 2, 2022

Country Meadows Mobile Park. Maltarich/KBUT — *Country Meadows Mobile Park. Stephanie Maltarich/KBUT*

By Stephanie Maltarich

Water supply is regularly interrupted for residents in a Gunnison mobile home park. After years of bringing attention to the issue, they still haven’t seen solutions. Several members of the community have been working on a state-wide plan to bring more attention to water equity issues.

Listen to the story here.

A few weeks ago, residents of a mobile home park in Gunnison were without water for most of the day; the three wells that supply water are often unreliable. Those who live in the park have been speaking up for years without result. While some in the valley struggle with reliable water, a few Gunnison residents worked on a new state initiative to address equity in water issues in Colorado.

Just off the highway, a few minutes north of Gunnison, is Country Meadows mobile home park. The dusty dirt lot is made up of about 55 mobile homes nestled beneath a stand of cottonwood trees.

Elizabeth McGee moved to the park last August, and it didn’t take her long to learn that the water may or may not come out of the faucet – depending on the day.

“My sister lives with my mom, she’s like, ‘yeah, we’ll go without water forever’ and I’m like, this is not okay,” said McGee.

This motivated McGee to join the nonprofit, Organizacion de Nuevas Esperanzas, or ONE, which translates to “new hopes” in Spanish. Last year, a group of mobile home park residents formed the nonprofit in to voice their concerns about water and a long list of other problems.

“I think 20 trailers up here in front that went without water almost all day yesterday,” said McGee. “It was on for a little while, and then it got turned off again.”

McGee was recently elected as ONE’s board president, and she says the nonprofit has helped residents connect with the county, lawyers and advocacy groups to call attention to the park’s owner who rarely responded to their concerns. In 2020, they filed complaints with the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA), but since the park sold in the spring, no one is sure if, or when, they’ll see a resolution.

*Elizabeth McGee, Country Meadows resident and ONE Board President. Maltarich/KBUT*

Gunnison sits at the headwaters of the Colorado River. Access to water to drink, shower, wash dishes and do laundry is usually as simple as twisting a knob and letting water run from the tap. But a 2019 census study found that one in 45 homes in Gunnison County has poor plumbing.

Sonja Chavez is the general manager of the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District (UGRWCD). The organization started in 1959 to protect all water uses in the Upper Gunnison River Basin. Chavez’s job keeps her in the know about all things related to water. And sometimes, what she learns is surprising.

“I know within my own local community, there are people who don’t have access to good quality, clean water,” said Chavez.

Chavez is part of a Colorado group that spent the last year discussing many issues around water equity. The conversations focused on water equity often focused on the fact that some don’t have access to reliable, clean drinking water.

The group is called the Water Equity Task Force, and it brought together 21 diverse people, including members of Colorado’s federally recognized tribes and the acequia community, located in Southeast Colorado.

“Our conversations and our task, as dictated by the governor, was really to identify the ways in which the Colorado Water Conservation Board could ensure that they are having diversity, equity and inclusion around conversations on water, and that we reach all the various populations,” Chavez said.

The group met four times over a year to help incorporate equity into the Colorado Water Plan. The state created the plan in 2015 to work on the state’s water challenges while planning for an uncertain future. This year, the plan will see a huge update, and addressing equity is a big priority.

*Sonja Chavez general manager of Upper Gunnison Watershed Conservancy District. Maltarich/KBUT*

Some of the members of the task force had deep connections to water, but others were community members with other areas of expertise. Like Dr. Alina Luna, professor emeritus at Western Colorado University.

For Dr. Luna, water equity means everyone has access to potable water.

“We need water to allow people not only to thrive,” said Dr. Luna. “But also to be able to exist and survive.”

Dr. Luna has years of experience in equity-focused work. She chaired Western’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Internationalization Committee and created an undergraduate minor with a focus on diversity.

