Click the link to read the article on The Grand Junction Sentinel website (Dennis Webb). Here’s an excerpt:
A Western Slope fundraising effort to buy the historic Shoshone hydroelectric plant water rights is now more than half of the way toward succeeding thanks to a $2 million contribution by the City of Glenwood Springs, just downstream of the Glenwood Canyon facility. Glenwood’s City Council unanimously approved the funding Thursday. The city’s recreation-based economy relies in part on reliable Colorado River flows through the canyon, which the plant’s water rights help assure by virtue of their seniority. The fundraising effort, led by the Colorado River District, now has raised more than $50 million toward the $99 million effort to purchase the water rights from Xcel Energy…
The river district and Xcel signed a purchase agreement for the water rights in December. The Shoshone rights include a 1902 right to flows of 1,250 cubic feet per second, and a second right to 158 cfs that was appropriated in 1929. The rights prevent upstream water diversions involving junior rights, including to Front Range cities, when there otherwise wouldn’t be high enough flows in the river to meet the power plant’s needs…
The release said that in 2022, the Colorado River Outfitters Association estimated that commercial river rafting through Glenwood Canyon created an economic impact of $23.5 million. Private boating and fishing are popular in the canyon too, as well as downstream of it.
The river district continues to pursue more funding from Western Slope sources, and plans to seek whatever remaining funding is needed, up to $49 million, from federal Inflation Reduction Act funding through the Bureau of Reclamation. Moyer said the river district expects the criteria for the Inflation Reduction Act funding opportunity to come out this summer.