Meadows in north Routt County, Colorado, were bare in spots on Feb. 9 after a slow start to this winter’s snowpack. Scott Franz/KUNC
Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Scott Franz):
February 13, 2026
This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.
Jay Fetcher and other ranchers in northwest Colorado measure snowpack each winter using their barbed wire stock fences.
A healthy level is called a three wire winter, when the snow piles up past the third wire above the ground. But on Feb. 9, the region was experiencing a zero wire winter.
“We just have no snow, and I have never seen it, in my 75 years here, I have never seen this,” Fetcher said Monday as he navigated patches of mud on his ranch in the Elk River valley north of Steamboat Springs.
Jay Fetcher poses on his ranch in northwest Colorado on Feb. 9. Low snowpack is adding pressure to negotiations on how to conserve the dwindling Colorado River. Scott Franz/KUNC
Many of the hills and meadows surrounding his ranch were brown and bare. The thermostat on Fetcher’s truck read 50 degrees, and the last patch of snow was melting fast off the roof of a barn.
This year, Fetcher’s ranch is on the frontlines of record-low snowpack across the West that is adding a sense of urgency among seven states to finalize a plan for how to conserve the dwindling Colorado River.
The snow in the nearby Zirkel wilderness melts into the Elk River and irrigates Fetcher’s fields before the water eventually joins the Colorado River and flows to millions of people downstream.
But things have been changing near Fetcher’s ranch over the past decade, and it could have implications for states competing for the water supply.
Since 1951, the Fetchers have tracked how long the snow stays on their meadows by marking the date in a little red journal. The data shows the snow is melting sooner in the valley.
“In the past 10 years, the snow leaving the meadow has moved up by 12 days,” he said. “This winter is a real indication of climate change, with bare meadows in the middle of February. I mean, what date am I going to write down for (when) snow left the meadow this year? Did it ever come?”
Jay Fetcher walks through a barn door on his ranch in Routt County, Colorado. Scott Franz/KUNC
The dwindling water supply in the Colorado River basin is driving intense negotiations among the seven states over how to share it in the future. Some forecasts predict water levels at Lake Powell could get so low this year that its dam would stop producing electricity. States have until Saturday to come to an agreement and the pressure has been building.
If they don’t, they might end up fighting each other in the Supreme Court.
Downstream states, including California and Arizona, say Colorado and states in the upper basin should pitch in with mandatory water restrictions during dry years.
But leaders in the Rocky Mountains are digging in.
They say ranchers and cities are already enacting conservation plans, and more cuts should not be forced on them.
“If we don’t choose how to live within the river’s limits, the river will choose it for us, and she will not be gentle,” Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s top river negotiator, said in a speech to a water conference in January. “Operations (of the river’s reservoirs) must be supply based, not demand based, not entitlement justified, and not built on a hope that the next big year will save us.”
Negotiators in the lower basin are calling for compromise. J.B. Hamby is California’s water negotiator.
“It’s going to take everyone chipping in and making the necessary (water) reductions to balance the supply with the demand we have moving forward,” he said during a speech last month.
The Yampa River in downtown Steamboat Springs was mostly ice free on Feb. 9 as temperatures rose above 50 degrees. Scott Franz/KUNC
Sitting on a patio on his ranch in northwest Colorado, Fetcher said Monday he’s not confident the lower and upper basins will resolve their differences anytime soon.
He said he’s willing to donate some water he doesn’t use each year downstream to California, but under current regulations, he would risk losing his water rights under a ‘use it or lose it’ system.
“I know that we will be able to irrigate these meadows just fine, because of our water rights, because of where we are, because of the ranch being on the Elk River. So from a personal standpoint, I’m okay with it,” he said. “The challenging question is, what happens with the lower basin? They’re just going to have to think about how to get by with less water and not have so many golf courses out there.”
The deadline for the seven states to agree on a long-term plan for how to conserve the Colorado River is Saturday.
Westwide SNOTEL basin-filled map February 12, 2026.
Coyote Gulch on the Yampa River Core Trail August 2022 on the bicycle ride to the Colorado Water Congress Summer Convention.
Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Scott Franz). Here’s an excerpt:
January 20, 2026
Steamboat Springs author and adventurer Eugene Buchanan has lived near the banks of the Yampa River long enough to notice its rhythms and moods are often mirrored by the residents in his northwest Colorado ski town.
“The river’s pulse kind of matches your own,” he said Thursday. “You know, come springtime, you’re jazzed up, and the rivers crankin’ and flooding, and the surf waves are in and people are rafting it and (stand up paddleboarding). Then it slows down to a trickle later in the summer and people are inner-tubing it. Fly fishing it. That’s a little more of a tranquil time.”
Yampa River Basin via Wikimedia.
But as Buchanann warns in the first chapter of his new book, Yampa Yearnings, “not all is hunky dory in Yampaland.” Last summer marked the fourth time in history that there was a call on the Yampa due to drought conditions and upstream users were forced to cut back their intake. And like other rivers across the West, Buchanan said the waterway faces growing threats from climate change and increased demands from water users. Buchanan’s book is not all about hard times and drought on the river. In between his history lessons about the Yampa and the challenges it has faced, readers will also learn about the fate of Buchanan’s efforts to help a rancher get his lost cattle back across the raging waterway. There’s also a tale of his friend’s paddling adventure from Colorado to Utah to prove the waterway can facilitate ‘interstate commerce.’ KUNC water and environment reporter Scott Franz interviewed Buchanan about his book and the state of the Yampa. Answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Franz: What impact do you hope this book has for the Yampa River and its future?