Although she admits she didn’t know much about water issues before sitting on the task force, she thinks if people can understand the basis of equity, they can apply it to all water issues.

”You know, people, I think, confuse equity with equality,” said Dr. Luna. “Equity is about meeting people where they are giving them what they need to be successful. Equality assumes that everybody needs the same thing to succeed.”

Back at Country Meadows, Elizabeth McGee said she never considered herself an organizer or community activist before moving here.

“I used to be a very quiet in my own little world type person,” said McGee. “And then I moved out here and I was getting tired of all of us getting abused because that’s pretty much what’s happening, is we’re being abused.”

*Alina Luna stands outside Western Colorado University. Maltarich/KBUT*

No one in Country Meadows is sure what will happen now that the park is under new ownership, but McGee said she and members of ONE will continue to fight until they know every home in the park has a steady stream of water.

KBUT’s Headwaters series was made possible by The Water Desk, an independent 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.

Emergency Colorado River rescue plan likely to include more Flaming Gorge releases, payments to cut water use

By

Fresh Water News

-

August 2, 2022

*Rancher Bryan Bernal irrigates a field that depends on Colorado River water near Loma, Colo. Credit: William Woody*

By Jerd Smith

Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming may face requests for voluntary cutbacks in their use of Colorado River water next year, as the federal government eyes releasing more water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir and as Arizona, California and Nevada scramble to find ways to slash water use quickly.

Experts say these actions are among dozens of options likely to be on the table as negotiators race to find ways to help rescue lakes Powell and Mead, whose levels continue to drop in the midst of another desperately dry drought year.

Last month, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton gave the seven states that share the Colorado River 60 days to come up with a plan to cut water use by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet next year and going forward to keep the system from collapsing. A plan is expected to be unveiled on or before Aug. 16.

The Colorado River system reservoirs, including Powell, Mead and Flaming Gorge, are managed by the federal government and Touton has made clear that the feds will decide how to cut water use themselves if the states and other major players, such as the tribes and environmental groups, don’t come up with their own feasible plan.

This week the Upper Basin states, which include Colorado, released a five-point plan outlining what they would be willing to do. Actions in the plan include supporting the release of more water from Upper Basin reservoirs, re-starting a large-scale farm fallowing program, improving water measurement and monitoring, saving more water in a special drought pool in Lake Powell, and implementing more conservation programs in the Upper Basin.

What the Lower Basin states will propose isn’t clear yet, but what is clear is that the dwindling river continues to deteriorate.

What the river produces

Once thought to generate more than 15 million acre-feet (maf) of water annually, the Colorado River as a whole now generates much less, thanks to a 22-year drought that shows no signs of easing. With the Lower Basin states, Arizona, California and Nevada, routinely using some 10 maf, and the Upper Basin states using between 3.5 to 4.5 maf, lakes Powell and Mead have been drawn down to cover the river’s annual shortfalls.

Now, the massive hydropower plants at Lake Powell are in danger of shutting down, with Powell and Mead roughly 25% full.

According to a new Reclamation analysis the system will need 600,000 to 4.5 million acre-feet annually through 2026 to keep Powell’s hydropower system operating and help balance the river system. This is in addition to current efforts to increase lake levels and conserve water.

While Upper Basin states have called loudly for Lower Basin states to shoulder the burden for Commissioner Touton’s cuts, Colorado experts such as Brad Wind, general manager for the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, said everyone will have to contribute to achieve the cutbacks.

“I imagine the folks at the negotiating table are looking at every tool possible to rebalance the system. Some mandatory, some voluntary,” Wind said. “We need to put our heads together on how we can conserve water. The supplies are shrinking. If we have to have cutbacks, and that is one option we have heard about, it would have grave consequences for Northern Colorado.”

