The far bank of the Yampa near the Flour Mill will get additional vegetation and trees to help cool river temperatures as part of this restoration project that began last week. The city of Steamboat is exploring a water quality trading program that could lower river temperatures and help the city comply with the permit requirements of its wastewater treatment facility. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — The city of Steamboat Springs is exploring a way to help it stay in compliance with state regulations and also cool down chronically high temperatures in an impaired stretch of the Yampa River.
A program called water-quality trading could allow the city to meet the requirements of its wastewater-treatment facility’s discharge permit from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment by cooling other areas of the river by planting trees.
The Yampa River flows through downtown Steamboat, where several parks and the Core Trail have been built along its banks. The river, a vital and cherished amenity for the Steamboat community, is popular with tubers and anglers. According to a 2017 survey of citizens, 75% of respondents ranked the management and health of the Yampa as essential or very important.
But low flows and high temperatures, made worse in recent years by climate change, have impacted the public’s ability to use one of their favorite amenities. In July, the city closed the river to commercial use because of high temperatures — over 75 degrees. The city also recommended a voluntary closure for noncommercial users of the river.
The entire 57-mile segment of the Yampa from above the confluence with Oak Creek to above the confluence with Elkhead Creek often has temperatures that are too high during the summer months, and in 2016 the segment was designated as impaired for temperature under the Clean Water Act. For July, August, September and November, stream temperatures exceed state standards for a cold-water fishery.
Because the river is classified as impaired, city officials expect that when CDPHE issues a future discharge permit for the city’s wastewater-treatment plant, it will include more-stringent water temperature standards. The wastewater-treatment plant may not be able to meet these standards unless it cools the effluent before releasing it back into the river. The city’s current discharge permit expires at the end of the year.
According to CDPHE Marketing and Communications Specialist Eric Garcia, Steamboat’s next permit will likely not have temperature limits, but will have temperature monitoring requirements. The soonest the city would have temperature limits for the wastewater treatment plan is Jan. 1, 2027.
“These monitoring requirements are included so that we have a full understanding of the temperature issues in the Yampa River and at the plant before we set any temperature limits,” Garcia said in an email.
But just cooling the effluent won’t fix the temperature problems on the entire 57-mile stretch. The wastewater-treatment facility is not the cause of the high temperatures — an engineering study could not pinpoint an exact cause, and the plant is 12 miles downstream from the start of the impaired section — and city officials see an opportunity to improve the health of the Yampa on a holistic, watershed level. Instead of just cooling the water at the plant, the city hopes to use a program of cooling whole stretches of the river by planting more trees.
“Of course, building a cooling tower will help us meet our permit limit, but it won’t help solve the stream-temperature problem,” said Michelle Carr, water distribution and collection manager for the city. “It would go against what we are trying to achieve in the watershed entirely.”
The city of Steamboat discharges effluent from its wastewater treatment facility back into the Yampa River 12 miles downstream from the start of a section of river that has too-high temperatures. City officials expect that when CDPHE issues a new discharge permit, it will include more stringent temperature standards.CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Water-quality trading
Steamboat has been working with The Freshwater Trust, an Oregon-based group, to explore what a water-quality trading program could look like. The Freshwater Trust assessed 119 miles of local streams and found 794 acres where riparian plantings could work at a potential program cost of $1.5 million.
According to David Primozich, vice president at The Freshwater Trust, the vast majority of heat in the river comes from the sun, so providing shade is an effective way to keep stream temperatures from rising. Over the decades, development and agriculture operations along the Yampa have removed riverbank vegetation, especially narrowleaf cottonwoods. Replanting these big, shady trees, which can top at least 60 feet at maturity, can help.
Using a modeling tool called the Shade-a-lator, The Freshwater Trust can determine the potential reduction in solar loading as a result of revegetation projects. By quantifying the benefits of restoring a river’s ecosystem, a water-quality trading program can create a path for the city to comply with temperature regulations.
“We found a way to convert the outcomes we know the environment needs into units that people can buy because they have to as a result of regulatory compliance,” Primozich said. “(The city) doesn’t want to spend money on things that don’t help the environment. They want a clean and healthy river.”
Lake Catamount, which is a small, private lake in a residential subdivision, could be contributing to high temperatures on a 57-mile segment of the Yampa River. The city of Steamboat is exploring a program that could help the city meet the temperature requirements for its wastewater treatment facility and also improve riparian health. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Engineering report
A June report from Englewood-based Jacobs Engineering looked at the causes of temperature exceedances in the Yampa and potential technologies that could help reduce high temperatures. The study could not pinpoint an exact cause of high temperatures, but a lack of riparian shading, nearby hot springs and Lake Catamount — an upstream, shallow reservoir — may be contributing factors.
“It’s probably a combination of these things, but if there’s one issue, we can’t point to it,” Carr said. “One of the reservoirs, Catamount, is small and shallow, so that acts as a bathtub that warms in the sun.”
The report presented five options for reducing temperatures at the city’s wastewater-treatment plant: passive cooling ponds/wetlands; cooling towers; pretreating warm water released from Old Town Hot Springs; water-quality trading using riparian shading; and a hybrid of water-quality trading with a cooling pond. City officials prefer the hybrid option because although riparian shading can help cool river temperatures in the summer, the temperature standards are also exceeded in November, when the leaves have fallen off the trees. A cooling pond could be a solution for that month.
City officials are also hoping that they could get credit for previous and current river restoration work as part of a future water-quality trading program. The city’s parks and recreation department, along with Diggin’ It Riverworks, began a restoration project on the Yampa behind the Flour Mill on Sept. 22. The project aims to improve river access, aquatic habitat, bank stabilization and recreational opportunities. Crews will also plant additional vegetation and trees to help cool river temperatures.
The city has submitted the alternatives analysis outlined in the engineering report and its preference to develop a water-quality trading program to CDPHE, which is currently reviewing the analysis. In Colorado, water-quality trading programs have traditionally been focused on pollutants. If Steamboat develops a program specifically to address temperature, it would be the first of its kind in the state.
“We know the city of Steamboat is not the only community having issues,” Carr said. “With climate change, there is no better time to start working toward a solution than now.”
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 stock pond that is normally full of water stands dry because of drought on the Little Bear Ranch near Steamboat Springs, Colo., on Aug. 11, 2021. Due to low snowpack, warming temperatures and dry soil during the past two years, followed by the same in 2021, Northwest Colorado is in a severe drought. Credit: Dean Krakel, special to Fresh Water News.
Colorado’s water forecast, already strained by back-to-back drought years, is unlikely to brighten this fall and winter, as forecasts indicate more dry weather lies ahead.
Water planners use something known as the water year to track and predict snow and rain, as well as winds and soil conditions. It begins Oct. 1, leading into the period of critical mountain snows and the spring runoff they generate, and estimations of what it will yield help farmers, cities and others determine how much H20 they will have to work with.
But water year 2022 is getting off to another dusty, dry start.
“The seasonal outlook is not pointing in a favorable direction,” said Peter Goble, a climate specialist at Colorado State University’s Colorado Climate Center. “We’re a lot better off than we were a year ago. Having blue skies as opposed to smoke is a big improvement, but we are going into water year 2022 on shaky footing.”
Goble was referring to Colorado’s disastrous fire season during last year’s drought, when the state saw three of the largest wildfires in its history erupt in late summer and early fall.
Last week, at a meeting of the state’s Water Availability Task Force, forecasters said Colorado was likely to experience another La Niña this coming year, a weather pattern that can bring healthy moisture to the Northern Rockies but which often leaves the southwestern portion of the state dry. Because 2020 saw the same La Niña develop, this year’s may bring less moisture.
In the broader Colorado River Basin, water storage levels continue to drop, with total storage at lakes Powell and Mead down to a combined 39% full, below last year’s already low 49% full mark, according to an update released Sept. 22 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The Colorado River Basin is made up of seven states. Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico comprise the Upper Basin, while Arizona, California and Nevada comprise the lower basin.
In July, Reclamation began a series of emergency water releases from Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa and Navajo reservoirs in the Upper Basin to help bolster Lake Powell and protect its hydropower generating stations. But conditions there continue to deteriorate.
