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Always … New Supply

The room was tense in 2015 when Mark Hermundstad, a Grand Junction water attorney who was representing Mesa County at the Colorado Roundtable, asked whether the Front Range would give up the right to purchase Western Slope irrigation rights if they built another dam on the Western Slope. “No,” said Eric Kuhn, who was then the general manager of the Colorado River District and a governor-appointee to the IBCC. “Eric Wilkinson of Northern Water and Jim Lochhead of Denver Water would not agree to this,” Kuhn said, speaking of the now retired leaders of those organizations. “They won’t give up the right to purchase Western Slope water.”

Transmountain diversions are a topic that no one wants to acknowledge, yet they have dominated the IBCC and hovered like a cloud at nearly every basin roundtable meeting on both sides of the divide for twelve years. The 2015 Water Plan did not delve into them, however, beyond including the Conceptual Framework. Neither did the 2023 plan. The closest it gets is on page 43 when it mentions, “50 actions CWCB and supporting agencies will take . . . to support the wise development and conservation of water resources.” None are described in detail, and there’s no table in the document like the one below. The projects described here are called “new supplies” because they each involve significant infrastructure that results in still-larger large diversions from Colorado’s largest rivers. By hiding them behind obscure names like “Northern Integrated Supply Project” (NISP) or the “Preferred Option Storage Plan” (PSOP), water providers discourage outside scrutiny and keep citizens from wading into this discussion. But the concepts are simple—they entail building new reservoirs or enlarging existing dams to store more water or constructing pipelines to transport more water. New supply proponents claim that if we do not capture the state’s water that flows in its rivers and streams, it will be wasted, traveling downstream to benefit California, Arizona, or Nevada, or to Nebraska in the case of the South Platte River, or to New Mexico and Texas in the case of the Rio Grande.

Figure 19.1 New supply projects

            Let’s now take a closer look at some of the projects on this list.

Homestake II is a second reservoir planned for Homestake Creek, a tributary to the Eagle River near Redcliff. It would provide another 20,000 acre-feet to Colorado Springs and Aurora, and 10,000 acre-feet for multiple Western Slope entities including Vail Resorts, the Eagle River Water and Sanitation District, and the Colorado River District.[1] In dry years, firm yield drops by about half, to 12,500 acre-feet for Colorado Springs and Aurora, and to 4,000 acre-feet for Western Slope entities. This is still ominous, since it means we will still divert water from the stream in the lowest of water years, just not as much.

“Firm yield” refers to water supplies that are certain, such as water held back in a dam above the “dead pool” level. The plan is to divert water from Homestake Creek and its tributaries near Camp Hale below Tennessee Pass and to store it in Eagle Park Reservoir just west of the Climax molybdenum mine, or in the potential Whitney Creek Reservoir, from where water would be pumped up to Homestake Reservoir and the existing tunnel leading to the east slope.[2] Homestake II would drown 12 to 93 acres of wetlands depending on how big the resulting reservoir is, and it would require a lot of energy to pump water 1,090 feet up to Homestake Reservoir. The firm yield would provide enough water for 30,000 more residents in the Eagle River Valley on the Western Slope and 135,000 more in Colorado Springs and Aurora, assuming each resident uses 120 gallons each day.[3]

In 1998, Aurora, Colorado Springs, Eagle River valley water providers and the Colorado River District, whose original purpose was to keep water on the Western Slope, signed the Eagle River MOU (Memorandum of Understanding). It resolved 15 years of litigation between Aurora and Eagle River valley entities, and quietly kept Homestake II moving forward. Learning from their 1988 defeat when Eagle County commissioners used 1041 powers to stop Homestake II, Colorado Springs and Aurora agreed that Homestake II should provide water for Eagle Valley water providers as well—former opponents are being offered water to gain their assent. In 2010, Aurora and the Eagle Park Reservoir Company, which operates a reservoir near Tennessee Pass, moved Homestake 2 along by allowing Aurora to store water from the Columbine Ditch in the Reservoir. The Colorado River District, a shareholder of Eagle Park Reservoir, did not inform the Colorado Basin Roundtable as that agreement was being negotiated. In 2014 Aurora appropriated $60,000 to pay consultants to keep its conditional water rights in Homestake II alive.[4]

More Fraser River Water Into Moffat Tunnel

Denver Water now diverts 60 percent of the Fraser River’s annual flow through the Moffat Tunnel to Gross Reservoir above Boulder, and it is planning to take up to 15 percent more.[5] Denver Water captures 26 separate tributaries in the Fraser River Valley on the north side of Berthoud Pass before they make it to the Fraser River, effectively girdling the river. This water is then diverted through ditches to the Moffat diversion pipe that runs alongside the train tunnel, at the base of the Winter Park ski area. The Moffat pipe built in 1937 can divert 100,000 acre-feet a year, but Denver Water typically only diverts about half that amount. Denver Water hopes to increase its annual diversion by another 18,000 acre-feet, enough water for 45,000 more Front Range homes or 134,000 more residents.[6] “The Fraser River is the river in Colorado that is the most heavily depleted,” Drew Peternell of Trout Unlimited told the Daily Camera in Boulder in 2009. “It's just really beat up. They take water off the peak, rather than drying the river completely. Eventually, all these projects start to add up and you get a flat line and then you're not going to have a healthy, functioning ecosystem.” [7] To store the extra water, Denver Water is increasing the height of Gross Reservoir from 340 to 471 feet, which will triple its capacity from 44,000 acre-feet to 117,000 acre-feet. [8] This will double Gross Reservoir’s footprint from 418 to 818 acres, drowning over half a square mile of national forest. The Gross Reservoir expansion will set aside 5,000 acre-feet of storage for water that is already owned by Boulder and Lafayette, allowing them to release the water when South Boulder Creek is low, guaranteeing it will not run dry.[9]

The bathtub ring around the lake will likely be more pronounced, as a larger reservoir is likely to fluctuate more in volume, especially in the face of a warming climate. Denver Water claims this project is necessary to bolster the northern half of its service area, which receives only 20 percent of the water that Denver diverts from the Western Slope. The remaining 80 percent comes from the South Platte River through its southern collection system, stored in Antero, Eleven Mile, Cheesman, Strontia Springs, and Chatfield reservoirs, and from the Blue River via Dillon Reservoir. Despite taking 18,000 more acre-feet from the Fraser River, Denver Water claims that the Colorado River will actually be better off.[10] That is because Denver will stop diverting water when stream temperatures reach 70oF on the Fraser or 74.8oF on the Colorado River below Windy Gap Reservoir. For comparison, the average year-round surface ocean temperature in Baja California ranges from 73 to 75oF as one moves south through the Gulf of California. The town of Fraser, Colorado, is 9,100 feet above sea level, almost 2 miles higher than the Gulf of Colorado. For the first time since it began diverting water in 1937, Denver Water is willing to leave water behind if necessary to keep the Fraser River from collapsing. It was also planning to spend $12 million on stream enhancements between 2015 and 2021, as part of the approvals for the project. The spending would amount to less than 1 percent of the $1.2 billion revenue that Denver Water will collect from customers over those years.[11] It is also less than 3 percent of the estimated $340 million cost of the Gross Reservoir expansion.