Pots of water

Jennifer Gimbel, interim director of Colorado State University’s water center and former deputy commissioner for Reclamation, said the federal government will likely call for more releases from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Utah. In July of 2021, the federal government took emergency action and released 161,000 acre-feet of combined water from Flaming Gorge and Blue Mesa Reservoir in Colorado. This year the feds ordered another 500,000 acre-feet be released from Flaming Gorge and opted to cut releases from Powell by 500,000 acre-feet to create a 1 million acre-foot buffer.

But it is already clear that won’t be enough.

“It’s reasonable to assume that they are looking at all pots of water available to them, including Flaming Gorge,” Gimbel said.

She also said it was likely that the Lower Basin will ask the Upper Basin states to make voluntary cutbacks in their own water use, given that California, Arizona and Nevada are being forced by the federal government to do so.

“The Lower Basin would ask the Upper Basin to cut back as part of any bigger deal that’s on the table, but that will be a hard sell in the Upper Basin because we haven’t been using our full 7.5 million acre-feet,” she said.

Gimbel was referring to the amount of water the Upper Basin states are legally entitled to under the 1922 Colorado River Compact, in which the Upper Basin and Lower Basin states were each allocated 7.5 million acre-feet of water.

Crisis averted earlier?

Melinda Kassen, a former environmental water attorney for Trout Unlimited and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, said watching the Colorado River unravel has been disappointing, because so many people have been trying for years to get the states and the federal government to act sooner.

“This all could have been prevented,” she said, “and it’s particularly painful for me to watch, given that we gave the Upper Basin a chance with the DCP [2019 Drought Contingency Plan] to think hard, do a lot of testing and try some things, and they chose to do nothing.”

Kassen was referring to Colorado’s decision earlier this year to temporarily halt work on establishing a drought pool in Lake Powell, which would have required voluntary reductions in water use primarily by the state’s farmers, and the ability to track and measure the amount of conserved water that made it to Powell. Those reductions, envisioned to be temporary and compensated, would have come as part of a program known as demand management, and putting it in place under the DCP requires agreement from all four Upper Basin states.

“We could have stored 500,000 acre-feet in Powell,” she said. “We could have put together a program to pay people not to farm. The water wouldn’t have been lost. Instead we squandered an opportunity to figure out how to do this.”

Colorado officials cited, in part, waiting for the other Upper Basin states to catch up as the reason for putting the program’s development on hold.

All eyes on ag

Because agriculture consumes roughly 80% of the river’s supplies basin-wide, finding ways to slash agricultural water use in the short term and long term will be critical, experts said.

Gimbel and others are hopeful that billions of dollars in new funding through the new federal infrastructure act can be used immediately to pay growers to temporarily cut back use until ag irrigation systems can be further modernized to use less water.

“When we have federal money to spend, we need to be looking at innovations in irrigation and farming,” Gimbel said. “But it’s not just as simple as changing crops. We know that irrigation uses a lot of this water, we know we depend on it to feed ourselves, but we have to put some heavy duty investments into how to do it differently and sustainably.”

On Aug. 16, Reclamation will release a new 2023 forecast for the river. Negotiators, unless they get an extension, must have a plan ready by then, according to Reclamation officials.

That tight deadline is almost unprecedented in the water world, where negotiations over delicate political issues and highly technical water management issues typically take years to bear fruit.

Bathtub drains

Larry Clever manages the Ute Water Conservancy District in Grand Junction, which relies solely on the Colorado River and its tributaries for its supplies.

Clever is among those who are calling for immediate cutbacks in use by the Lower Basin states. Without those, he said, there will be little chance of bringing Powell and Mead back up to more sustainable levels.

“It’s hard to fill a bathtub when the drain is open,” he said.

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.

A centuries-old system determines who gets water first and last

By

KBUT Community Radio

-

July 25, 2022

Ditches meander through Peterson Ranch. Maltarich/KBUT — *Ditches meander through Peterson Ranch. Stephanie Maltarich/KBUT*

By Stephanie Maltarich

Listen to the story here.