Lake Powell could see just 44% of average inflows starting in October. Without a snowy winter and spring, hydropower generation at Powell’s Glen Canyon Dam could come to a halt as early as July 2022, according to Reclamation.
“The latest outlook for Lake Powell is troubling,” said Wayne Pullan, director of Reclamation’s Upper Colorado Basin Region.
Weather experts are also deeply worried about a phenomenon that continues to grow in intensity: the arrival of healthy snows that evaporate or seep into parched soils, never reaching streams in the volumes they once did.
Karl Wetlaufer, who is assistant snow survey supervisor at the Natural Resources Conservation Service, said water planners have long relied on a solid connection between snow and subsequent water supplies, where healthy snowpacks were reflected in healthy streamflows.
But with Colorado and other Western states mired in a 20-year drought, where soils get drier and drier each year, streamflow forecasts are becoming less predictable.
“Snowpack [last winter] was not terrible, but with those dry soils and a warm and dry summer we really saw dramatically decreased streamflows,” said Wetlaufer, who is a member of the state’s Water Availability Task Force.
In Northwest Colorado’s Yampa River Basin, snowpack peaked at 90% of average last winter, but streamflows this spring and summer reached only 30% of average.
“As long as I can remember, this is the most dramatic example of the multi-decadal drought’s impact. We are really going to have to start paying closer attention to these dry soils,” Wetlaufer 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.
These fields just south of Carbondale are irrigated with water from the Crystal River. The Colorado River Water Conservation District recently released a stakeholder report on a potential state program known as demand management that would pay irrigators to leave water in the river to send downstream to Lake Powell. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
The Colorado River Water Conservation District staff plans to present its own framework for a water-savings plan — separate from one the state of Colorado is developing — at its October board meeting.
The Glenwood Springs-based River District undertook its own investigation of a plan — known as demand management — that would pay water users to consume less and send the saved water downstream to Lake Powell. The Colorado Water Conservation Board is currently investigating the feasibility of such a program for the state, but the River District convened its own workgroup, made up of Western Slope water users, to look into the issue. Many of the workgroup’s stakeholders represented agricultural interests.
River District staffers will come up with their own market structure and rules for demand management to present to the board, according to general manager Andy Mueller.
“What we are presenting is not something we are necessarily as staff endorsing, but we are going to present more specifics than what the CWCB or our stakeholder group has come up with so far,” Mueller said.
The framework will incorporate some of the findings and recommendations of the River District’s stakeholder group, which were released in an August report. Among these was the unanimous recommendation that the state not rely solely on a demand-management program as a solution to water shortages in the Colorado River basin.
“It was recognized that demand management can’t be the only way in which the state successfully handles the impacts of climate change on the Colorado River,” Mueller said. “It may be a component of that, but the state needs to be really looking at conservation in all water segments.”
At the heart of a demand-management program is paying Western Slope irrigators on a temporary and voluntary basis to use less water in an effort to avoid a Colorado River Compact call. Instead of being spread across hayfields, the water would be sent downstream to a special 500,000-acre-foot pool in Lake Powell, which was established as part of 2019’s Drought Contingency Plan.
A compact call could occur if the upper basin states (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico) can’t deliver the 7.5 million acre-feet of water per year to the lower basin states (Arizona, California and Nevada) as required by a nearly century-old binding agreement. Colorado water managers desperately want to avoid a compact-call scenario, which could result in mandatory water cutbacks.
The participation of Western Slope agriculture is key to creating a workable demand-management program, but the report highlights several reasons this may prove challenging. Stakeholders expressed a strong distrust of decision-making and programs driven by state government and fear that Western Slope agriculture will be sacrificed to meet the Front Range’s and lower basin’s urban interests.
“Many do not view the state as representing the best interest of agriculture on the Western Slope and instead are making decisions that are driven by east slope and municipal interests,” the report reads.
These fields of the Crystal River Ranch outside of Carbondale are irrigated with water from the Crystal River. The Colorado River Water Conservation District released a report that recommends the state of Colorado not rely solely on a demand management program to address water shortages. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
TMDs in conflict
Other findings of the report are consistent with what River District and agriculture representatives have been saying since the state began its demand-management discussions in 2019: A program must not lead to the permanent dry-up of Western Slope agriculture, and additional diversions to the Front Range are in direct conflict with asking Western Slope water users to save water.
“The committee finds it inconceivable that under a demand-management program, the West Slope could work to conserve 25,000-50,000 acre-feet per year only to see the east slope simultaneously increase water diversions to the Front Range,” the report reads. “This situation would be antithetical to the goals of a demand-management program and efforts to prevent a future compact violation.”
The report says that transmountain diversions — in which Front Range water providers take water from the headwaters of the Colorado River and bring it under the Continental Divide to growing cities — are a driving factor in a potential compact violation. Most water managers agree that water rights that date to before the 1922 compact would be exempt from mandatory cutbacks in the event of a call. Post-1922 water-rights use would fuel a compact violation.
According to numbers from a previous River District study, 57% of Colorado’s post-compact water use is on the Front Range. Therefore, the report says, the Front Range should contribute 57% of the water to a demand-management pool.
“We don’t want to have West Slope water users conserve water and then see it go to the Front Range,” Mueller said. “Why would we save and conserve water for major junior users to start taking that water that was conserved?”
Front Range municipal water providers Denver Water, Northern Water and Aurora Water declined to comment on the River District’s report.
“We are looking at what’s going to come out of the state process, and we will plug into the process that emerges at the state level,” said Northern Water spokesperson Jeff Stahla.
Denver Water CEO Jim Lochhead has said publicly that the municipal water provider would participate in a demand management program using wet water and not just pay Western Slope agriculture to fallow fields.
Mueller presented the findings of the report to the CWCB board in August. According to Amy Ostdiek, deputy section chief for the CWCB’s interstate, federal and water information section, the River District’s report will help inform the CWCB’s decision-making process. At its September meeting, the board adopted a decision-making road map as the next step in its investigation into whether a demand-management program is right for Colorado.
The CWCB, a state agency responsible for developing and protecting Colorado’s water, is using the input from eight workgroups — composed of 74 water experts and managers from around the state — in the creation of a potential program framework.
The River District board is scheduled to meet Oct. 19-20.
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.
The Hyperion water treatment plant in Los Angeles, whose mayor Mayor Eric Garcetti announced in February 2019 a goal of recycling 100% of the city’s wastewater by 2035.
August 3, 2021 — Editor’s note: This story is part of a four-part series — “Hotter, Drier, Smarter: Managing Western Water in a Changing Climate” — about innovative approaches to water management in the U.S. West and Western tribal nations. The series is supported by The Water Desk, an independent journalism initiative based at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism. You can read the other stories in the series, along with more drinking water reporting, here.
For decades, water officials in San Diego, realizing the city was facing an ever-drier future, have worked to make the idea of what’s known as “direct potable reuse,” or DPR, more palatable to residents. In the 1990s, that turned into an uphill battle. The technology delivers purified wastewater to customers’ faucets without an environmental buffer — such as a groundwater aquifer, river or other go-between — prior to distribution, so opponents labeled it “toilet-to-tap.” The epithet stuck and torpedoed the Southern California city’s water recycling plans.
But of course the water issues stuck around as well, leaving the city to continue looking for new sources of water, especially those that might be drought proof.
And San Diego is just one city among many in the country’s most arid regions facing the ongoing threat of long-term drought. Western water agencies continue working to not only conserve water, but to also reuse as much wastewater as possible, including from the stable supply DPR promises. As San Diego discovered decades ago, making DPR a reality entails — along with regulatory and permitting changes — trying to overcome the “yuck factor.” Today, despite its “toilet-to-tap” hurdle, San Diego is now intent on becoming the first city in California to convey treated effluent directly from factory to faucet.
“We’re ahead right now, and it looks like we’ll be the first ones out of the gate,” says John Stufflebean, assistant director of the San Diego Public Utilities Department and executive lead for Pure Water San Diego, the name of the city’s latest water reuse project.
Watering the West
While DPR has faced backlash, indirect potable reuse — injecting treated effluent into a buffer such as a groundwater aquifer prior to distribution — has been watering the West for decades.
