Click the link to read the article on the Summit Daily website (Robert Tann). Here’s an excerpt:
April 9, 2024
During a Tuesday, April 9, Summit Board of County Commissioners meeting, river district General Manager Andy Mueller told officials that his organization’s efforts to acquire water rights along a segment of the Colorado River “is vital to the health of all of our rivers in the Western Slope.”
Western Slope communities aren’t the only beneficiaries of the current system, with the [Shoshone Hydroelectric] plant’s water rights strengthening flows in Grand, Summit and Eagle counties, providing security to areas that depend on the Colorado River for a host of economic and environmental reasons. If the current water rights were not in place, the main beneficiaries would be Denver Water and other trans-mountain diverters which would experience increased yield through their respective collection systems, according to the river district…
In order to keep the same volume of downstream flow under new ownership, the river district will need to secure a water right for an instream flow, which can only be operated by the Colorado Water Conservation Board. The river district is currently in talks with the board to create a contract to do just that. But the crux of the river district’s deal is the water right’s $99-million price tag.