Prior appropriation is the water law in the West that determines how water is divided among users. Most of the water in the Colorado River Basin is used for agriculture. Increasingly, Colorado is designating rights to streams themselves as rivers and drought continues to shrink water supplies.

In the Upper Gunnison River Basin, the majority of the water that melts from mountains is used for agriculture. Fields are irrigated for pasture and hay to feed cattle on the nearly 100 ranches in the region. A centuries-old system determines who gets their first and who gets it last.

Just off of Highway 50, about 15 miles east of Gunnison, Greg Peterson toured = his family’s ranch, Peterson Ranch. The land is an intricate system of water-filled ditches that runs through thousands of acres. The property has about 15-20 ditches in total.

“So this is Tomichi Creek and the water is diverted out of it into the ditch that we irrigate with,” said Peterson.

Peterson’s parents bought the property in 1962, but the water rights tied to the land go back much further – all the way back to 1882. The ranch is one of nearly 100 small operations in the Upper Gunnison River Basin, most of which raise cattle and grow hay.

*Greg Peterson at his ranch near Gunnison. Maltarich/KBUT*

On a spring day in May, Peterson is awaiting peak water runoff, so far runoff has been slow to fill the ditches so he can irrigate his property. He explained how the water moves from the ditch onto his property.

“So we’ve created a dam in the river,” said Peterson. “And then the water goes down the ditch to where we turn it out in different places and irrigate with it.”

About 80% of the water that runs through the Colorado River Basin is used for agriculture. In and around the Gunnison Valley, the number is even higher, about 95%.

Colorado’s water law is called prior appropriation, and it dates back to the end of the 19th century. And in theory, it’s pretty simple. To get a right to water, it had to be diverted from a stream or river and put to use, like irrigating fields. The right was made official after a court process.

*Flume measures water as it flows through Greg Peterson’s ditch. Maltarich/KBUT*

The system goes by ‘first in time, first in right.’ Those who came first have senior water rights. Latecomers were given junior water rights. On dry years, those with a senior right may use all of the water, and, junior users may not have access to any. It’s not a perfect system, but Greg Peterson said it works.

Peterson explained that when the water is short in the river, senior water rights holders control the system.

“If it wasn’t for that, it’d be chaos,” said Peterson. “So yeah, I’m a strong believer in the prior appropriation system.”

Stacy McPhail is the executive director of the Gunnison Ranchland Conservation Legacy. The organization was founded in 1995, and since then has helped ranching families conserve their lands and water from development.

“It helped keep ranching here, and agriculture as a part of our kind of rural economy,” said McPhail. “But it also helped make sure that the water could not be moved out of our basin.”

Keeping water in the valley tied water rights to the land, and prevented water from being shipped across mountains to an increasingly thirsty front range. McPhail says although a lot of water is used in agriculture, much of it is reused as it flows downstream toward Mexico.

“I’m not certain that everyone in the community or in the larger system of the state knows how recyclable that resource is, and how much we’re putting back into the river,” said McPhail. “It’s not just taking it out, you never see it again, it goes back and is reused and recirculated throughout.”

In the past, creeks have run dry, which kills aquatic life like fish and insects. They require a minimum amount of water called base flow to survive.

Enter Colorado’s Instream Flow program, which started in 1973. Instream flows give legal water rights to rivers and streams and has helped protect almost 10,000 miles of waterways around the state.

One family in the Gunnison Valley is teaming up with the state’s instream flow program. Jesse Kruthaupt’s family also owns a ranch along Tomichi Creek, and he is the upper Gunnison project manager for Trout Unlimited. About a decade ago, the ranch did something unique: it agreed to lease its senior water rights to the river during periods of low flow.

“So our irrigation right becomes instream flow for a period of time,” said Kruthaupt.

In response to the ongoing drought, the state has offered to pay ranchers to leave their water right in the river when levels sink to critically low levels. Kruthaupt said the program, which is facilitated by the Colorado Water Trust, has worked for his family. In addition to running a successful ranch, they also have an interest in the fishery through his work with Trout Unlimited.