For nearly a century, Phoenix, Arizona, has been a model for water reclamation — and today recycles nearly all of its wastewater for indirect reuse. In addition to contributing water that helps cool the inland Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant, Phoenix today supplies indirect-treated effluent for agricultural and turf irrigation. But as the Colorado River supply — which still accounts for 40% of Phoenician water — becomes more and more uncertain, officials are looking for new ways to avert a thirsty future.
“We are actually on the cusp of beginning some significant infrastructure investment in the northern part of the city,” says Cynthia Campbell, water resources management advisor for the City of Phoenix.
DPR will be a critical component of that investment, with Phoenix Water, as the city’s Water Services Department is known, planning to revive a dormant wastewater treatment plant built in the late 1990s, according to Campbell. The restored plant would serve customers in the northern part of the city and should be operational within 5 years, she says. The project would involve blending treated effluent with Colorado River water or groundwater before distributing it to customers.
Although this process — known as raw water augmentation — would involve blending the recycled water with another source, it still qualifies as DPR because the mix would head directly into the drinking water treatment plant, from which water flows to customers, as opposed to the necessary additional step indirect potable reuse requires, where the wastewater goes into a groundwater basin or other environmental system before the water can be reclaimed.
Describing the plans as “trailblazing,” Campbell explains that Arizona has signaled its willingness to consider DPR permits on a case-by-case basis, for projects of various scales. This approach is different from that of California, which will first need to approve the relevant regulations on a statewide level before individual projects can move forward.
In addition to contributing water that helps cool the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant, Phoenix supplies indirect-treated effluent for agricultural and turf irrigation. Click the image for an interactive graphic about Phoenix’s water resources and conservation efforts from phoenix.gov.
Campbell notes that no one in the U.S. has augmented water in the way Phoenix is planning to. “We’ll probably be the guinea pigs for everyone,” she says.
Meanwhile, she does not foresee any public opposition to the project due to the longstanding Phoenician “culture of conservation.”
“They live in the Sonoran Desert,” she says. “They are under no illusions that there are unlimited sources of water here.”
Nonetheless, Campbell stressed that Phoenix Water wants to ensure that people are comfortable drinking their tap water, and she is therefore determined to show the public that water “that goes down the toilet is not in any way, shape or form what it is when it comes out of a modern, updated, sophisticated treatment system.”
“The Ability to Filter Out Anything”
Campbell looks to Phoenix’s neighbors in nearby Scottsdale as leaders in demonstrating the safety of DPR. In a non-Covid yesteryear, curious Arizonans could venture to Scottsdale’s Advanced Water Treatment Plant to take a sip of treated water or attend the annual Canal Convergence arts festival to sample a beer — all originating from treated effluent.
“Using [the festival] to change public perception was really important and vital,” says David Walby, water reclamation services director for the City of Scottsdale.
Scottsdale was the first recipient of an Arizonan permit for DPR, and one of just a few nationwide. Although the water produced from the initiative doesn’t go into Scottsdale’s drinking water — instead the water will be available for taste testing at the Scottsdale Water Campus and will be provided to beverage companies for water-based beverages, according to the permit — it will be up to drinking water standards. The city acquired that permit after regulations changed in 2018, allowing people to consume highly treated effluent, Walby explains. Unlike Phoenix’s plan, Scottsdale’s DPR pilot doesn’t rely on raw water augmentation. Given the city’s 20-year history of using ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis and advanced oxidation for indirect potable reuse, Walby says that the transition to DPR “wasn’t a big leap” from a technological standpoint.
Campbell says the technology Scottsdale is using has “the ability to filter out anything,” adding that this “type of technology could turn out a quality far better than what we’re seeing in our raw water.”
Once the 2018 regulations were in place, Scottsdale and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality decided to launch a program to demonstrate the viability of DPR. Their facility serves a maximum of only 1,500 visitors per year and is limited to producing 21,600 gallons (82,000 liters) per day — on a campus where a conventional treatment facility processes 70 million gallons (265 million liters) of water daily, according to Walby. Meanwhile, the Advanced Water Treatment Plant has the capacity to treat up to 20 million gallons per day to quality levels that exceed bottled drinking water standards.
While Scottsdale itself doesn’t have a need for a full-scale DPR water supply, due to its abundant surface water supply from the Central Arizona Project and the Salt River Project, Walby says the site could serve as a proof of concept for “outlying communities in northern Arizona solely dependent on groundwater,” or for utilities from other states.
“The financial component is always the elephant in the room.”
David Walby
Asked if implementing full-scale DPR would become practical any time soon, Walby says that cities must consider both their economic and water quality needs.
“Sometimes, those are on polar opposites,” he says. “From a financial standpoint, it’s not cheap. This stuff is really, really expensive.”
Walby says that while Scottsdale is able to maximize the equipment’s shelf life with careful maintenance, investing in such technology might be less practical for small northern Arizona communities. Suggesting that federal assistance could be one avenue toward solving this predicament, he cautions that using reclaimed water will never offset water demand — for every gallon of treated water he sends out, he only receives about 35% to 40% in return.
“The financial component is always the elephant in the room,” he says.
From “Toilet-to-Tap” to Pure Water
Unlike in Arizona, where permit approval for DPR occurs on a case-by-case basis, water agencies in Southern California are enthusiastically awaiting expected statewide regulations that will enable such projects across the board.
Jennifer West, managing director at the NGO WateReuse California, explains that the California State Legislature passed Assembly Bill 574 in 2017, requiring the State Water Resources Control Board to adopt regulations for DPR by 2023. The recommendation to develop these regulations also appears in Governor Gavin Newsom’s portfolio of water resiliency efforts, she adds.
“I am very optimistic that it can happen in the timeframe of the legislation,” West says. “With climate change, it’s extremely important that agencies diversify their water supply.”
As San Diego attempts to do just that, the city has needed to take a more creative approach toward wastewater reclamation, due to its minimal groundwater supplies. Pure Water San Diego, the city’s major water reuse initiative, will be occurring in multiple steps — a first phase focused on the northern part of the city and involving the use of a reservoir for indirect potable reuse, followed by second and third phases involving DPR, once California’s regulations are active, according to Stufflebean.
Construction recently began on phase 1, in which wastewater will be discharged into a reservoir and only later head to a treatment facility — generating about 30 million gallons (114 million liters) of potable water daily by 2025, according to Stufflebean. This phase qualifies as indirect potable reuse, Stufflebean explains, because the large reservoir provides some dilution and the long retention time allows some natural disinfection to take place, but implementing the plans required a change in regulations that deemed reservoirs an environmental barrier.
Phases 2 and 3 of the project, which will qualify as DPR, will involve injecting much more effluent into a smaller reservoir — too small to be considered a big enough buffer for indirect potable reuse — located upstream from the treatment plant, Stufflebean says. Assuming California’s DPR regulations move forward as expected, he anticipates that the second and third phases will begin supplying water by 2035.
In a city that was once appalled by the idea of DPR water, Stufflebean says most residents seem to be on board two decades later. Stressing the importance of public education on the issue, he points out that San Diegans are now well aware that they are already drinking treated wastewater through indirect injections upstream.
“There are 400 dischargers into the Colorado River and the water from Northern California that is right now the supply of San Diego — including the city of Las Vegas and city of Sacramento.” Stufflebean says. “They discharge their water into our water supply. The Pure [project] water is way cleaner than the Colorado River water.”
Different Water for Different Uses
Another nearby agency working to integrate DPR into its portfolio is West Basin Municipal Water District, according to Barkev Meserlian, the agency’s executive manager of engineering and operations. West Basin provides water to 17 cities and unincorporated areas in Los Angeles County. After the region started experiencing drought in the late 1980s and early 1990s, West Basin set out to build a recycled water system, Meserlian says.
“There was a recognition around southern California that we need to do something to save every drop of potable water that was available,” he says.
But the project leaders recognized that different users required water treated to different standards. These discrepancies turned into an innovative recycling program that now offers five “designer waters,” as the program calls them, to meet diverse customer demands from one central location.