Windy Gap Expansion

The Windy Gap firming project will divert 30,000 more acre-feet from the Colorado River just below its confluence with the Fraser River below Granby when Chimney Hollow Reservoir near Loveland is completed. That’s enough water for 223,000 more people on the Front Range. Once water is “firmed,” it becomes what water insiders call “wet water.” Cities that are poised to receive water from the Windy Gap expansion include Broomfield, Lafayette, Louisville, Superior, Erie, Evans, Loveland, Fort Lupton, Berthoud (served by the Little Thompson Water District), and Dacono, Firestone, and Fredrick served by the Central Weld County Water District.[12] These water providers are expected to serve about 825,000 residents by 2050, up from 250,000 in 2015.[13] Northern Water will operate the project using its existing infrastructure.

Windy Gap Reservoir is formed by a small dam 2 miles west of Granby along Highway 40. It was built in 1985 and designed to create a pool of water that could be pumped up to Lake Granby and then on to the east slope. It is the latest on-channel dam built on the Colorado River. It once stopped the flow of the Colorado River in a shallow reservoir where whirling disease thrived in the mud and slack water held back by the dam.[14] As part of its environmental mitigation, Northern has now re-routed the Colorado River around Windy Gap Reservoir in a “connectivity channel” which lets the river act more like a river but still allow pumping out of the reservoir.

The Windy Gap and Moffat Tunnel diversions will increase total diversions to 80 percent of the Colorado River’s average annual flow. Scientists at the Nature Conservancy report that riparian health is damaged when as little as 10 to 20 percent of annual flow is diverted.[15] How can air-breathing humans relate to this? Diverting 70 percent of a river flow could be like living permanently at the top of Mt. Everest, known to climbers as the death zone because each breath captures only one-third the oxygen compared to sea level.[16]

The Colorado Department of Parks and Wildlife has noted significant declines in trout size and numbers compared to historic norms in the Colorado River near Parshall, downstream of Windy Gap. Trout Unlimited maintains that flushing flows—high flows that flush sediments caught in the riverbed—are particularly needed on the upper Colorado River to maintain river health. The group also recommends that no water be diverted from the river once temperatures reach 64°F. Both the Windy Gap and Moffat Tunnel expansions will make these problems worse. Colorado Parks and Wildlife plans to address this problem by narrowing the river and building rock jetties out into it to engineer a waterway with a hoped for productive fishery.

Windy Gap Reservoir and the pump to lift the water to Granby are already in place. To “firm up” this water, Northern needed a new reservoir on the Front Range to store it. So, it is building Chimney Hollow Reservoir, located near Carter Lake west of Loveland, to store 90,000 acre-feet. The Colorado-Big Thompson project entitles Northern to divert additional water from the Colorado River, but Northern Water can’t until it has a place to store and “firm up” the water. Chimney Hollow Reservoir solves that problem.[17] At the July 24, 2017, Colorado Basin Roundtable meeting, it was quietly announced that the Army Corps of Engineers had issued favorable rulings for expanding Gross Reservoir and building Chimney Hollow Reservoir, both of which hold more water from the Colorado River basin. Neither announcement raised a single question from the audience.

Northern Integrated Supply Project

            Northern Water plans to capture the Poudre River’s peak flows in the Northern Integrated Supply Project, or NISP. According to the water utility, “NISP will store excess water currently leaving the state in years of abundance.”[18] In other words, NISP would capture the Poudre’s peak runoff in high flow years, nearly doubling its annual average diversion from the Poudre River. The Poudre typically peaks at 900 cfs in Fort Collins every June, but NISP would reduce this by nearly half.[19] The project involves constructing two reservoirs, the 170,000 acre-foot Glade Reservoir, and 45,000 acre-foot Galeton Reservoir about 30 miles east of Fort Collins. Glade Reservoir will be located north of Fort Collins near Ted’s Place where Highway 14 heads up the Poudre River to Cameron Pass. It will be larger than neighboring Horsetooth Reservoir, flooding 7 miles of Highway 287 and re-routing the highway further east. Northern Water says Glade Reservoir will provide a recreational amenity to Northern Colorado, that is, more boating and fishing. But since it is in a relatively flat valley, its long receding shorelines will turn into mud flats when lake levels drop. The shallow depth would likely result in algal blooms and poor water quality common to Front Range reservoirs.

“NISP will not dry up the Poudre,” former Northern Water manager Eric Wilkinson said at a NISP rally in Berthoud on July 2, 2015. Wilkinson says that Glade Reservoir will guarantee 50 cfs down the Poudre in the summer, and 25 cfs flows in the winter. Former U.S. Senator Cory Gardner, a Republican from Weld County, said it would capture water that otherwise flows to Nebraska, preventing the loss of water that Colorado could otherwise use. But Gary Wockner, executive director of Save the Poudre, said it would “turn the Poudre into a muddy, stinking ditch through Fort Collins.”[20] Galeton Reservoir will be filled with water pumped up from the South Platte River. It will be released to farmers lower on the South Platte who now rely on Poudre River water for their irrigation needs. That will allow more water to be stored in Glade Reservoir. Fourteen Front Range municipalities support the NISP project, since it would provide enough water for 100,000 new homes and nearly 300,000 new residents. The table below includes Ft. Collins’ proposal to expand Halligan Reservoir and Greeley’s proposal to expand Seaman Reservoir. Technically, they are not part of NISP, but they are included here to indicate planned water supply expansion in the Northeast corner of Colorado.

Table 19.1 NISP participants

Municipality

Acre-feet

Homes

Residents @ 120 gal's per day

Fort Collins Loveland Water District

3,000

7,500

22,319

Windsor

3,300

8,250

24,550

Left Hand Water District

4,900

12,250

36,454

Erie

6,500

16,250

48,357

Evans

1,600

4,000

11,903

Central Weld County Water District

3,500

8,750

26,038

Fort Lupton

3,000

7,500

22,319

Fort Morgan

3,600

9,000

26,782

Morgan County Quality Water

1,300

3,250

9,671

Eaton

1,300

3,250

9,671

Severance

1,300

3,250

9,671

Lafayette

1,800

4,500

13,391

Firestone

1,300

3,250

9,671

Frederick

2,600

6,500

19,343

Dacono

1,000

2,500

7,440

Total

40,000

100,000

297,581

Green Mountain Reservoir Pumpback

Rube Goldberg would be impressed with the Green Mountain and Wolcott pumpbacks, a scheme to pump Colorado River water up to a reservoir above Wolcott and to also pump water 17 miles up from Green Mountain Reservoir to Dillon Reservoir in pipes alongside the Blue River. This would keep the same slug of water perpetually recirculating in the Blue River between Dillon and Green Mountain Reservoirs, all so Denver can send more water from Dillon Reservoir to Denver. When Congress authorized the Colorado-Big Thompson project in 1937 to send water from the Colorado River east through Grand Lake to Weld County, Green Mountain Reservoir was built on the Blue River to assure late summer flows to Grand Junction farmers. Denver Water built Dillon Reservoir higher up on the Blue River in the 1960s. Dillon Reservoir can store 252,678 acre-feet, five times the water it typically sends through the Roberts Tunnel to the north fork of the South Platte River near Grant on Highway 285. Dams typically release about one-third of the amount stored, which means Dillon Reservoir has excess capacity. If Green Mountain Reservoir could release less, Denver Water figures that more water could be sent through the Roberts Tunnel to Denver.

