From The Grand Junction Free Press (Jennifer Bock):
In 2008 the Black Canyon decree assigned minimum and peak flows to the National Park, and flows for endangered species and whitewater parks have also influenced our state’s water landscape for decades. Yet, when the Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act asked each basin roundtable to assess their “non-consumptive needs” — water for the environment and for recreation rather than consumptive uses — there was more than a little confusion and today, as the roundtables attempt to fund non-consumptive projects, we are still working to define the concept.
The Gunnison Basin Roundtable completed its non-consumptive needs assessment last summer, and detailed ongoing projects that provide water for the environment as well as planned projects. In early May, the non-consumptive subcommittee of the Gunnison Basin Roundtable met in Hotchkiss to hear from proponents of non-consumptive projects and discuss what kinds of projects should receive funding.
At the Roundtable’s June meeting in Gunnison, it approved funding for two key non-consumptive projects: A project co-sponsored by the City of Gunnison and the Division of Parks and Wildlife to restore riparian habitat on the Gunnison River near the City of Gunnison, and a project sponsored by Trout Unlimited to redesign a diversion structure on the Gunnison River below its confluence with the North Fork.
One important note is that both projects have non-environmental benefits as well as environmental benefits. A 2011 study of the riparian corridor through the City of Gunnison found that a healthy riparian zone would facilitate recharge of the aquifer and aid late season flows. The Trout Unlimited project on the lower Gunnison will not only provide a more efficient diversion structure for irrigators, but will also rehabilitate the eroded riverbanks and restore impaired habitat along the Gunnison River.