While all those distinct types of water come from indirect reuse projects, Meserlian describes West Basin as “a long proponent of pursuing DPR,” acknowledging that regulating the process will involve certain technical challenges such as defining what it would take to ensure that DPR passes safe drinking water regulations. He expresses optimism, however, that, with the passage of Assembly Bill 574 and Governor Newsom’s water resiliency portfolio, Californian officials will adopt plans soon, focusing on raw water augmentation.
“A Very Clever Project”
One such project, the city of Los Angeles’s US$8 billion Operation NEXT, intends to recycle 100% of the water generated by the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant — as much as 217 million gallons (821 million liters) per day — for beneficial reuse by 2035. The project directors are planning both indirect and direct reuse projects by replenishing the West Coast, Central and San Fernando groundwater basins with the purified water, as well as eventually injecting it directly into the Los Angeles Aqueduct Filtration Plant, a plant that treats 60-70% of the city’s water supply.
“We’re going to tilt the city of Los Angeles on its side and have water flow about 1,200 feet [366 meters] up to the headwaters at that filtration plant,” says Richard Harasick, the senior assistant general manager of the Water System for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). From there, according to Harasick, because the treated effluent would be blended with raw water at the headwaters of the filtration plant, all residents would be receiving the same water — rather than some getting this water and others receiving surface water, as will occur in Phoenix.
Because of this, Campbell, from Phoenix Water, says she considers the Los Angeles plans to be “a very clever project.” She continues: “Everybody is effectively getting the same thing. … Having that blending, for some, takes away the yuck factor.”
“When this is done, along with our complete local resource portfolio, I’d like to say that the words ‘drought’ and ‘Los Angeles’ will never be in the same sentence again.”
Richard Harasick
Operation Next will first and foremost be a water supply program, as the city of Los Angeles has determined that relying on imported water is no longer a sustainable strategy, according to Harasick. Although he says that Los Angeles has reduced consumption from 700,000 acre-feet (863 million cubic meters; one acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons) to 500,000 acre-feet (617 million cubic meters) annually in the past 30 years, while increasing its population by 1 million, Harasick stresses the importance of generating a local source in order to continue managing demand.
As far as public understanding in Los Angeles is concerned, Harasick says that the city has been laying the groundwork for 20 years and also credited nearby Orange County for providing a positive example. Orange County has been using reverse osmosis to treat wastewater since the 1970s and now manages a groundwater basin that supplies 70% of the water supply to its 2.5 million people, according to Mike Markus, Orange County Water District general manager.
Although Orange County doesn’t have any DPR projects, “they’ve really plowed the ground for public acceptance,” Harasick says, because the municipality was responsible for implementing indirect reuse in the region on such a massive scale — a step that likely had to occur before anyone would be OK with DPR. Harasick adds that Los Angeles will be purifying its water to the same standards as those of Orange County.
Expressing similar confidence that direct potable reuse “is on the horizon,” Markus agrees that Los Angeles and San Diego would be ideal candidates for such ventures. Orange County, on the other hand, does not have the same need, Markus notes, due to the capacity of its large groundwater basin — the coastal aquifer — to store treated wastewater from the Orange County Sanitation District.
“For those that don’t have a groundwater basin or a reservoir, direct potable [reuse] is a key to opening up that additional [water] recycling,” Markus says.
In the short term, Markus continues, the most realistic — and more palatable — form of direct potable reuse will be raw water augmentation, similar to Los Angeles’ plans.
“When this is done,” Harasick adds, “along with our complete local resource portfolio, I’d like to say that the words ‘drought’ and ‘Los Angeles’ will never be in the same sentence again” — a desire shared by water managers across the U.S. West, as they look for more ways to secure their water supplies against an uncertain future.
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.
Thanks to a major infusion of COVID-related state stimulus cash earlier this year, nearly $13 million in grants was awarded by the Colorado Water Conservation Board on Sept. 16 to projects designed to improve irrigation systems, aid the environment, improve water storage, and reconnect a critical channel on the Colorado River in Grand County.
The Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) has historically dispensed $7.5 million annually in grants to assist projects that align with the goals of the 2015 Colorado Water Plan.
Thanks to the state stimulus funding, state legislators delivered $15 million in cash to the grant program, more than double last year’s amount. The funds must be awarded by July 2023.
In addition to supporting the water plan, the grants are designed to benefit multiple segments of the state’s economy, according to Anna Mauss, the CWCB’s chief financial officer.
“That can be hard to define,” she says, “but we are looking at solutions that benefit all sectors.”
Environment and recreation projects represented the largest slice of the pie at $6.6 million. The second largest slice, at $4.2 million, went to water storage and supply projects. Four agriculture projects together got $1.5 million.
The largest recipient of grants funds, at $3.8 million, is the Windy Gap Dam bypass, a project that will reconnect a critical channel on the Colorado River in Grand County. It has federal, state and county funding and cash from conservation organizations and landowners, all working under the umbrella of the Northern Water Conservancy District, which owns Windy Gap.
The dam was constructed in the 1980s just below the confluence of the Fraser with the Colorado River west of Granby. Aquatic life has since diminished. The new channel is to reconnect the Colorado downstream from the dam with its upstream habitat.
According to the application, the project will expand the river’s gold medal trout fishery and make this segment more resilient in the face of increased water diversions, wildfires and climate change.
The Colorado Department of Agriculture got nearly $300,000 for a soil health project that will focus on the Republican River watershed for three years. Program directors expect 10 farmers to participate, incorporating water-saving actions into their land-use planning in a way that will conserve 47,000 acre-feet annually. In this way, according to the grant application, the project will also help sustain the Ogallala Aquifer.
Two other projects getting funding are on the Front Range. At Barr Lake, located along Interstate 76 northeast of Denver, the Farmers Reservoir and Irrigation Co. plans to enlarge the storage capacity. A new study of regional extreme precipitation by the Colorado Dam Safety found that raising the spillway culvert would safely accommodate 1,500 acre-feet of additional storage. This, however, will inundate structures in the surrounding state park. The $279,000 granted the company will provide partial funding to mitigate the higher water levels on the park facilities.
Trout Unlimited was awarded $300,000 for efforts to restore populations of the greenback cutthroat trout, Colorado’s state fish, at the headwaters of the Cache la Poudre River. The species is native to the Eastern Slope, but the Poudre is augmented by diversions from the headwaters of the Colorado River in Rocky Mountain National Park. Most prominent of those diversions is the Grand River Ditch. The $300,000 granted to Trout Unlimited will go to creating a fish barrier in the Grand Ditch where it flows across the Continental Divide and into a tributary of the Poudre River.
David Nickum, executive director of Colorado Trout Unlimited, said that the project will take about 10 years. The greenback is currently federally listed as threatened by the Environmental Protection Agency, but Trout Unlimited hopes that a recovery stronghold on the Poudre can result in delisting. The full project will provide connected habitat for the trout species to more than 38 miles of stream and more than 110 acres of lakes and reservoirs.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the owner of Windy Gap Reservoir.
Long-time Colorado journalist Allen Best publishes Big Pivots, an e-magazine that covers energy and other transitions in Colorado. He can be reached at allen@bigpivots.com and allen.best@comcast.net.
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.
Ken Neubecker, formerly of American Rivers, gives a presentation about the Eagle River Memorandum of Understanding during a hike and public outreach event organized by the Eagle River Watershed Council. The 1998 MOU, which lays out the amounts of water the signatories are entitled to develop, may be based on hydrology that is outdated due to climate change impacts of the last 20 years. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
HOMESTAKE VALLEY — The Eagle River Watershed Council on Tuesday hosted a hike for the public in the Homestake Valley, an area receiving increased scrutiny because of a project that proposes to take more water from the Colorado River basin and bring it to the fast-growing Front Range.
The goal of the event — which included presentations from representatives from public-lands conservation group Wilderness Workshop, municipal water provider Aurora Water and other experts — was to provide a broad overview of a complicated issue, according to watershed council executive director Holly Loff.
“We know it’s going to be a long process, but we want to make sure people are engaged in the conversation and look to us as a resource,” Loff said. “We will continue to provide science-based, factual information.”
The watershed council advocates for the health of the upper Colorado and Eagle river watersheds through research, education and projects, according to its website.
