La Plata River: Long Hollow Reservoir will help with compact deliveries

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From the Cortez Journal (J. Paul Brown):

A water storage project, on the La Plata drainage, that has been on the drawing board since 1945, the Long Hollow project, finally is about to become a reality. This is a project located in the mouth of the Long Hollow Drainage about 3 miles from the New Mexico state line. It will allow Colorado to store winter runoff and floodwater in the off irrigation season to be used to satisfy the New Mexico water right at critical times.

One of the big problems in managing the delivery of water to New Mexico under the compact is when there is very little water at Hesperus, all of it can be released and because of seepage and evaporation nothing is delivered to the state line. The idea of the Long Hollow project is to store water so that New Mexico’s portion can be delivered out of the dam and Colorado can use more water that is in the river. It is a great project, and it is too bad that it has taken 67 years to become a reality.

More La Plata River coverage here.

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