Click the link to read the article on the KVNF website (Brody Wilson). Here’s an excerpt:
July 29, 2026
Between the reservoir and the endangered fish in the lower Gunnison sits the Gunnison Tunnel, which diverts water just below Crystal Reservoir at the head of the Black Canyon and carries it to about 80,000 acres in the Uncompahgre Valley. It belongs to the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association (UVWUA), which, as Colorado River District engineer Caleb Foy puts it, “holds a very senior water right” In Colorado, the oldest rights have priority over more junior rights. UVWUA is not untouched. It opened the season at 50% allocation — “just seeing the writing on the wall in regard to the poor hydrologic conditions,” Foy said. This means all UVWUA users receive half as much water as they would in a normal year. UVWUA’s other supply, Ridgway Reservoir, is ~85% full, but by design: the association told shareholders this spring that its “goal is to maintain storage in Ridgway Reservoir until mid-July to help support peak season demands.” And the natural flows in the Uncompahgre and Cow Creek that normally supplements UVWUA through the Spring and summer, delivered nothing — the association “received zero water in regard to direct flow water from the Uncompahgre system this year to date,” Foy said. Blue Mesa, he said, holds “multiple colors of water” — some stored under Aspinall Unit rights, some belonging to the association under a Taylor Park first-fill right. If the reservoir ever fell far enough that only the UVWUA’s water remained, that “would effectively dry up the Black Canyon.” Avoiding that is why the flows in the lower Gunnison are so low. It leaves the basin, in Foy’s words, in “a less risky neighborhood than we would have otherwise been in.”