The cities of Colorado Springs and Aurora, which operate together as Homestake Partners, have water rights in the Homestake Valley and plan to use them to develop Whitney Reservoir. The project would be located near the Holy Cross Wilderness Area, which is 6 miles south of Red Cliff. Homestake Partners is currently doing geotechnical drilling to study whether the soil and bedrock in the area could support a dam and reservoir.
The proposed project would create a new reservoir on lower Homestake Creek, where water collected would be pumped up to the existing Homestake Reservoir, about 5 miles upstream. Then it would go through a tunnel under the Continental Divide to Turquoise Reservoir, near Leadville, and then to Aurora and Colorado Springs. Various configurations of four potential reservoir sites show it holding between 6,850 and 20,000 acre-feet of water.
Homestake Valley, in the upper Eagle River watershed near Red Cliff, is narrow and filled with aspen trees. A proposed water project could develop more water from the valley for the benefit of Front Range municipalities and Western Slope entities. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Project opposition
Although it’s still early in the process and no application for the storage project has yet been filed, the proposal has already been met with opposition. Some iterations of the project would necessitate moving a section of the Holy Cross Wilderness boundary, which requires an act of Congress, and would inundate rare, groundwater-fed, peat wetlands, known as fens. The U.S. Forest Service received nearly 800 comments about the drilling study during its public scoping phase last year, and the majority of the remarks were against the reservoir project as a whole.
Some who attended the hike — which attracted about 20 people — questioned the concept of taking more water from the headwaters of the Colorado River over to thirsty and growing Front Range cities in the face of a climate change-fueled crisis.
“I’m just very concerned that if this is a typical year, is there enough water in the drainage to take 20,000 acre-feet out every year and how does that tie into the future curtailment call on the Colorado Compact?” said Tom Allender, who is board president of the watershed council, a former board member of Eagle River Water & Sanitation District and a retired planner for Vail Resorts.
The compact call to which Allender is referring could occur if the upper-basin states (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico) can’t deliver the 7.5 million acre-feet of water per year to the lower basin states (Arizona, California and Nevada), as required by a nearly century-old binding agreement. Water users in the upper basin would be forced to cut back, something known as “curtailment.”
A larger share of the state’s cutback obligations could fall to Front Range water providers since most of the water rights that let them divert water from the Colorado River basin over the Continental Divide are “junior” to the compact, meaning they date to after the 1922 agreement. If there was a compact call, Front Range diverters could potentially have to stop diverting and let the water flow downstream to Lake Powell.
“If the Homestake Valley is important to people and if they are interested in the impacts of a compact call and the impacts of climate change overall, then they should have an eye out for additional transmountain diversions,” Loff said. “That’s a bigger concern than a reservoir in general.”
Last year, Homestake Partners tested how they could get their stored water to the state line in the event of a compact call by releasing downstream about 1,700 acre-feet from Homestake Reservoir.
Contractors for Homestake Partners are drilling test holes for a geotechnical study near Homestake Creek. A proposed project could develop more water from Homestake Creek for Aurora and Colorado Springs, and could also benefit Western Slope entities. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Eagle River MOU
Homestake Partners is not the only entity set to benefit from a new water-storage project. The Eagle River memorandum of understanding lays out a plan for both Front Range and Western Slope entities to develop water in the upper Eagle River basin. The agreement, signed in 1998, provides 20,000 acre-feet of water a year to Homestake Partners and 10,000 acre-feet a year to the Colorado River Water Conservation District, the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District, Upper Eagle Regional Water Authority, and Vail Resorts, known collectively in the MOU as the “Reservoir Company.”
Ken Neubecker, a retired Colorado project director at American Rivers and a former environmental representative on the Colorado Basin Roundtable, gave an overview of the MOU. He said the 23-year-old agreement is based on hydrology that is now outdated because of the worsening impacts of climate change. The models used to estimate streamflows are based on records from the 50 years between 1945 and 1994.
“Storage is an early-20th-century response to water-shortage problems and doesn’t really fit in the conditions we are facing now in the 21st century, and it’s based on laws established in the 19th century,” Neubecker said.
In their presentation, representatives from Aurora Water laid out the measures that the municipality is taking to conserve water, including offering rebates for high-efficiency toilets, water-wise landscaping and irrigation efficiency. Over 10 years, Aurora says it has conserved almost a half-billion gallons, or about 1,500 acre-feet.
That savings, however, does not translate into Aurora taking less water from the Western Slope. About 25,000 acre-feet of water a year is sent through Homestake Tunnel to the Front Range.
“We are a growing community,” said Greg Baker, manager of public relations for Aurora Water. “Our conservation program helps us meet that future need the development is going to place on our system. Does it reduce (transmountain diversions)? No. Does it mean we are using the water more efficiently? Yes.”
Baker said there are still a lot of uncertainties with the Whitney Reservoir project. The geotechnical drilling study will help determine whether it is even feasible to move ahead.
“We have not applied current climatological conditions to (the MOU) yet because we haven’t gotten that far,” he said. “Until we know exactly what comes out of that report, we can’t say what we would want to pursue. It’s way too early for us to even come up with that timeline.”
Aspen Journalism covers water and rivers in collaboration with The Vail Daily and other Swift Communications newspapers. For more, go to www.aspenjournalism.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.
Boaters at Cedar Springs Marina on Flaming Gorge Reservoir. The reservoir’s levels are expected to drop 2 feet a month under an emergency release of water designed to keep Lake Powell’s hydropower system operating. July 22, 2021 Credit: Jerd Smith
A series of emergency water releases from federally owned Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa and Navajo reservoirs, which began in July and are designed to bolster hydropower production at the ailing Lake Powell, will end late this year and will be replaced by a program that instead reduces the amount of water being released from Powell.
“The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation prefers not to initiate emergency action again unless absolutely necessary to do so,” said Becki Bryant, a Reclamation spokesperson. “If additional water releases are needed, Reclamation will consider monthly release adjustments at Lake Powell first before releasing additional water from the upstream initial units to Lake Powell.”
The distinction is an important one in the Upper Colorado River Basin. The so-called Colorado River Storage Project reservoirs constitute a critical liquid savings account for Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming, one designed to protect the states’ own Colorado River supplies from Arizona, California and Nevada in case Lake Powell drops so low that Upper Basin legal delivery obligations cannot be fulfilled.
In July, Upper Basin water managers were surprised at Reclamation’s quick decision to begin the emergency releases without consulting them, and they were concerned the releases would continue next year, further depleting their savings account. That the federal agency is embracing a different approach that will better protect the Upper Basin reservoirs is a relief, they said.
“That’s an important step in the right direction,” said Jim Lochhead, CEO of Denver Water.
Under the terms of the Upper Basin Drought Contingency Plan, Reclamation in July ordered emergency releases from upper basin reservoirs to Powell that will extend through December. Graphic: Chas Chamberlin
All told, 181,000 acre-feet of water are to be sent to Lake Powell by the end of December. Powell has dropped so low that its hydropower plants, which supply millions of homes with electricity and generate revenue for such things as a critical Colorado River endangered species program, could be forced to shut down as early as next year if water levels continue to drop as they have been. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation estimates there is a 3% chance of this occurring next year and a 29% chance of this occurring in 2023.
Held by the federal government for the benefit of the Upper Basin states, the amounts of water specified in the release plan are: 125,000 acre-feet from Flaming Gorge; 36,000 acre-feet from Blue Mesa; and 20,000 acre-feet from Navajo. An acre-foot of water is enough to cover one acre of land to a depth of 12 inches.
If that same amount of water were going to Colorado cities, it would be enough to serve more than 362,000 homes for one to two years. If going to the state’s farms, it could irrigate more than 113,000 acres, depending on the crop.
Reclamation has said the releases will help create a buffer in Lake Powell to keep its hydropower operations working. Already with the reservoir’s ultra-low level — Powell is less than one-third full — pressure on Powell’s turbines has been dramatically reduced, meaning that less electricity is being produced now, even though the turbines are still operating. As a result, the Western Area Power Administration, which distributes the electricity, will spend millions of dollars buying extra power so it can meet its contractual obligations to its customers.
The emergency releases will end late this year. In the interim, Reclamation is consulting with the states and water managers to develop a new operating plan as part of its drought contingency operations. What happens if levels at Lake Powell continue to drop next year isn’t clear.
