Here’s Part 3 of Mike Horn’s series running in The Crested Butte News. Click through and read the whole thing. Here’s an excerpt:
There’s a delicate balancing act here of ranching, recreation, water storage and stream health. And when there isn’t enough water to go accommodate everyone’s ideal stream flows, challenging—and often contentious—decisions need to be made. Fortunately things haven’t reached a desperate level in the Gunnison Basin—yet. But if drought conditions and climate change continues, and dust on snow continues to negatively affect water yields and reschedule runoff, conflicts are sure to arise amidst the many stakeholders, near and far, looking for their fill.
After a dry September in the Gunnison Basin, and the continuation of what the experts call a nine- to ten- year drought, stream flows are currently running well below normal. Some of that deficit can certainly also be attributed to dust on snow, and the resulting reduction in overall runoff, paired with snowmelt occurring up to three weeks earlier in the spring.For ranchers, low flows this time of year make it more difficult to irrigate fields, and raise potential conflicts between recreation and ranching. Significant water is released during the summer from storage facilities like the Taylor Reservoir to accommodate recreation, be it for the boating or fly fishing industry. However, that is not the time of year ranchers need higher stream flows; they need adequate flows in the fall to irrigate their fields as they prepare next season’s hay crop, and bolster feed for cattle that will graze on-site through the winter.
More Gunnison River basin coverage here.