But, Kruthaupt said every year it’s a continuous balancing act.

“We were compensated for leaving water in the creek,” said Kruthaupt. “But we have to purchase hay or rent pasture to make up the difference that year.”

Kruthaupt said leasing water to the instream flow program may not fit the bottom line for every ranch. But, creative approaches like this will be essential as an already stressed Colorado River system struggles to meet water demands.

Cebolla creek, a tributary of the Gunnison River. Biddle/KBUT

KBUT’s Headwaters series was made possible by The Water Desk, an independent 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.

Colorado Reservoirs at 85% of average capacity, with little recovery expected summer rains may offer temporary relief

By

Fresh Water News

-

July 21, 2022

Blue Mesa Reservoir is the largest storage facility in Colorado in the Upper Colorado River system. Prolonged drought and downriver demand is shrinking the reservoir. On this day the water elevation was 7,457 feet. Ted Wood/The Water Desk

By Jerd Smith

As back-to-back drought years continue to reduce snowpack and spring runoff, Colorado’s reservoirs are seeing little to any recovery in storage levels, members of the state’s Water Availability Task Force said Tuesday.

“It’s going to be a challenge for this year and the forseeable future until we get a banner snowpack year,” said Karl Wetlaufer, assistant snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and a task force member.

Statewide reservoir storage is at 85% of average, a number that hasn’t improved much in the past three years, Wetlaufer said.

Colorado derives the majority of its drinking and farm water supplies from mountain snows that are collected in reservoirs, and as a result, reservoir levels are closely watched.

Across the state’s eight major river basins, those to the north remain the wettest, with the South Platte Basin, which includes metro Denver and the Northern Front Range, seeing storage levels at roughly 94% of normal.

The Colorado River Basin headwater region has storage levels of 98%.

But to the southwest, in the hard-hit San Juan Dolores Basin, which includes Durango, reservoir storage levels are the lowest in the state, registering just 67% of normal,

At the same time, a new report from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows that the majority of Colorado remains in moderate to severe drought, with the southern portion of the state still mired in extreme drought.

Looking ahead to September, the forecast shows near normal precipitation for the state, but much higher temperatures as well.

At the same time, the drought continues to sap Colorado’s rivers. Statewide stream flows are expected to hit just 69% of average. And in the picture in the dry southwest corner of the state is grim, with the San Juan Basin expected to see stream flows of just 26% of normal, while the Rio Grande Basin streams are expected to hit 33% of average, according to the NRCS.

Task force member Becky Bolinger, assistant state climatologist at Colorado State University’s Climate Center, said the drought will likely continue into the fall and early winter. Though summer rains will help improve soil moisture levels, it won’t be enough to compensate for the damage already done this year.

According to Bolinger, it is likely that La Niña conditions will continue into the fall and beginning of winter. But if the fall is warm and dry, that could worsen drought conditions and Colorado could start another snowpack season at a deficit.

Still, Colorado’s ability to store water is a bright spot in the broader Colorado River Basin, where Lake Mead and Lake Powell are hovering around just 25% full.

The seven Colorado River Basin states, which include Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, in the Upper Basin, and Arizona, California and Nevada, in the Lower basin, are under an emergency order to come up with a plan to slash water use by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet by August or face mandatory cuts imposed by the federal government.

“We are not getting enough years like 2019 (which had above average mountain snowpacks) to boost reservoirs again,” Bolinger said. “The more likely scenarios are for less water.

“Despite sounding all gloom and doom, if everybody knows what they have to work with, they will adjust. When you know what you’re working with, then you can make good decisions,” she said.

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.