“It’s an open question,” Bryant said. “The best solution would be optimal hydrology — particularly snowpack and efficient runoff. The goal is to have a plan ready but wait and see what nature brings in the months ahead.“
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.
The boat ramp at Elk Creek Marina had to be temporarily closed so the docks could be moved out into deeper water. Colorado water managers are not happy that emergency releases from Blue Mesa Reservoir are impacting late summer lake recreation. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
BLUE MESA RESERVOIR — In an effort to prop up water levels at the declining Lake Powell, federal water managers are negatively impacting recreation on Colorado’s biggest man-made lake.
That’s the message from Colorado water managers and marina operators at Blue Mesa Reservoir in Gunnison County. On Aug. 1, the Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the reservoir, began emergency releases. By the time the releases are finished the first week of October, Blue Mesa is projected to fall to its second-lowest level ever, just 215,000 acre-feet, or 22.8% of its 941,000-acre-foot capacity.
As of Sept. 1, the reservoir was 37% full, which is about 68 feet down from a full reservoir, and a ring of muddy shoreline was growing. Parking lots and boat slips sat empty, and Pappy’s Restaurant was closed for the season. The dwindling water levels are first impacting Iola, the easternmost of Blue Mesa’s three basins. Iola is where the Gunnison River now cuts through a field of mud.
Eric Loken, who operates the reservoir’s two marinas (Elk Creek and Lake Fork), said he was given only nine days’ notice to empty Elk Creek Marina’s 180 slips. The dock system’s anchors, which are not built for low water, had to be moved deeper. He said about 25 people lost their jobs six weeks earlier than normal and the marinas lost about 25% of its revenue for the year.
“There are tons of people who would like to be out here boating and are very disappointed,” Loken said. “Normally on Labor Day weekend, you can barely find a place to park. So it’s definitely been a big hit to us as a business for sure.”
The Elk Creek Marina and restaurant are closed for the season, although the boat ramp is still open and is expected to be accessible through the end of the month. The Lake Fork Marina is open through Labor Day, but the boat ramp has closed for the season. The Iola boat ramp is restricted to small boats only and is scheduled to close after Labor Day.
“We are just trying to make it through the holiday weekend and then we will be shutting up this marina too,” Loken said.
The Bureau announced July 16 that it would begin emergency releases through early October from three Upper Basin reservoirs: 20,000 acre-feet from Navajo, on the San Juan River; 125,000 acre-feet from Flaming Gorge, on the Green River; and 36,000 acre-feet from Blue Mesa, on the Gunnison River. The goal of the releases is to prop up water levels at Lake Powell to preserve the ability to make hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam. The 181,000 acre-feet from the three upstream reservoirs is expected to boost levels at Powell by about 3 feet.
The three reservoirs are part of the Colorado River Storage Project, and their primary purpose is to control the flows of the Colorado River; flatwater recreation has always been incidental. But the releases at Blue Mesa illustrate the risks of building an outdoor-recreation economy around a highly engineered river system that is now beginning to falter amid a climate change-fueled drought.
The boat ramp at the Lake Fork Marina closed for the season on Sept. 2 due to declining reservoir levels. The Bureau of Reclamation is making emergency releases out of Blue Mesa Reservoir to prop up levels in Lake Powell and preserve the ability to make hydropower. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Timing concerns
Although the secretary of the Interior can authorize emergency releases without coordination from the states or local entities, Loken, along with some Colorado water managers, is not happy about the timing or the lack of notice from the bureau. Under normal drought-response operations, the federal government would consult with state and local water managers before making releases.
“We had very little time to handle this decision that was made that none of us have any power over,” Loken said.
John McClow, general counsel for the Upper Gunnison Water Conservancy District, said Colorado should make noise and complain about what he called a clumsy execution of the releases. McClow has also served on the Colorado Water Conservation Board and is an alternate commissioner on the Upper Colorado River Commission.
“There’s no reason they couldn’t have waited another couple weeks or another month to release that water from Blue Mesa to get it to Lake Powell,” McClow said. “It goes back to consultation and timing. Had they even asked, it would have been easy to say, ‘Hey, can you wait so you don’t kill our business?’”
Last month at Colorado Water Congress’ summer conference — a gathering of water managers, researchers and legislators in Steamboat Springs — Rebecca Mitchell, CWCB’s executive director and the state’s representative to the UCRC, told the audience that the impacts of ending the boating season early at Blue Mesa trickle down to all Coloradoans.
“That means dollars in Colorado. That is who we are in Colorado,” she said. “It’s definitely had an impact in that local community when we talk about the recreation. That is heavy.”
Mitchell said water managers in the Upper Basin states (Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Utah) will be carefully monitoring the impacts of the reservoir releases and figuring out how to quantify those impacts, which she called devastating. The states will work with the bureau to develop a plan for how to send water to Lake Powell in future years, taking into consideration the timing, magnitude and duration of the releases, she said.
“Where can the states and the bureau make the best decisions to lessen the impacts?” she said.
The National Park Service operates the Curecanti National Recreation area, including the campsites, picnic areas, visitors centers and boat ramps that run the 20-mile length of the reservoir. According to numbers provided by the Park Service, Curecanti gets nearly a million visitors a year. The reservoir is popular among anglers for its trout and Kokanee salmon fishing. Blue Mesa is one of three reservoirs — along with the much smaller Morrow Point and Crystal reservoirs — on the Gunnison River, collectively known as the Aspinall Unit.
Gunnison Country Chamber of Commerce Director Celeste Helminski said her organization is planning an event later this month: the world’s largest snow dance. A big winter would help refill Blue Mesa.
“The water definitely has me concerned for the future,” she said. “We see a lot of summer recreationists who come and spend the whole summer at several of the campgrounds. It’s just going to take a lot to replace that water. It’s going to take awhile to get back to levels of what recreationists come for.”
Bureau spokesperson Justyn Liff could not provide any insight into how the timing decision for the releases was made, but pointed out that although lake recreation was impacted, downstream rafting and fishing in the canyon are getting a boost from the roughly 300 cubic-feet-per-second extra water that the releases provide. The Gunnison River below the Gunnison Tunnel diversion, which takes a large portion of the river’s outflow from the Aspinall Unit for delivery to downstream irrigators, was running around 600 cfs the first few days of September, according to USGS stream gauge data. This is a critical data point for boaters running the Black Canyon or Gunnison Gorge sections of the river, which are below the stream gauge. At 600 cfs, the river is flowing 11% above the median for this time of year.
“If we had waited six weeks, that would have been six weeks less of commercial rafting/guided fishing on the Gunnison River downstream from Aspinall,” Liff said.
Some boats were still in the water the first week of September at the Lake Fork Marina. Across Blue Mesa Reservoir, the Elk Creek Marina’s boat slips were emptied early because of declining water levels in the reservoir. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Hydropower production
Although the local impacts to recreation are acute, the impacts of not being able to make hydropower at Lake Powell would probably be much worse. The dams of the CRSP are known as “cash register” dams. The power they produce is used to repay the costs of building the project, maintain operations and provide power to millions of people.
The Western Area Power Administration distributes Lake Powell’s electricity, including to some power providers in Colorado. According to Water Education Colorado, electric costs will surge as Glen Canyon Dam struggles to produce hydropower because of declining water levels.
The bureau’s target elevation for Lake Powell is 3,525 feet, in order to provide a buffer that protects hydropower generation; if levels fall below 3,490, all power production would stop. Lake Powell is currently about 31% full, at 3,549 feet, which is the lowest surface level since the reservoir began filling in the 1960s and ‘70s. According to projections released by the bureau in July, Lake Powell has a 79% chance of falling below the 3,525 threshold in the next year. The emergency releases are intended to address this.
“A loss of power generation is a pretty significant issue compared to a few months of boating on Blue Mesa,” McClow said. “Locally, yes, it hurts, but in the big picture, I don’t know if you can make a fair comparison.”
As water levels at Blue Mesa continue to fall, Loken worries that this may be just the beginning of an era of empty reservoirs.
“(The releases) don’t solve the long-term problem,” Loken said. “We are just going to end up with an empty Lake Powell and a bunch of empty reservoirs upstream. I think the powers that be really need to put pencil to paper and figure this out.”
