From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
The [Gunnison and Arkansas] roundtables met in June and assigned committees to look at how water in the Aspinall Unit — Blue Mesa, Morrow Point and Crystal reservoirs — could be used to benefit the entire state. The committee will meet again Friday to further discuss the issue. The full roundtables are planning to meet again as well, possibly in November.
he Arkansas Basin Roundtable Wednesday voted to approve a letter to the Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the Aspinall Unit, with questions about whether the service contract for Blue Mesa could be changed. Basically, the letter seeks to find out if the state could store 200,000 acre-feet of water annually in Blue Mesa, carry it over from one year to the next without reduction and remain exempt from having the water reapportioned in the event of shortage. The water would be used to head off a call on the Colorado River by downstream states under the 1922 Colorado River Compact…
The issue is important to the Arkansas River basin because most of its diversions — and all of the major ones — are junior in water rights priority to the 1922 compact. Twin Lakes, Homestake and the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project were all decreed after the seven-state compact.
More coverage from Chris Woodka writing for The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
In late 2004, the CWCB issued the first draft of the Statewide Water Supply Initiative, which projected an 18-percent gap between municipal water supplies and needs by the year 2030. Since that time, roundtables and the Interbasin Compact Committee have been working with the CWCB on solutions to avoid drying up thousands of acres of farm ground. The planning period has been expanded to 2050 and climate changes are being taken into account. A series of reports has been prepared and comments are being solicited from the roundtables and the public on the results, [Todd Doherty, a CWCB staffer] said.
A series of reports has been prepared and comments are being solicited from the roundtables and the public on the results, Doherty said. Among highlights:
Colorado municipal water users currently use 1.1 million acre-feet annually, and will need between 600,000-1 million acre-feet more by 2050, depending on growth and the success of projects already planned. Identified projects would provide about 437,000 acre-feet.
– The Arkansas River basin will need between 36,000-109,000 acre-feet of new municipal water supplies by 2050. If projects like Southern Delivery System and the Arkansas Valley Conduit are completed, the need for new supplies will be at the lower end of the spectrum, but there will be a need.
– If water projects are developed in traditional ways — mainly buying agricultural rights and using existing reservoirs — it would cost $18 billion to meet the municipal gap. With cooperative projects and programs — new reservoirs, pipelines and temporary agricultural transfers — the cost could drop to $11 billion.
– The needs are greatest on the Front Range, while the sources of new supply are on the Western Slope.
One surprising preliminary finding shows it would be less expensive per acre-foot of water gained to build any of four transmountain projects. It would cost more to treat lower quality water from the lower reaches of the Arkansas or South Platte, Doherty explained.It was the first time the state has indicated a shortfall in water available to agriculture. Until now all reports have focused on the municipal gap and indicated agriculture would dry up because cities were willing to pay higher prices for the water.
More Arkansas River basin coverage here.