State officials looking for engagement on updated water plan

By

Aspen Journalism

-

July 21, 2022

Raymond Langstaff, a rancher and president of the Bookcliff Conservation District, irrigates a parcel north of Rifle. The 2023 Water Plan update says agriculture could experience an even bigger water supply gap in the future. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

By Heather Sackett

State officials are hoping dire climate predictions and water shortages will convince Coloradans to get involved in planning how to share a dwindling resource.

Colorado Water Conservation Board staff released the second iteration of the Colorado Water Plan on Thursday, which is now open for public comment. The first version of the plan was implemented in 2015.

Words from the late water expert and former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Greg Hobbs set the tone on page 1 of the document: The 21st century is no longer about developing a resource, it is now an era of limits and learning how to share a developed resource.

“I think we get to educate and engage and inspire and be an example and I think that’s the benefit,” said CWCB Executive Director Becky Mitchell. “I think when we are given the opportunity to lead, Coloradans do that.”

The updated plan lays out four interconnected areas for action: vibrant communities, robust agriculture, thriving watersheds and resilient planning. Although municipal and industry does not currently experience a gap, the plan predicts a 230,000 to 740,000 acre-foot shortfall for cities and industries by 2050. According to the plan, about 20% of agriculture diversion demand is currently not met statewide, and that gap could grow to a 3.5 million acre-foot shortfall by 2050 under the “hot growth” scenario that would see temperatures rise 4.2 degrees Fahrenheit.

Meeting these supply-demand gaps will require hundreds of water projects throughout Colorado’s eight river basins, and carries a price tag of $20 billion. These projects, many of which have benefits to more than one water-use sector, are laid out in each roundtable’s Basin Implementation Plan.

Boaters float the Yampa River. According to the updated state Water Plan, summer recreation flow needs may not be met in the future due to lower peak flows, fueled by climate change.
CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM — Boaters float the Yampa River. According to the updated state Water Plan, summer recreation flow needs may not be met in the future due to lower peak flows, fueled by climate change.CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

Backdrop of climate change

The 239-page document is set against the backdrop of climate change, which plays a bigger role in this water plan than in the 2015 version. The first water plan did not include projections of future climate change in its analyses. Three of the five planning scenarios now include assumptions of hotter conditions in the years to come.

According to the plan, Colorado has had three of the top five driest years on record since 2000 and has experienced a 2 degree Fahrenheit increase in average temperature. The state may see an additional 2.5 to 5 degree warming by 2050. Most projections show a decline in spring snowpack and more frequent heat waves, drought and wildfire, all of which have implications for water.

Environmental and recreation water needs could see the worst impacts since those uses generally have the most junior water rights.

“Peak runoff may shift as much as one month earlier, which could lead to drier conditions in summer months and impact storage, irrigation and streamflow,” the plan reads. “Decreased peak flows across the basin create risks for riparian/wetland plants and fish habitat. Instream flows and recreational in-channel diversions may not be met if June-August flows decrease due to climate change.”

The pie chart shows how much water each sector uses in Colorado, as well as how much water originating here leaves the state.
CREDIT: COURTESY COLORADO WATER PLAN — The pie chart shows how much water each sector uses in Colorado, as well as how much water originating here leaves the state.CREDIT: COURTESY COLORADO WATER PLAN

Old tensions and trends

The new plan addressed a tension from the first plan: Front Range water providers would like the ability to develop new transmountain diversions in the future, while Western Slope stakeholders say not to look to the Colorado River basin for more water for thirsty cities. Colorado’s Front Range currently takes about 500,000 acre-feet of water a year from the headwaters of the Colorado River basin across the Continental Divide.

The plan stopped short of a detailed analysis of transmountain diversions because of ongoing litigation and permitting processes, but promised that state staff would facilitate discussions about transmountain diversions before the next update to the plan.

“Our promise to West Slope folks was when we could get past those legal barriers, we would take an honest look at trying to have a better conversation,” said Russ Sands, senior program manager for the CWCB’s water supply planning section. “I think we owe it to our stakeholders to try and focus on analysis.”

