Click the link to read the article on The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel website (Dennis Webb). Here’s an excerpt:
May 30, 2024
Reservoir operators in the Colorado River basin upstream of Grand Junction are looking to coordinate water releases in coming days to help bolster the river’s peak runoff volumes to aid imperiled fish. The coordinated peak-flow releases would be the first that have occurred since 2020. Annual conditions such as winter snowpack accumulations, current reservoir storage levels and the pace of spring runoff help determine what years coordinated releases occur. The releases are intended to help federally endangered or threatened fish in a 15-mile stretch of the Colorado River between irrigation water diversion points in the Palisade area and the river’s confluence with the Gunnison River. Those fish include the razorback sucker, Colorado pikeminnow, humpback chub and bonytail. The goal of the releases is to intensify peak spring runoff levels in the river in order to help clean fine sediment out of gravel beds that serve as spawning habitat for the fish. Such flows also can improve habitat for insects and other macroinvertebrates that fish feed on…
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hopes to see peak runoff reach 16,700 cfs during a year like this one under coordinated releases. But during an online meeting of water officials Tuesday as they look to coordinate operations, David Graf, an instream flow coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said reservoir releases that extend peak flows in the 15,000-15,500 cfs range a little longer also would be beneficial…The Bureau of Reclamation also has been making extra water releases to boost peak flows in the lower Gunnison River in recent days, again in hopes of benefiting imperiled fish. Those flow increases are expected to largely wind down before the Colorado River flows ramp up, meaning there shouldn’t be a threat of flooding downstream of the confluence. Reservoir operators and water users in some years also try to boost flows in the 15-mile reach during particularly low flows later in the summer, and around early April after irrigation diversions have begun but before the river levels increase from spring runoff.