Denver Water claimed its water right was superior to Green Mountain Reservoir since it first planned to build Dillon Reservoir as early as 1914, claiming a conditional water as of that date. The Colorado Supreme Court disagreed, holding that sending an engineer on a road trip in the 1920s to look around was not enough to perfect Denver’s conditional water right (that might well be enough today given the minimal due diligence standards now required by water court). The 1954 Colorado Supreme Court decision, known as the Blue River Decree, means that Denver has to release water from Dillon Reservoir to Green Mountain Reservoir so it can then be released to Grand Junction farmers downstream.[21] According to Denver, there’s a nifty solution, and it requires two pumpbacks. Like it sounds, a “pumpback” involves pumping water back up to the place where it originated. The first involves pumping water up from the Colorado River near State Bridge south along Highway 131 to a new reservoir on Alkali Creek. This water can then be released into the Eagle River near Wolcott where it will join the Colorado River near Dotsero, replacing the late summer irrigation water that Green Mountain Reservoir now provides. Another hugely energy-intensive pump on the Blue River will pump water from Green Mountain Reservoir back up to Dillon Reservoir, continuously, so that in effect the same pool of water keeps running down the Blue River between Dillon and Green Mountain Reservoirs.

Dan Birch, formerly with the River District, said this will actually enhance recreation in Summit County since it will increase the Blue River’s flow, which gets so low that it is rarely kayaked even though it is one of the easier and more scenic rivers in the state.[22] This is another illustration of a “multi-purpose” project. But it would also increase the mineral content of Dillon Reservoir, since phosphorous levels gradually increase as the water recirculates between the two reservoirs. The price tag for this project is $600 million. The real casualty, again, is the Colorado River since less water will be released down the Blue River from Green Mountain Reservoir. The Blue River joins the Colorado River at Kremmling, so less water will flow down the Colorado River for the next eighty miles until it joins the Eagle River at Dotsero. Former Trout Unlimited vice president Ken Neubecker expressed concern about further de-watering that section of the Colorado River. Flows would get so low, he says, that “You won't need a bridge to get across the river.”

Raising Pueblo and Turquoise Reservoirs

The Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District hopes to enlarge Pueblo Reservoir by 54,000 acre-feet and Turquoise Reservoir by 19,000 acre-feet by adding 12 feet to the height of each dam.[23] The reservoirs are part of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, or Fry-Ark, authorized by President Kennedy in 1962 to divert water from the Fryingpan River to the Arkansas River near Leadville for use by farmers in the Lower Arkansas basin on the Front Range. Fry-Ark is an incomplete name because the project also diverts water from the Roaring Fork River, Hunter Creek and its tributaries, Midway and No Name creeks. In all, sixteen diversion structures on the Western Slope divert water into nineteen tunnels that stretch for 29 miles.[24] Water is initially stored in Turquoise Reservoir three miles west of Leadville or in Twin Lakes below Independence Pass before it is released down the Arkansas River to Pueblo. Southeastern Water believes additional storage space is needed to meet the projected 2025 storage demand. Ten participants including Colorado Springs and Pueblo have agreed to pay the planning and development costs for the reservoir enlargement.[25] They have committed to pay for 58,125 additional acre-feet of storage space, with costs determined by the amount of storage space each participant has signed up for in the enlarged reservoirs. The first step is a feasibility study, which Congress must authorize since Reclamation operates the Fry-Ark Project. Cities on the Arkansas River have lobbied Congress for decades to authorize the reservoir expansions, but Pitkin County has opposed it.

The Bureau of Reclamation was created in 1902 to “reclaim the West” with irrigation projects. The federal agency built over 340 dams that are at least 50 feet high or store at least 25,000 acre-feet, all west of the 100th Meridian. Sixty-two are located in Colorado.[26] Reclamation built and operates the largest dams in the West, including Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River and Hoover and Glen Canyon dams on the Colorado River. In Colorado, Reclamation built the two largest reservoirs in the state, Blue Mesa Reservoir on the Gunnison River and Granby Reservoir, aka Lake Granby, on the Colorado River. It also built the collection and distribution systems for the Colorado-Big Thompson and Fry-Ark projects, the two most extensive transmountain diversions in Colorado, administered, respectively, by Northern and Southeastern. Today Reclamation has a $1.4 billion budget and 5,373 employees, delivering irrigation water to 10 million acres and one of every five farmers in the West. [27] It’s also the second largest power producer in the West.[28] In 2015 it was receiveing$900 million from the sale of power but since it only spent only $440 million operating its facilities, so power sales actually turn a profit for the agency.[29] As the drumbeat to remove dams grows each year, particularly the four dams on the Snake River that have destroyed a productive salmon fishery for decades, dam opponents must account for the lost power revenue if the dams are removed. Power sales fund many programs in the West, including endangered fish recovery efforts, and every recipient of these funds must be dealt with.

The Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming face a Colorado River Compact call if Lake Powell fails to deliver 7.5 million acre-feet each year to Lake Mead on a ten-year rolling average, but declining power revenue will likely precipitate a crisis well before deliveries drop below an average of 7.5 million acre-feet. Dam operators will not permit Lake Powell to fall below the level needed to generate power (3,490 feet above sea level). They prefer to keep lake levels at 3,525’ since they believe that much “head,” the vertical height of water above the power turbines, is needed to safely operate the turbines.

The Glen Canyon Institute, a Salt Lake City NGO that has been advocating to remove Glen Canyon Dam since 1996, did a peer-reviewed study in 2015 of what the power generated by the dam is worth.[30] BuRec receives about $153.3 million in annual revenue from the sale of Glen Canyon Dam hydropower. This is below market since Congress requires Glen Canyon Power to be sold at cost.[31]

If Glen Canyon Dam was emptied, and its water was instead stored behind Hoover Dam in Lake Mead, much of the power revenue lost at Glen Canyon Dam would be replaced by hydropower generated at Hoover Dam—the water is still generating power, now from Hoover Dam instead of Glen Canyon Dam. Glen Canyon dam also loses water to seepage into the soil. The peer-review scientists conclude that the revenue earned from Hoover Dam plus the cost savings from no longer operating Glen Canyon Dam, plus the value of water lost to seepage, would be $75 million, reducing the $153.3 million lost power revenue by nearly half.

Glen Canyon Power is marketed by the Western Area Power Administration and sold to the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC). It amounts to less than 0.5 percent of the power sold by WECC. It is a valuable 0.5 percent because it can be released to generate power immediately, bridging the period when solar and wind power wane and before gas-fired turbines can power up.[32]  Its power is also delivered to the Navajo Tribe, whose 43,000 members would pay $4.5 million more to replace power from Glen Canyon Dam, an increase of about $100 per customer per year. But if Glen Canyon Dam stopped producing power, it would have a negligible impact on the western power grid and would raise electric rates for WECC residential customers by an average of only 8 cents per month, less than a dollar per year.

Reclamation controls Green Mountain Reservoir on the Blue River, Ruedi Reservoir on the Fryingpan River, Granby Reservoir on the Colorado River, and the three reservoirs known as the Aspinall Unit on the Gunnison River, including Blue Mesa Reservoir. It also controls Navajo Reservoir on the San Juan River in New Mexico, and Fontenelle and Flaming Gorge reservoirs on the Green River. In short, Reclamation controls the dam releases that both fill and empty Lake Powell. Reclamation has always been intensely political, with Eastern politicians initially criticizing irrigation projects in the arid West as “get-rich” boondoggles for land speculators. Rather than touting irrigation benefits, dam proponents instead diverted Congress’ attention to the benefits of power generation. When Congress authorized the Boulder Canyon Project to build Hoover Dam in 1928, the spigot opened for a fifty-year stream of appropriations to Reclamation from the general fund of the United States. The Animas-La Plata project near Durango was the last major Reclamation project, funded just as the nation’s dam building spree was nearing its end.