The plan says Colorado will continue the slow but steady transformation of moving water from agriculture — by far the largest water user — to cities, with nearly 14,000 acres of irrigated land expected to be urbanized, one-third of that in the Grand Valley. Stakeholders estimate the loss of irrigated land to “buy-and-dry” to be even greater at 33,000 to 76,000 acres, which is three times higher than the 2015 Water Plan estimate.

But this could be eased by innovative and flexible agreements between water users that allow the temporary transfer of water from one use to another. Formerly known as Alternative Transfer Methods, state officials have rebranded them Collaborative Water Sharing Agreements, which allow water sharing, but prevent the permanent removal of water from the land.

The Crystal River wends its way downstream along the flanks of Mount Sopris to its confluence with the Roaring Fork River near Carbondale. State officials have released an update to the 2015 Water Plan, which includes hotter and drier future planning scenarios.
CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM — The Crystal River wends its way downstream along the flanks of Mount Sopris to its confluence with the Roaring Fork River near Carbondale. State officials have released an update to the 2015 Water Plan, which includes hotter and drier future planning scenarios.CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

Equity and engagement

State officials have also made an effort to be more inclusive this time around and in March 2021 convened a Water Equity Task Force to help shape a guiding set of principles around equity, diversity and inclusion to inform the water plan. Abby Burk, the western rivers regional program manager with Audubon Rockies, was an equity task force member.

“People are engaging and leaning into the space other than just the water right owners,” she said. “We are all supported by water every single day. How do we expand this decision-making to include more voices? How do we open our arms and encourage more people to come into this space?”

The 2015 Water Plan racked up more than 30,000 comments and state officials are hoping Coloradans become even more involved this time around. The plan lays out three levels of engagement citizens can take and encourages Coloradans to promote water conservation, join water-focused stakeholder groups and coordinate with local leaders to advance water policy.

And there is a small bright spot that shows the potential for change when citizens get engaged: The plan says that Coloradans have reduced their per-person water use from 172 to 164 gallons a day, a 5% reduction in demand since 2008, mainly due to conservation efforts.

Sands said the tough conditions can open people’s minds and make them more willing to come to the table to talk.

“I think we are actually going to see more collaboration than ever,” he said.

The update to the Colorado Water Plan is open for public comment until September 30 and CWCB staff will also hold four online listening sessions. The plan is scheduled to be finalized by the CWCB in January 2023.

Aspen Journalism covers water and rivers in collaboration with 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.

Recent drop in Lake Powell’s storage shows how much space sediment is taking up

By

Aspen Journalism

-

July 21, 2022

Glen Canyon Dam photo — Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Ariz., forms Lake Powell. Bureau data on the reservoir’s water-storage volume showed a loss of 443,000 acre-feet between June 30 and July 1. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM

By Laurine Lassalle

The Bureau of Reclamation last week revised its data on the amount of water stored in Lake Powell, with a new, lower tally taking into account a 4% drop in the reservoir’s total available capacity between 1986 and 2018 due to sedimentation.

Bureau data on the reservoir’s water-storage volume showed a loss of 443,000 acre-feet between June 30 and July 1 — a 6% drop in storage from 6.87 million acre-feet (which is 28.28% of live storage based on 1986 data) to 6.43 million (26.46% of full).

The cause was a recalculation of water stored based on a Bureau of Reclamation and U.S.Geological Survey study released in March — the first such analysis in more than 30 years — about Lake Powell’s loss of storage capacity due to the amount of sediment that the Colorado River and other tributaries deposit into the reservoir. The study was based on data about sediment in the lake collected in 2017 and 2018.

“After inputting the new data on July 1, 2022, storage values at the current elevation were updated, resulting in a decrease of 443,000 acre-feet,“ bureau officials wrote in an email.

The Bureau of Reclamation has performed two prior sediment surveys: pre-impoundment (before the construction of the dam — up to 1963) and in 1986.