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 from the Colorado River environmental release flows into the El Chausse restoration site in Baja California, Mexico. (Source: Jesus Salazar, Raise the River)
By Gary Pitzer
Water is flowing once again to the Colorado River’s delta in Mexico, a vast region that was once a natural splendor before the iconic Western river was dammed and diverted at the turn of the last century, essentially turning the delta into a desert.
In 2012, the idea emerged that water could be intentionally sent down the river to inundate the delta floodplain and regenerate native cottonwood and willow trees, even in an overallocated river system. Ultimately, dedicated flows of river water were brokered under cooperative efforts by the U.S. and Mexican governments.
The first intentional flows happened for about eight weeks in 2014. This year, the flows will be much longer despite an ongoing drought that sparked first-ever declared shortage on the river earlier this month. The flows started May 1 and will continue through October. They are supported by myriad groups, including the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), created by the two countries 132 years ago.
“The United States is committed to meeting its environmental commitments to Mexico,” Daniel Avila, the IBWC’s acting U.S. commissioner, said in a statement. “I’m pleased to see the environmental water deliveries this year as part of our effort to improve wildlife habitat in the region.”
Avila’s counterpart in Mexico, Humberto Marengo, said in a statement that environmental cooperation on the Colorado River in Mexico is very important for both countries, as reflected by the agreed-upon use of water to help replenish parts of the riparian corridor leading to the Gulf of California.
It’s an audacious experiment, part of a multifaceted agreement that helps the two countries share the river. But it comes this time despite shortages elsewhere on the drought-stressed Colorado River, which supplies water to millions of people in the Southwest and large swaths of farmland in the U.S. and Mexico.
Amy Witherall, binational program manager with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said the current flow for the delta has a lower peak volume and is spread across a longer time period than the 2014 experimental flow. And by using Mexico’s irrigation canals, water is moving more effectively to restoration sites.
“As a result of the binational coordination and collaboration that has developed, we were able to design a creative solution to maximizing the benefits of the environmental water available,” she said.
Learning from the Flows
The dedicated environmental flows delight conservation advocates who see ample opportunity to bring back some of the ecosystem benefits for birds, plants and wildlife.
“One really interesting thing to report is that it’s working,” said Jennifer Pitt, Colorado River program director with the National Audubon Society. “There’s definitely been reports and visual confirmation of the connection of those flows to the sea.”
Raise the River, a partnership of six U.S. and Mexican nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), is leading the work to reimagine parts of the Colorado River Delta to establish pockets of wildlife-friendly habitat and recreational opportunities for local communities. It’s an iterative process that reveals how the landscape responds when it gets water from the Colorado River.
Habitat restoration work (the projects are named in yellow) extends along the main channel of the Colorado River from the US-Mexico border to the upper estuary of the Gulf of California. (Source: Sonoran Institute)
It’s likely the lessons learned from the coming months will influence how water is applied during a future flow release – sometimes through the dry reaches and sometimes around them. “We are going to collect data and have lots of conversations about the tradeoffs,” Pitt said.
The flow that began this year will be one in a series of rewatering efforts on the delta’s riparian corridor through 2026. The U.S. and Mexican governments provide the water in tandem with coalition of conservation groups. From the time the first flows began in 2014, those living near the river have been profoundly affected.
“I have grown up watching a river die and today I see a river revived,” Antonia Torres Gonzalez, a member of the Cucapá tribe indigenous to the lower Colorado River, said in a video produced by the Sonoran Institute of Mexico, one of the NGOs involved with the river. “We have been taught that the river is like a person that we have to love and respect.”
Jennifer Pitt, the National Audubon Society’s Colorado River Program Director, paddles a kayak through a restoration site. (Source: Jesus Salazar, Raise the River)
Even with a drought-stressed Colorado River on the brink of severe use restrictions that limit water for all purposes, water is flowing to restoration sites and will continue to do so under addendums to an international treaty. Still, those restoration flows are expected to be pared back – though not halted – next year as a result of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Aug. 16 declaration of a shortage in 2022 that will reduce water supplies for Arizona and Nevada.
“You can’t just sort of take one part of it and say, oh we’re going to do this part, not this other part,” said Karl Flessa, professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona who closely monitors the delta flows. With Reclamation’s shortage declaration, “Mexico is going to share that shortage and there’s going to be a comparable shortage or sharing of the water that goes towards the restoration projects.”
Bringing Back the Delta
Across the Colorado River Basin, climate change is upending the expected patterns of hydrology. Reduced Rocky Mountain snowpack and rising temperatures are stressing the system, leaving less runoff flowing downstream to reservoirs, farms and cities. Those working to restore delta habitat using river flows hope that their efforts will help.
Tree nurseries at Raise the River restoration sites provide the seedlings to expand native vegetation along the Colorado River corridor in Mexico. (Source: Jesus Salazar, Raise the River)
“We are trying to mitigate [climate change] in the areas with restoration, as we help to lower the temperature with the trees planted,” said Gabriela Caloca Michel, restoration project coordinator with Pronatura Noroeste, the oldest and largest conservation nonprofit in Mexico that manages several restoration sites.
The Colorado River once traveled all the way to the Gulf of California – an estuary of about 2 million acres. Dams and aqueducts moved water to irrigate farms, including those in Mexico and seven western U.S. states, and provide drinking water. As a result, the river made it all the way to the mouth of the estuary only during high flow years.
But people have come to realize that it’s possible to bring back a portion of the Colorado River Delta with relatively small contributions of river water. The first experimental pulse flow of Colorado River water – 105,000 acre-feet of water in total – into the delta was delivered to mimic the flood flows that used to naturally reach the delta with spring snowmelt. Some water was routed to established restoration sites along the river corridor to nurture newly planted native trees, such as cottonwoods and willows.
Much was learned from that 2014 flow. Even though the river would sometimes flood the delta, the 2014 release helped foster knowledge about water movement (including infiltration) that is aiding the current effort.
Pronatura’s Caloca Michel, who has worked on the delta since 2015, said the aim with the 2021 water release is to carefully map out the design of restoration sites, factoring irrigation infrastructure, plant selection and local nursery production, soil type and water table and water rights to be able to irrigate.
Getting To the Green-Up
Under the terms of a 2017 agreement, the United States, Mexico and the coalition of NGOs each agreed to provide one-third of the 210,000 acre-feet of water for environmental purposes in the delta through 2026. The NGOs have provided 26,369 acre-feet of water between 2018 and 2020.
A closeup of the white fluff that gives cottonwood trees their name. Native cottonwood trees are back in large numbers in some sections of the Colorado River Delta. (Source: Jesus Salazar, Raise the River)
The plan is to move water to different locations at different rates and times to realize the most ecosystem advantages. It’s a give and take between providing open water habitat for birds and moving releases to specific restoration sites that have been cultivated with native vegetation. Some flows are carried via established irrigation canals to limit the amount that seeps into the ground.
Infiltration of the flows into the ground isn’t a loss, Flessa said.
“If you’re pumping groundwater or a Mexican farmer, that’s a good thing. Groundwater does sustain a lot of vegetation along the way,” he said. “But if you want to deliver water to some of the more downstream restoration sites you really need to find a way to make sure that you maximize the efficiency of the water delivery so you don’t lose as much of the delivery as you would by putting water in the main channel.”
Teams constantly measure how the flows affect the groundwater table, the established vegetation and the new acreage plots established by the conservation groups.
Having water available through summer helps, given the harsh desert heat.
“It is a pretty stressful time for everybody,” Flessa said. “For the plants, if there is lack of irrigation or lack of support, those trees don’t like it.”
A common refrain is the surprise about how quickly vegetation such as cottonwoods and willows respond to what Pitt called “a drink of water.” But it’s not just water. The foundation established by conservation groups provides jobs for the community and re-establishes a connection to the riparian environment.
“I see a very big impact that the ecosystem is working well and the work we do has paid off,” said Celedonia Alvarado Camacho, who supervises tree preparation and planting for the Sonoran Institute.