In the first iteration of its basin implementation plan, the Arkansas basin roundtable identified PSOP, or some version of it, as its most important project to continue its population growth. In 2009, Aurora and the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District sent letters to Colorado’s congressional delegation requesting that Congress appropriate funds to study PSOP. Senator Mark Udall refused to move forward without consensus from all members of the Colorado congressional delegation, as well as the agreement of all stakeholders.[33] Those stakeholders include Pitkin County, which has always opposed PSOP, and Reclamation. Any additional water that is diverted to the Front Range in a PSOP expansion (or any other new transmountain diversion) will no longer flow to Lake Powell. If Reclamation expands Turquoise and Pueblo reservoirs, that ultimately means that Lake Powell power revenue could decline, yet another wrinkle in the tangled web that is water in the West.

Southern Delivery System

One new supply project recently completed in Colorado is the Southern Delivery System, a pipeline to deliver up to 52,000 acre-feet from Pueblo Reservoir to Colorado Springs, Fountain, Security and Pueblo West. That’s enough water for over 100,000 new homes or 315,000 additional residents. It is expected to deliver 130,000 acre-feet by 2040, enough water for 750,000 residents.[34] Mark Pifher, a former Colorado Springs Utilities project manager, directed the $880 million project, which began delivering water in 2016.[35] Like farmers, cities feel the pressure to use it or lose it. “Undeveloped water rights are like $100 bills blowing down the street—someone will grab them and use them for their own benefit,” a 2014 Colorado Springs Business Journal article touting the Southern Delivery System said.[36] “This will be our last pipeline,” said Gary Bostrom, then Colorado Springs Utility’s water resources manager. “We will never be able to develop a new water delivery system. When SDS is finished, that’s it.”

The Western Slope has heard that refrain many times before.

By 2045 Colorado Springs developers plan to surpass Denver and become the state’s largest city. Colorado Springs City Engineer Edwin W. Sawyer said in 1901, “It seems to me that nothing except the lack of water can stop the growth of a city so desirable for residence as this. Our people are becoming aroused to the need of securing at once all the available reservoir sites and water rights.”[37] Colorado Springs’ water supply network is nearly as extensive as Denver Water’s. It is a partner in two new supply projects discussed above, Homestake II in the Eagle River drainage, and the project formerly known as PSOP in the Fryingpan River drainage. Whether or not these are built, Colorado Spring’s ultimate water source will be drying up more and more agriculture, both on the Front Range and Western Slope.

Flaming Gorge Pipeline

Fort Collins entrepreneur Aaron Million was crusading to build a 550-mile pipeline in 2014 from Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Green River east along Interstate 80 through Wyoming and then south along Interstate 25 to the Front Range. Million said it would deliver up to 250,000 acre-feet a year as far south as Pueblo.[38] That’s enough water for 2.8 million people assuming they use a responsible 120 gallons per day. Million applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for a license after the Army Corps of Engineers panned the project in 2011.[39] The CWCB had previously studied the Flaming Gorge pipeline, concluding it was premature to support it until first determining whether there is enough unused water in the Colorado River to support it. If no more water is available, which seemed more and more likely as Lakes Mead and Powell dropped to 26 percent full in 2022, spending $9 billion on the Flaming Gorge pipeline was unjustified. When it tried to determine in 2009 how much water in the Colorado River was available for further development, the CWCB could not reach consensus, concluding that zero to 900,000 acre-feet was potentially available. Eric Kuhn, then Colorado River District general manager, said at the time that the wide range was actually reasonable given the wide annual fluctuations in Colorado River flows.

Flaming Gorge Reservoir is formed by a large dam on the Green River. The Green drains the west side of the spectacular Wind River Range in Wyoming before flowing through the northwest corner of Colorado in Dinosaur National Park and into the Colorado River in Canyonlands National Park. As the largest tributary to the Colorado, the Green supplies 37 percent of the average virgin flow into Lake Powell, about 30 million acre-feet of the 82.5 million acre-feet the Upper Basin states are required to deliver to Lake Powell every ten years.[40] If Colorado withdraws 250,000 acre-feet a year from Flaming Gorge Reservoir, that totals 2.5 million acre-feet every 10 years, about 8 percent of the Green River’s contribution, or 3.3 percent of the Upper Basin’s total delivery obligation. It’s a lot of water.

The Flaming Gorge diversion to Colorado could cause Arizona and the other Lower Basin states to make a compact call on the river. That would shut down not only the Flaming Gorge pipeline but many more senior water rights as well, since, in theory, water rights get called out one by one until enough water flows into, and out of, Lake Powell to meet the call. The Colorado River District believed that if the Flaming Gorge project had proceeded, it would have likely meant that no further diversions could be made from the Colorado River. “It will be game over for the Western Slope,” said Jim Pokrandt, who at the time was communication director for the Colorado River District and the chair of the Colorado roundtable.

Experts at Western Resource Advocates once said this was the most expensive new supply option put on the table, with a projected price tag of $7 to $9 billion. At that price, water costs $32,000 per acre-foot. If only 150,000 acre-feet are delivered, the cost jumps to more than $53,000 per acre-foot.[41] Further complicating matters, the proposed Flaming Gorge project would also likely require the buy-in of Wyoming and Utah. I asked Dennis Strong, who directed the Utah Division of Water Resources until retiring in 2013, whether Utah supported the Flaming Gorge scheme.[42] He said, yes, as long as Colorado did not object to Utah’s proposal to pump 100,000 acre-feet from Lake Powell to St. George, Utah. Residents near Flaming Gorge feel differently, since Western Resource Advocates estimates that withdrawing 250,000 acre-feet annually from Flaming Gorge Reservoir could lower the recreation quality and cost $30 to $40 million in lost tourism revenue.[43]

Strong also stated that if Utah residents could conserve more and reduce use by 25 percent, that would provide 75 percent of the water Utah estimates it needs to keep growing. John Currier, then an engineer with the Colorado River District, said as much at the January 27, 2014 meeting of the Colorado Basin Roundtable when we were preparing our 2015 Basin Implementation Plan. He said that Denver Water’s per capita demand goal of 129 gallons per person per day was the appropriate standard for the rest of Colorado. “The need for a new, major TMD is remote at best,” he concluded, if the South Platte Basin succeeds in adding municipal storage to Chatfield Reservoir and develops NISP and the Moffatt and Windy Gap Firming Projects (all of which are under construction).[44] As long as South Platte Basin city planners stick to the 129 gpcd conservation standard when converting irrigated farmland to cities and suburbs, they won’t need any more major transmountain diversions.

Conservation—people using less—is by far the cheapest “new supply,” since it requires no infrastructure. The Flaming Gorge Pipeline raised the specter of a compact call because it was so big—250,000 acre-feet is nearly as much water as Denver Water currently provides annually to 1.3 million people. But every one of these potential new supply projects, and especially the larger ones, increases the chances of a compact call.

Yampa Pumpback

Some water providers are also eyeing the Yampa River for a major transmountain diversion, this one for 300,000 acre-feet per year. That’s enough water for 3.3 million additional residents. The Yampa River starts in the Flat Tops, runs through Steamboat Springs, and joins the Green River in Dinosaur National Park about 90 miles downstream of Flaming Gorge Reservoir. Northern Water once said this would basically solve the South Platte Basin’s 400,000 acre-feet municipal water shortage projected for 2030, and once touted the Yampa Pumpback as a way to prevent the South Platte Basin from losing 335 more square miles of farmland (216,000 acres). Northern also claims the project merits support because spring flows on the Yampa, which can exceed 20,000 cfs, could be put to beneficial use rather than flowing unused into Utah. And the district says it would never divert more than 2,000 cfs, nor would it take water when the Yampa drops to 1,000 cfs or less.[45]For comparison, the Colorado River along Interstate 70 in Shoshone Canyon above Glenwood Springs typically flows 1,450 cfs all year except during higher spring runoffs.