Storage capacity figures prior to the release of the report in March had been based on 1986 data, Casey Root, a hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Utah Water Science Center, said in an email.

The new data will be included in the upcoming July 24-Month Study, scheduled to be released in mid-July, which forecasts the reservoir’s volume and surface elevation, and in any subsequent operational projections.

Water storage at Lake Powell, May-July 2022 graph

Slackwater delta

“Like most reservoirs, Lake Powell loses storage capacity as a result of sedimentation from its source rivers,” said Root, who worked on the most recent USGS and Bureau of Reclamation study.

The paper explained that Lake Powell has continuously trapped sediment — including silt, sand and mud — from the Colorado and San Juan rivers since the Glen Canyon Dam impounded the rivers in 1963. The meeting of the free-flowing rivers carrying sediment with the slack water of the reservoir creates a delta, where the sediment falls to the lake’s bottom.

Root explained that the delta regions are located at the furthest extents of Lake Powell and that these areas typically contain the most sediment.

“Sediment isn’t deposited uniformly across the reservoir but rather far from the dam,” he said. “Over time, these deposits can laterally build toward the dam.”

Since it began filling in 1963, the reservoir has lost on average about 33,270 acre-feet in storage capacity each year, according to the study.

“Lake Powell is unique in that it is a long, narrow, steep-walled canyon, so the deltas have historically been about 150 miles away from Glen Canyon Dam,” Root said. “Simply being far away from the deltas can help buffer the dam and its operations against sedimentation.”

Due to this sedimentation, Lake Powell’s storage capacity at full pool decreased by 6.79% from 1963 to 2018, or a 1.83 million acre-foot loss.

Between 1986 and 2018, it dropped by 4%, which represents a loss of 1.05 million acre-feet in 32 years.

Animation showing the sedimentation process in Lake Powell. — This animation shows the sedimentation process in Lake Powell.

Sedimentation and the limits on useful life

While sedimentation is shrinking Lake Powell’s storage capacity, the 2022 study shows that storage loss has remained stable since 1963.

From 1963 to 1986, Lake Powell had lost on average 33,390 acre-feet in storage capacity each year; from 1986 through 2018, 33,180 acre-feet per year was lost, according to the report.

“As a first-order approximation, the average annual storage loss in Lake Powell indicates the remaining volume at full pool will be filled in approximately 750 years. However, the reservoir fills laterally, from the deltas toward Glen Canyon Dam, and would likely cease to be useful sooner,” the study pointed out.

Several other variables — including sedimentation rates and climate sensitivity among others — need to be taken into consideration to better evaluate the remaining useful life of the reservoir.

Researchers are currently working on the July 24-Month Study, which should offer further insights on the reservoir’s future operations when it gets published later this month. Lake Powell dropped to its lowest level since filling prior to this spring’s runoff, which has been increasing reservoir levels since late April. At its lowest point, Lake Powell’s surface elevation at the Glen Canyon Dam dropped to 3,522.24 feet above sea level on April 22, just 32 feet above the minimum level required to generate hydropower. Water volume at the reservoir on that day was listed as being at 23.68% of full pool.

This story ran in the Vail Daily, The Aspen Times, the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent Steamboat Pilot & Today and Craig Press.

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.

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

By

KBUT Community Radio

-

July 18, 2022

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

By Stephanie Maltarich

Listen to the story here

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.

Water DeskFollow the water

Water DeskFollow the water

Water DeskFollow the water

Water DeskFollow the water

Designation details

Stakeholder participation

Threats to the Crystal?

Water Desk Grantee Publication

What the river produces

Pots of water

Crisis averted earlier?

All eyes on ag

Bathtub drains

Water Desk Grantee Publication

Backdrop of climate change

Old tensions and trends

Equity and engagement

Slackwater delta

Sedimentation and the limits on useful life

Water Desk Grantee Publication

Recent stories