Long-term, the question remains how to reimagine the delta with relatively small amounts of water. The flows were included as part of a pair of recent amendments to the 1944 Water Treaty with Mexico. Conservationists expect that a commitment for environmental flows will be included in future treaty agreements.
“I have every reason to believe an environmental program will be part of [a new agreement], in part because we had it in the last two … and because both countries have made enormous investments in restoring habitat,” Pitt said.
Still, a sense of perspective is needed for the ancient delta. “We are not going to bring the whole river delta back, that’s for sure,” Flessa said. “But I do think we could sort of get a green ribbon from the border to the Gulf of California.”
Please send any comments on the article to Doug Beeman, Deputy Director, News & Publications. Know someone else who wants to stay connected with water in the West? Encourage them to sign up for Western Water, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
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.
Ouray County Water Users Association wants to build a 260-foot dam at this location on Cow Creek that would hold about 25,000 acre-feet of water. One goal would be to lessen daily flow fluctuations, especially during spring runoff. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Water users in Ouray County are hoping to satisfy water shortages with what they say is a multi-beneficial reservoir and pipeline project. But the Ram’s Horn reservoir, Cow Creek pipeline and exchange are facing opposition from the state of Colorado and others.
The complicated, three-pronged project proposes to take water from Cow Creek and pipe it into Ridgway Reservoir, take water from local streams via ditches and store it in the reservoir, and build a new dam and reservoir on Cow Creek. This stored water would eventually be sent downstream to be used by the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association (UVWUA).
The project applicants — Ouray County, Tri-County Water Conservancy District, Ouray County Water Users Association and the Colorado River Water Conservation District — say they need 20 cubic feet per second of water from Cow Creek. Cow Creek is a tributary of the Uncompahgre River with headwaters in the Cimarron mountains. Cow Creek’s confluence with the Uncompahgre River is below Ridgway Reservoir, which is why an upstream pipeline would be needed to capture the water and bring it into the reservoir.
The applicants are also seeking to build Ram’s Horn Reservoir on the upper reaches of Cow Creek, which would hold about 25,000 acre-feet of water behind a 260-foot-tall and 720-foot-long dam. Ram’s Horn would help regulate what are known as diurnal flows during spring runoff — streamflows are higher during the day as the snow melts with warming temperatures, and lower at night as snow re-freezes. UVWUA says they can’t adjust their headgates to capture the high point of this daily fluctuation in flows, leaving the water to run downstream unused. The project would capture these diurnal peaks.
Ouray County Water Users Association wants to build Ram’s Horn Reservoir on the upper reach of Cow Creek, shown here. Colorado Parks and Wildlife opposes the project, in part, because of its potential impact to fish. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Goal to prevent a call
The goal of the project is to prevent the UVWUA — one of the big senior water rights holders in the Gunnison River basin — from placing a call on the river.
When the UVWUA, which owns the Montrose & Delta Canal and has a 1890 water right, is not able to get its full amount of water, it places a call on the river. This means upstream junior water rights holders, like Ouray County Water Users, have to stop using water so that UVWUA can get its full amount. According to a state database, the M&D Canal has placed a call three times this summer, most recently from July 12 to 22. In 2020, the call was on for nearly all of July and August. Under Colorado water law, the oldest water rights have first use of the river.
By releasing the water stored in either Ridgway or Ram’s Horn reservoirs to satisfy a UVWUA call, Ouray County Water Users Association would then be able to continue using its own water.
The Glenwood Springs-based River District, which advocates to keep water on the Western Slope, is a co-applicant of the project.
“This (project) is consistent with the River District’s goals and objectives with supporting our constituents and making sure they have a reliable water supply,” said Jason Turner, River District senior counsel.
Ridgway Reservoir, on the Uncompahgre River in Ouray County, is popular with boaters. A proposed pipeline project that would bring water from Cow Creek into the reservoir is being met with opposition for environmental reasons. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Potential impacts to fish, instream flows
But some state agencies, environmental groups and others have concerns about the project. Colorado Parks and Wildlife and Colorado Water Conservation Board have both filed statements of opposition to the application, which was originally filed in December 2019, amended in January and is making its way through water court. CPW claims that its water rights in the basin, which it holds for the benefit of state wildlife areas, fisheries and state parks, could be injured by the project. CPW owns nearly a mile of access to Cow Creek on the Billy Creek State Wildlife Area.
Between August 2019 and January 2020, CPW recorded water temperatures of Cow Creek and found they exceeded a state standard for trout. A report from CPW aquatic biologist Eric Gardunio says that the proposed project would likely cause an even bigger increase in water temperatures, resulting in fish mortality.
“The flow and temperature analysis for Cow Creek indicates that the water rights application has the likelihood to damage or eliminate the native bluehead sucker population as well as the rest of the fishery in the downstream end of Cow Creek through the degradation of water quantity and quality,” the report reads.
While less water in Cow Creek could result in temperatures that are too high for trout, water released from the proposed Ram’s Horn reservoir could be too cold for bluehead suckers.
“There’s going to be some changes to temperature and what our temperature data has outlined is that the species are at their extreme ends,” Gardunio said. “It’s nearly too cold for bluehead sucker and it’s nearly too warm for trout, so changes in temperature are going to have an impact to one or the other of the fishery.”
The Colorado Water Conservation Board opposes the project because they said it could injure the state’s instream flow water rights. Instream flow rights are held exclusively by the CWCB to preserve the natural environment to a reasonable degree. Ram’s Horn reservoir would inundate a section of Cow Creek where the CWCB currently holds an instream flow right.
“The application does not present sufficient information to fully evaluate the extent to which the CWCB’s instream flow water right may be injured,” the statement of opposition reads.
Environmental group Western Resource Advocates also opposes the project. Ram’s Horn Reservoir, with conditional water rights owned by Tri-County Water Conservancy District, is one of five reservoirs planned as part of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Dallas Creek Project, which dates to the 1950s. Ridgway Reservoir is the only one of the five that has been built.
This map shows the potential location of Ram’s Horn Reservoir, as well as other reservoirs originally conceived as part of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Dallas Creek Project. Only Ridgway Reservoir has been built. CREDIT: MAP COURTESY WRIGHT WATER ENGINEERS
Complex exchange
The third piece of the proposed project is what’s known as an exchange, where water would be conveyed via existing ditches connecting tributaries above Ridgway Reservoir. The exchange water would be stored there and released when senior downstream water users need it, which would benefit upstream water users. In addition to Cow Creek, the applicants are proposing to take water from Pleasant Valley Creek, the East and West Forks of Dallas Creek, Dallas Creek and the Uncompahgre River to use in the exchange.
Colorado Division of Water Resources Division 4 Engineer Bob Hurford laid out the issues his office has with this exchange in his summary of consultation. He recommended denial on the exchange portion of the application until the applicants list the specific ditches participating in the exchange and their locations, and agree that they are responsible for enlarging the ditches so they can handle the increased capacity of water.
“I have to have actual ditch names, the owners of the ditches have to be willing to participate and it has all got to be tracked to a tenth of a cfs,” Hurford said. “It’s not a loosey-goosey thing. It has to be dialed in and defined precisely.”
Another criticism of the project is that it won’t provide water directly to water users in Dallas Creek, which according to a report by Wright Water Engineers, is the most water-short region of the Upper Uncompahgre basin. Even if Dallas Creek water users participate in the exchange, in dry years still there may not be enough water in local creeks for them to use.
“This project has been sold as the savior of agriculture in Ouray County but this project will not provide wet water that would not otherwise be available to anybody that is an ag producer,” said Ouray County water rights holder and project opponent Cary Denison. “I don’t know one irrigator who is saying we need to build Ram’s Horn Reservoir.”
The project application is making its way through water court and applicants say they are continuing to negotiate with opposers. A status report is due in October. Attorney for the Ouray County Water Users Association and River District board representative Marti Whitmore said they want to make sure it’s a multi-purpose project that benefits everyone.
“Fish flows and recreation uses are important, so we are just trying to work out terms and conditions that are a win-win for everyone,” she said.
Aspen Journalism covers water and rivers in collaboration with The Aspen Times and other Swift Communications newspapers. This story ran in the Aug. 30 edition of The Aspen Times and the Sept. 2 edition of the Ouray County Plaindealer.
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.