The water would be stored in a 500,000 acre-foot off-channel reservoir located off the Yampa River in a nearby basin. The reservoir would likely lose at least 20,000 acre-feet to evaporation each year.[46] Some water would be available for Yampa irrigators, but most would be pumped to the Front Range where a new 75,000 acre-foot reservoir would be built to store it. Northern estimates it would cost $3.9 billion.[47] Three different pipeline routes have been suggested, differing primarily in the degree to which they disturb national forest lands and generate the inevitable permitting controversies. The only Western Slope beneficiaries would be a handful of Yampa River basin irrigators. The tunnels would transport 500 cfs with three lifts of nearly 1,000 vertical feet each requiring nearly 300,000 horsepower.[48] The energy requirements would be enormous.

Putting it all together, these projects are enough to grow Colorado from 5 to 17 million people, at a cost of $30 billion or more.[49] If they seem too outlandish to ever happen, why worry? Why not let the Front Range water buffaloes keep dreaming? Well, by holding out hope for another major Western Slope diversion, we ignore the real issues. The threat of another transmountain diversion justifies wasteful water use since uptight residents on the Western Slope tell me it will otherwise go to the Front Range. And on the Front Range, the promise of another transmountain diversion allows planners to avoid the harder issues of using less water or containing runaway population growth.

The Cooperative Agreement

The Colorado River Cooperative Agreement, or CRCA, was a sweeping deal involved multiple members of the Denver Metro, South Platte, and Colorado roundtables, but its details were never revealed at roundtable meetings until the agreement was final.

Seventeen water providers, cities, and counties on the Western Slope signed the CRCA in 2013, and another eighteen participated in negotiating it, thirty-five entities in all.[50] The pact permits Denver Water to take 18,000 more acre-feet from the Fraser River and send it through the Moffat Tunnel near the Winter Park ski resort. The tunnel moves the water under the Continental Divide, down South Boulder Creek, and into Gross Reservoir in the mountains above Boulder. That may not sound like very much water compared to the 500,000 acre-feet a year the Front Range now takes from the Western Slope in an average year, but it’s enough for 180,000 more residents in the Denver metro area, assuming an acre-foot of water can serve ten people in a domestic, or household, setting. Of more significance, in the fine print of the CRCA, the Western Slope agreed to never again contest Denver Water’s pending conditional water rights to develop several hundred thousand more acre-feet of West slope water in the future, including the water rights that would have filled a reservoir behind the proposed, and shelved, Two Forks Dam and Reservoir Project.

The EPA killed Two Forks in 1990. It would have been the largest reservoir in Colorado and would have flooded two forks of the South Platte River in the mountains west of Denver near Deckers. It would have drowned almost thirty miles of the South Fork and seven miles of the North Fork. Like all environmental victories, Two Forks is not dead since the dam can always be built in the future. And in the CRCA, the seventeen Western Slope signatories to the deal forever give up the right to challenge Denver Water’s Two Forks conditional water rights to store 672,000 acre-feet of water somewhere. It’s enough water for over 2 million more people. Denver Water can apply for a permit to build Two Forks any time, and it can fill it with water rights on the Blue River stored in Lake Dillon that it is not currently exercising.

Chips Barry, who was CEO of Denver Water from 1991 to 2010, said in 2000 that his agency had no plans of reviving Two Forks, but he added that "somebody might," especially the Douglas County suburbs that are depleting the Denver aquifers. "In the long term, I wouldn't say Two Forks is really dead," he said.  And the CRCA keeps it alive. The CRCA was negotiated behind closed doors for seven years, without the Colorado Roundtable’s participation although we certainly knew about it, from 2006 to 2013. Despite several members of the roundtable being at those private meetings, they were forbidden to discuss the details of the pending agreement at the public roundtable meetings. We kept getting sort of “non-updates” at the roundtable meetings. It felt like sitting at a poker table where you couldn’t play. The CRCA has been advertised as an historic agreement by which Denver Water must abstain from further West slope diversions once they complete the process to divert 18,000 more acre-feet through the Moffat Tunnel to an expanded Gross Reservoir. But the CRCA also allows Denver Water to develop a list of conditional water rights it holds and potentially divert a lot more from the West slope.

Environmentalists, including Mely Whiting of Trout Unlimited, supported the CRCA since Denver Water agrees that it will adapt its river diversions and add up to 1,000 acre-feet into the Fraser River to combat low flows or high water temperatures. Skeptics point out that Denver Water is still taking 18,000 more acre-feet from the river (and over 70,000 acre-feet annually), far more than the 1,000 acre-feet it is adding back to the upper Fraser River. [51] But Jim Lochhead, then the CEO and manager of Denver Water, said the deal will help the river, according to a 2014 article in The Colorado Independent by reporter Bob Berwyn, “We’re not going to be diverting water all the time,” Lochhead said. “We won’t divert water in critically dry years, and we’ll only divert water during spring runoff. At other times of year, we’ll put water back into the river and improve conditions.”

This was the first time Denver Water had agreed to even consider the impacts its diversions are having on the river. Denver Water reduced much of the Western Slope opposition to its Moffat Firming project in the CRCA, but the agreement goes way further than this. It is a bewildering 51-page document with twenty attachments, addressing all of Denver Water’s century-old expansion plans for Western Slope water. The seventeen Western Slope governments and water providers who signed agreed they will never again contest Denver Water’s existing plans to take more water from the Western Slope, and in return for just 2,250 acre-feet and $26 million. The CRCA could affect Colorado water development for decades or centuries to come. And instead of just limiting Denver Water’s Western Slope expansion plans to the 18,000 acre-foot Moffat Tunnel expansion, the CRCA allows nearly all of Denver Water’s century-old expansion projects to go forward. Despite involving dozens of municipalities and affecting millions of Colorado residents, the agreement was signed without any public oversight or even awareness. The Moffat tunnel expansion is one of the smallest projects in the table below. The march is on.

Table 19.1 Breaking down the CRCA

Benefits to Denver Water

What the Western Slope Received

All 17 Western Slope participating entities including Grand, Summit, and Eagle Counties agree that they will no longer oppose the 18,000 acre-foot Moffat Firming project. Grand County has the most to lose since it already loses about 300,000 acre-feet annually to the Front Range.

Grand County receives 1,000 acre-feet in environmental flows in each of the Fraser and Williams Fork rivers, and $12 million for water utility system or environmental improvements. For the first time, Denver   Water has agreed to mitigate environmental harm to the Fraser, upper Colorado, and Williams Fork rivers by agreeing to provide water “at times, in locations and in the amounts requested by Grand County for environmental purposes"[52]

The Western Slope agrees to never again oppose Denver Water’s 1.6 MAF of conditional water rights for further expansion.[53] These include 672,738 af that it never relinquished for Two Forks Reservoir. (Appropriation dates ranging from 1/18/1905 to 4/1/1935), and 975,478 acre-feet for numerous others including 161,476 af Dillon Reservoir refill right (1/1/1985 priority), 350,000 af Wolcott Reservoir (12/31/07), 183,345 af Gross Reservoir (5/10/45), and 184,155 af Chatfield Res (12/28/77).

Water providers in Summit County receive 250 acre-feet from Dillon Reservoir, 0.5% of the amount that Denver now diverts annually from Dillon Reservoir through the Roberts Tunnel to the Front Range. Summit county water providers receive $11 million for utility system or environmental improvements. Summit County ski areas receive 622 acre-feet for snowmaking, but this water must be “repaid” to Denver Water when the snow melts. Other Summit County municipalities receive 771 acre-feet, but this water too must be repaid. [54]

The Shoshone Call Relaxation Agreement is extended from two months to six months in drought years, enabling Denver Water to divert 265,000 acre-feet, nearly three times more than 93,000 acre-feet that the original 2007 agreement permitted Denver Water to take. Denver Water concedes it will no longer try to purchase the Shoshone call from Xcel Energy, but if the Western Slope purchases this water right, the Shoshone Call Relaxation Agreement, which shuts down one turbine for up to six months in drought years, must remain in effect.[55]

Garfield and Mesa County receive $3 million for utility system improvements.[56]

Denver Water can seek to divert and store 400,000 acre-feet of Blue River water on the Front Range. The Blue River Decree now prevents Denver Water from diverting water from Dillon Reservoir if the water is used outside of Denver Water’s service area in the Denver metro area. The Western Slope can no longer oppose Denver Water’s efforts to change the Blue River Decree or, for that matter, to develop Two Forks Dam.[57]

If Denver Water sells Western Slope water outside its service area, it must share some of the proceeds with the Western Slope.

Denver Water can expand its service area to deliver over 71,000 more acre-feet to Denver metro cities, enough water for

500,000 more people using 120 gallons per day.[58]

The Eagle River MOU to divert 30,000 more acre-feet from the Eagle River (Homestake II, described below) can proceed; 10,000 acre-feet of this would be available for development on the Western Slope.[59]

The Wolcott Pumpback can go forward so Denver Water can ultimately divert more water (60,000 acre-feet a year) from Dillon Reservoir through Roberts Tunnel if the Colorado River District and Eagle County agree.[60]

Denver Water can pursue feasibility studies for other Western Slope diversions and seek permits for them as early as 2028.[61]

Denver Water agreed to cooperate with Western Slope entities to develop best management practices for water conservation. No firm targets for gallon-per-day use or land-use reforms are specified.[62]

The Conceptual Framework

While the CRCA was crafted outside of the roundtables’ purview, another significant agreement, however conceptual, was debated and discussed at both the roundtables and the IBCC. During that process, Front Range IBCC members spent years trying to obtain Western Slope political support for a new supply project, without actually identifying a specific project. And in 2015 the four Western Slope roundtables did sign off on a “Conceptual Framework” that included “7 Points” concerning how yet another transmountain diversion from the west slope to the east slope might become a reality.[63] The Framework was perhaps the most significant part of the 2015 Colorado Water Plan, where it is mentioned twenty-eight times.

Table 1.2 Parsing the Conceptual Framework

Conceptual Framework

What It Means

1

East slope water providers are not looking for firm yield from a new TMD (transmountain diversion) and the project proponent would accept hydrologic risk for that project.

The east slope will accept hydrologic risk, the risk that water is unavailable in low-flow years. By sacrificing firm yield, Front Range providers recognize they must find alternate water supplies in times of drought. Firm yield is the amount of water that can be stored during a long-term drought. It is water that the water provider confirms is ready and available.

2

A new TMD would be used conjunctively with east slope supplies, such as interruptible supply agreements, Denver Basin Aquifer resources, carry-over storage, terminal storage, drought restriction savings, and other non-West slope water sources.

In return for obtaining a new trans-mountain diversion, South Platte and Arkansas basin irrigators will fallow land or stop irrigating in dry years; Front Range residents will use less in droughts; and water providers will pump more water from underground aquifers on the Front Range. This isn’t new, since we’re already doing these things.

3

In order to manage when a new TMD would be able to divert, triggers are needed.

The Front Range will not divert if ecological warning bells or “triggers” go off such as low river flows. These triggers haven’t been agreed upon, and the decades-long haggling over the environmental impact statements for the Moffat and Windy Gap diversions from the Fraser and Colorado rivers suggest that won’t be easy. It also begs the question, why don’t we use triggers today?

4

A collaborative program that protects against involuntary curtailment is needed for existing uses and some reasonable increment of future development in the Colorado River System, but it will not cover a new TMD.

An “insurance policy” is needed in case a Colorado River Compact call is made (most likely by Arizona since it suffers the largest cutback). The insurance policy is likely the System Conservation Pilot Project, where Grand Junction and other west slope irrigators with senior water rights dating before 1922 will be paid to stop irrigating in case Colorado needs to deliver more water to Lake Powell. The Front Range is supposed to shut down the new trans-mountain diversion unless alternate arrangements (more SCPP participants?) are made.

5

Future West slope needs should be accommodated as part of a new TMD project.

The west slope will also get some of the water captured in a new transmountain diversion project, which it can use for more subdivisions and more population growth. The best example of this is the Eagle River MOU, where Aurora and Colorado Springs have agreed to give 10,000 acre-feet diverted from the Eagle River to the West slope in return for diverting another 20,000 acre-feet eastward.

6

Colorado will continue its commitment to improve conservation and reuse.

New subdivisions receiving the additional water will practice high water conservation. Agriculture will reduce consumption by lining ditches, drip irrigating, removing water-loving plants along irrigation ditches, changing to less water-hogging crops, and using efficient irrigation systems. Again, it begs the question why we aren’t doing this already.

7

Environmental resiliency and recreational needs must be addressed both before and conjunctively with a new TMD.

Environmental and recreation river needs will be addressed, both now and after the new trans-mountain diversion occurs. Again, the all-important details have yet to be worked out.

I and other Colorado Roundtable members repeatedly asked at roundtable meetings why Front Range citizens just couldn’t use less, one of the water-conservation measures included in the second point above. No answer was ever given, probably because if citizens could use less, that would eliminate the need for another transmountain diversion to the Front Range. A 2014 CWCB staff report confirms this, stating “All proponents of new municipal and industrial water projects should meet high conservation standards.”[64] (Note that existing projects are exempt). But the 2015 state plan says, repeatedly, that the best we can do is reach “low to medium” conservation targets. The plan said “The Interbasin Compact Committee reached consensus on the need to reach low to medium levels of conservation, regardless of the future scenario.”[65] But if new citizens moving here must restrict their water use to 137 gallons per person per day, why can’t the rest of us already living here do that if that’s what it takes to avoid the expense of another trans-mountain diversion?

None of the projects described in this chapter are discussed in the 2023 Colorado Water Plan. They’re rarely discussed at Colorado Basin Roundtable meetings. The 2023 plan doesn’t ignore dams entirely—“supply” is used 236 times in the 2023 plan—but in as tepid a manner as possible. On page 185, the 2023 plan describes dams under the heading “Thoughtful Storage” as “Storing water and creating reliable supplies for farms and communities and multi-purpose benefits for the environment and conservation.” On page 190 the Plan says, “Where possible, collaborative water supply projects should be developed that meet multiple needs, including those of the environment, recreation, and agriculture.” On page 242, the Plan reports that “89 percent of respondents agreed that we need to . . . increase water supply to continue to grow Colorado’s economy.” It makes the reader feel as if objecting to dams will result in environmental and economic harm. It calls to mind what United Healthcare would say if asked to tout the benefits of our country’s medical insurance system. The real purpose of storage is to support more development and people living in Colorado, but that is never mentioned. Maybe we won’t figure that out.

When the Conceptual Framework was being debated in 2014 and 2015 to set ground rules for additional diversions to the east slope, three of the four West slope roundtables recommended that the entire state adopt a high municipal conservation strategy.  The Inter Basin Compact Committee agreed to adopt a “stretch goal” of finding 400,000 acre-feet of water from municipal conservation. But that is still not enough to keep us from having to dry up agriculture or from taking more water from West slope rivers. Point 7 of the Conceptual Framework to allow more transmountain diversions emphasizes that rivers must be environmentally resilient, saying “environmental resiliency and recreational needs must be addressed both before and conjunctively with a new TMD.”

Resilience is the ability of a system to cope with change. It can be defined in several different ways, such as the time it takes to return to equilibrium, or as the capacity to bounce back after a disturbance. Some disturbances are so great that systems cannot recover. Forests that lose more than 10 percent of their cover due to landslides or lightning have a difficult time recovering. But rivers and riparian environments can recover surprisingly quickly if you just add water or remove dams or curb pollutants from flowing into them.

Figures

Figure 19.1 New supply projects

Notes

 [1] The thirteen Eagle River participants including Vail Resorts, Climax Mining Company, Eagle County, the Colorado River Water Conservation District, the Upper Eagle Regional Water Authority, the Upper Eagle Water & Sanitation District, and the Eagle River Basin communities of Vail, Minturn, Avon, Edwards, Eagle, Gypsum, and Red Cliff. Treese, C., “Eagle River Assembly,” July 1, 2005, Colorado River District.

[2] “Eagle River MOU project investigations memo,” Apr. 8, 2014, Colorado River District.

[3] The Colorado River District estimates the project will yield 3,000 to 5,000 acre feet to the Eagle River Valley, and 10,000 to 15,000 acre feet to Colorado Springs and Aurora. Assuming per capita daily use of 120 gallons per person per day, taking the midpoint of these numbers yields enough water for 29,758 in the Eagle River Valley and 92,994 people in Aurora and Colorado Springs. By reusing 50 percent of its share, Front Range providers can boost the number of people served by 50 percent to 133,911.

[4] Aurora awarded $60,000 on April 14, 2014, to Grand River Consulting, an engineering firm in Glenwood Springs, to continue due diligence to keep the Homestake water rights in force; see “City of Aurora Council Agenda Commentary,” Apr. 14, 2014 Council Meeting, Page 56,

[5] Klancke, K., “Surprise, we agree with Denver Water,”, July 22, 2014, Colorado Trout Unlimited.

[6] “Denver Water,” Wikipedia, last modified July 30, 2015.

[7] Snider, L., “Public input sought on Gross Reservoir expansion,” Nov. 30, 2009, Boulder Daily Camera, http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_13885451?source=rss.

[8] Rice, M., “Final Environmental Impact Statement – Moffat Collection System Project,” June 9, 2014.

[9] Snider, note 24.

[10] “Denver Water is preparing a major construction project, one that will provide more water to customers while improving the Colorado River and the environment surrounding the planned expansion,” from “Planned Gross Reservoir Expansion,” Denver Water.

[11] Denver Water collected $242 million from customers in 2013, down from $280 million in 2012. It will collect $1.2 billion from 2015 to 2021 assuming it collects $240 million a year. See, “Denver Water’s 2013 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report,” pg. II-19.

[12] “Windy Gap Firming Project,” Colorado Trout Unlimited, downloaded Sep. 25, 2015.

[13] “Windy Gap Firming Gains Grand County Commission’s Approval,” Dec 4, 2012, Northern Water.

[14] Id at footnote 31, “Windy Gap Firming Project,” Colorado Trout Unlimited.

[15] Richter, B., Davis, M., Apse, C., Konrad, C., “A Presumptive Standard for Environmental Flow Protection,” October 2012, pg. 1318, River Research and Applications, Vol 28:8, pages 1312–1321, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rra.1511/abstract.

[16] “Oxygen at Altitude, How much oxygen will there be at Mount Everest?,” Valerio Massimo Everest Expedition 2009, downloaded Sep. 25, 2015, http://www.vmeverest09.com/oxygen-at-altitude/.

[17] Fleming, P., “Laws, Compacts and Agreements for Meeting Future Water Needs, Western Slope/East slope Agreements,” Feb. 10, 2014, Slide 29, Colorado River District, Colo. Mesa University.

[18] “NISP in the News,” Northern Water NISP Overview, downloaded July 27, 2014.

[19] “Preliminary identification of Potential Impacts of Glade Reservoir on the Cache La Poudre river,” April 2008, Final Report prepared for the City of Fort Collins by Ayers Associates, Section 6.3, pg. 23.

[20] Finley, B., “Leaders rally for NISP water to ‘Get it done,’” July 3, 2015, The Denver Post.

[21] Sibley, G., Water Wranglers, a 75 Year History of the Colorado River District, Colorado River District 2012, 133-147.

[22] Berwyn, B., “Study: Green Mountain Reservoir pumpback feasible,” Mar, 20, 2007, Summit Daily News.

[23] “Enlargement,” Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District, downloaded Sep. 25, 2015, https://www.secwcd.org/content/enlargement.

[24] “Project Facilities,” Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District, downloaded Sep. 25, 2015, https://www.secwcd.org/content/fryingpan-arkansas-project-facilities.

[25] The ten participants include the Pueblo Board of Water Works, Crowley County, Colorado Springs Utilities, City of Florence, City of La Junta, Otero County, Town of Poncha Springs, Pueblo West Metro District, Salida, and the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District. See “Participants” under “Enlargement,” https://www.secwcd.org/content/enlargement.

[26] “List of United States Bureau of Reclamation dams,” Wikipedia, last modified Sep. 6, 2015.

[27] “Bureau of Reclamation , “Reclamation Funding,” , https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/fy2024-bib-bor-508.pdf. See also, “Bureau of Reclamation - About Us,” https://www.usbr.gov/main/about/fact.html#:~:text=The%20Bureau%20of%20Reclamation:%20Provides%201%20out,of%20its%20fresh%20fruit%20and%20nut%20crops. , downloaded Dec. 14, 2024.

[28] “Bureau of Reclamation - About Us,” last updated July 8, 2015, http://www.usbr.gov/main/about/. “United States Bureau of Reclamation,” Wikipedia, last modified June 24, 2015.

[29] It is difficult to determine how much revenue is received from the sale of power at specific dams such as Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell. See a study by the CBO, O’Neill, J., “Should The Federal Government Sell Electricity?,” Nov. 1997, pg. xi-xvii, https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/105th-congress-1997-1998/reports/electric.pdf. Reclamation revenue of $900 million is reported at “The History of Hydropower Development in the United States,” Bureau of Reclamation, last updated July 1, 2015, http://www.usbr.gov/power/edu/history.html. Expenditures of $440 million to produce power are reported at “Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Request for the Bureau of Reclamation,” Feb. 12, 2015. The Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) receives about $1.45 billion from power sales every year; “DOE FY 2015 Congressional Budget Request, Power Marketing Administrations, pg. 110, http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/04/f14/Volume percent206 percent20PMA.pdf. The 2014 annual report for WAPA reports $932 million from power sales and $425 million from transmission sales; “Powering the Future, 2014 Annual Report Western Area Power Administration,” pg. 24.

[30] Marcus, D., Blattenberger, G., Phillips, S., “The Impact of the Loss of Electric Generation at Glen Canyon Dam,” 2015, https://glencanyon.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/GCI-Power-Study-Overview-Full.pdf

[31] Western Area Power Administration, ”How Western Does Business,” downloaded Dec. 15, 2024, pg. 5, states, “Western first reserves power to meet project needs. Known as project-use power, it is used to pump water at Federal irrigation projects as required by law. It cannot be reduced by Western’s sales to other customers. After project requirements are met, Western sells the surplus generation at cost-based rates to preference power customers under long-term contracts.”

[32] Walton, B., “What Happens if Glen Canyon Dam’s Power Shuts Off?,” Circle of Blue, Juen 6, 2022, https://www.circleofblue.org/2022/world/what-happens-if-glen-canyon-dams-power-shuts-off/#:~:text=The%20failure%20of%20Glen%20Canyon,from%20a%20national%20energy%20watchdog.

[33] Woodka, C., “Pueblo County sends letter to Senator Udall requesting a seat at the table with regard to new storage legislation,” Dec. 8, 2010, The Pueblo Chieftain, https://coyotegulch.wordpress.com/category/colorado-water/arkansas-basin/preferred-storage-options-plan/.

[34] “Southern Delivery System achieves major milestone,” Garney Construction, April 2015, https://www.garney.com/southern-delivery-system-achieves-major-milestone/.

[35] “Southern Delivery System Fact Sheet,” Updated Aug. 1, 2012.

[36] “SDS: There is no Plan B,” June 29, 2014, Colorado Springs Business Journal.

[37] “The Southern Delivery System: SDS Drives the Efficiency and Reliability of Our Water System,” April 2014, SDS Water for Generations.

[38] “Billion dollar baby: Why the Flaming Gorge pipeline is bad for the West,” July 27, 2014, Red Lodge Clearing House.

[39] Magill, B., “Flaming Gorge pipeline hydroelectric generation project environmental review terminated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last Thursday,” July 19, 2011, the Fort Collins Coloradoan, https://coyotegulch.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/energy-policy-hydroelectric-flaming-gorge-pipeline-hydroelectric-generation-project-environmental-review-terminated-by-the-u-s-army-corps-of-engineers-last-thursday/.

[40] The Upper Basin States are obligated to deliver 75 million acre-feet every ten years to the Lower Basin States, and 7.5 million acre-feet every ten years to satisfy its 50 percent share of Mexico deliveries, for 8.25 million acre-feet total. CWCB representatives are unwilling to concede that the Upper Basin States must deliver 7.5 maf to Mexico every ten years, claiming that the Lower Basin States should meet this obligation since they are using more than their 7.5 million acre-foot share of the Colorado River. See Colorado River Compact.

[41] “Economic and Financial Impacts of the Proposed Flaming Gorge Pipeline,” Sep. 6, 2011, Table 25, pg. 49, Final Report by Honey Creek Resources, Inc., for Western Resource Advocates, http://westernresourceadvocates.org/publications/impacts-proposed-flaming-gorge-pipeline/.

[42] Strong made these remarks when he served on a panel along with representatives from New Mexico and Colorado discussing the Colorado River Compact at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction on November 9, 2012.

[43] See footnote 59, Economic and Financial Impacts of the Proposed Flaming Gorge Pipeline, September 6, 2011, Table 10, pg. 17, http://westernresourceadvocates.org/publications/impacts-proposed-flaming-gorge-pipeline/.

[44] Currier, J., P.E., “SWSI 2010 Reality Check,” PowerPoint delivered to Colorado Basin Roundtable January 27, 2014, pg. 37.

[45] Porter, S., “Northern water district eyes Yampa diversion,” Jan. 19, 2007, http://bizwest.com/northern-water-district-eyes-yampa-diversion/. See also, “Multi-Basin Water Supply Investigation,” 2006, Executive Summary, pg. 17, Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, http://www.riversimulator.org/Resources/States/YampaProjectExecSummary.pdf; “Yampa River Pumpback,” Friends of the Yampa, downloaded Sep. 25, 2015, http://friendsoftheyampa.com/resources/yampa-river-pumpback/.

[46] The off-channel reservoir is likely to be about 6,000 acres in size, nearly 10 square miles. The USGS estimates that a reservoir near Maybell would lose about 35 inches per year of evaporation; see Figure 1-7, Average annual lake evaporation map of Colorado, pg. 9, Ground Water Atlas of Colorado, 2003, Colorado Geological Survey, Division of Minerals and Geology, Department of Natural Resources.

[47] “Multi-Basin Water Supply Investigation,” 2006, Executive Summary, Table ES-6, pg. 21.

[48] “Multi-Basin Water Supply Investigation,” 2006, Executive Summary, Table ES-4, pg. 18.

[49] Figure assumes people use 120 gallons per person per day and reuse 50 percent.

[50] “The Colorado River Cooperative Agreement,” summary dated Apr. 28, 2011.

[51] Colorado River Cooperative Agreement (CRCA) section IV.J., pg. 32.

Berwyn, B., “Sides agree to innovative Fraser River deal to help slake Denver Water thirst,” Mar 5, 2014, The Colorado Independent, http://www.coloradoindependent.com/146345/sides-agree-to-innovative-fraser-river-deal-to-help-slake-denver-water-thirst.

[52] CRCA section III. E, pgs. 19-27. The quoted language regarding environmental flows is in section III. E. 10, pg. 22.

[53] Denver Water’s 1,648,486 acre-feet of conditional water rights re described in the Colorado River Cooperative Agreement, section VII.A, pg. 43, and listed in Attachment T.

[54] CRCA section III. B., pgs. 12-16. Denver Water also agrees to release 50 cfs from Dillon Reservoir unless it has restricted lawn watering in Denver. Berwyn, B., “Summit County to benefit from deal with Denver Water,” Apr. 30, 2011, Summit County Voice.

[55] CRCA section VI, pgs. 33-41.

[56] CRCA section III. F and G, pg. 27.

[57] CRCA section IV. B, pg. 28.

[58] CRCA section I. B. 1, pg. 1.

[59] CRCA section VII, “Abstention Provisions,” part a, pg. 47.

[60] Several provisions anticipate the Wolcott Pumpback will go forward: Denver Water can change its point of diversion for the Piney River to Statebridge, the source of water to fill Wolcott Reservoir (CRCA section IV. K, pg. 33); Denver Water can pursue the Wolcott Pumpback as long as the Eagle Board of County Commissioners agrees (section III. D, pg. 18); Western Slope entities cannot object if Denver Water attempts to perfect its 350,000 acre-foot Wolcott Reservoir conditional storage right (section VII. A, pg. 43); Western Slope entities must agree to the Green Mountain Reservoir protocol, which "mak[es] as much water as possible available for upstream use by cities, without impairing the fill of Green Mountain Reservoir" (section V, pg. 33); Denver Water can store 400,000 af of Blue River water on the East slope (section IV. B, pg. 28).

[61] Abstention Provisions provide that Denver Water and any Front Range municipalities that receive water from Denver Water must refrain from seeking permits for additional Western Slope diversions for 25 years (until September 26, 2038). If Denver Water receives all required permits to expand Gross Reservoir within 20 years, this is pushed back 10 years until September 26, 2048. If Denver Water does not initiate the NEPA permitting process by Sep. 26, 2023, the abstention provisions expire earlier on September 26, 2028.

[62] CRCA section VII. B, pg. 43.

[63] Colorado’s Water Plan, Interbasin Projects and Agreements, Section 8, pg. 13.

[64] IBCC Conceptual Agreement presented to the CWCB Board on July 16, 2014, prepared by Jacob Bornstein, IBCC and basin roundtable program manager, Water Supply Planning Section. Bornstein confirmed at a Colorado River basin roundtable meeting on October 27, 2014, that the Front Range would reach high conservation standards before taking any West Slope water in a new transmountain diversion. Presumably that means only new residents served by a new trans-mountain diversion, not existing residents.

[65] Colorado’s Water Plan, 2015, Sec. 6.3.1, Municipal Water Conservation, pg. 6-65.