Buchanan: It’s hard to say how much impact a book like this will have. It’s my hope that those who are familiar with the Yampa learn to appreciate it a little more. Maybe look at it with a different eye next time they see it. If people aren’t familiar with the Yampa and they live somewhere else, maybe they’ll look outside and see their backyard creek flowing through their town and just think about it a little more. Maybe they’ll donate to a local nonprofit that’s trying to help preserve it, or they’ll pick up some trash or get involved. Or they’ll vote appropriately, how they want to, perhaps preserve it.
Floating the tiger, “Tiger Wall” Yampa River, 2014. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
The coal-fired Tri-State Generation and Transmission plant in Craig provides much of the power used in Western Colorado, including in Aspen and Pitkin County. Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office has a plan to move the state’s electric grid to 100 percent renewable energy by 2040. Photo credit: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
Platte River Power Authority’s general manager says he disagrees with a federal order requiring one of the coal plants it owns a stake in to remain open past its scheduled retirement and is waiting to learn what it might cost Fort Collins’ wholesale electricity provider…PRPA is a joint owner of the plant with PacifiCorp, Xcel Energy, Salt River Project and Tri-State Generation and Transmission, which operates the facility. PRPA owns 18% of the Craig 1 and 2 coal units…
The Department of Energy’s emergency order contends there is a shortage of electric energy and facilities in the Western Electricity Coordinating Council Northwest assessment area, which includes Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The order, signed by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, states that peak demand in the area is expected to grow 8.5% in the next decade, while many coal plants in the region have been retired, with more retirements planned…Wright cites supply chain issues with building battery storage systems to help replace the energy from those retirements. The emergency order also cited two executive orders from President Donald Trump. One declared a national energy emergency due to “insufficient energy production, transportation, refining, and generation.” The other declares the United States is experiencing an unprecedented surge in electricity demand driven by rapid technological advancements, like the expansion of AI data centers and domestic manufacturing…
But PRPA General Manager and CEO Jason Frisbie says PRPA does not need the Craig 1 unit because it has already replaced the energy that came from it.
“We have planned for the retirement of Craig Unit 1 for nearly a decade and have proactively replaced the capacity and energy from new sources,” Frisbie said in a statement provided to the Coloradoan.
Craig Station. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
December 31, 2025
Trump orders Craig coal unit planned for retirement to stay open. But it so happens the unit is broken. Ludicrous says Polis team. Sierra Club challenges basis for emergency declaration.
It was no surprise. Tri-State Generation and Transmission has said for at least three months that it expected to get orders from the Trump administration to continue operating a coal-burning unit at Craig, in northwest Colorado, beyond its scheduled retirement on Dec. 31, 2025.
The order was posted at 6 p.m. MST Tuesday. Citing emergency authority claimed by President Donald Trump, Energy Secretary Chris Wright ordered the coal unit to remain in operation through March 2026. The order cited a sudden increase in demand for electricity, or a shortage of generation capacity.
The irony of the order is that it was issued when the 427-megawatt unit was out of operation, according to a statement issued by the office of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
“Ludicrously, the coal plant isn’t even operational right now, meaning repairs — to the tune of millions of dollars — just to get it running, all on the backs of rural Colorado ratepayers!” Polis said.
“Going backwards is an attempt to force local communities to foot the bill to extend plant operations and will cost energy consumers more. Today’s action flies in the face of this careful planning, is inconsistent with market forces, and will hurt Coloradans.”
The Polis team estimated continued operations would cost tens of millions of dollars “to keep a coal plant open that is broken and not needed.”
Tri-State, in a statement on Wednesday morning, explained that the unit “went into an outage” on Dec. 19, 2025, due to a mechanical failure of a valve. “Tri-State and the other co-owners will need to take the necessary steps to repair the valve in a timely manner,” the statement said.
“Tri-State has a policy of 100% compliance, and we will work with Unit 1 co-owners, and federal and state governments to determine the most cost-effective path to that end,” said Duane Highley, Tri-State CEO. “We are continuing to review the order to determine what this means for Craig Station employees and operations, and the financial impacts. As a not-for-profit cooperative, our membership will bear the costs of compliance with this order unless we can identify a method to share costs with those in the region. There is not a clear path for doing so, but we will continue to evaluate our options.”
As a result of the order, retaining Unit 1 will likely require additional investments in operations, repairs, maintenance and, potentially, fuel supply, all factors increasing costs, Tri-State said. “Tri-State is continuing to review the order to determine how best to comply while limiting the costs to its members, and the impacts to its employees and operations.”
Highley told Big Pivots in October that the wholesale supplier for cooperatives in Colorado and three other states did not need the electrical production at this time, as it is actually producing more than it needs.
Wright, in his order, No. 202-25-14, cited several justifications.
One justification was a 2024 report by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council that forecast growth of 8.5% in peak demand during the next decade in Colorado and several adjoining states.
The order also said that Tri-State and its co-owners — Fort Collins-based Platte River Power Authority, Phoenix-based Salt River Project, Salt Lake City-based PacifiCorp., and Denver-based Xcel Energy — “take all measures necessary” to ensure that Craig Unit 1 is available to operate at the direction of either Western Area Power Administration in its role as a balancing authority or the Southwest Power Pool West in its role as the reliability coordinator.
The Sierra Club emphasized the cost of operating Craig No. 1. It cited a recent report by Grid Strategies that found operating the unit past the retirement deadline will cost the plant owners $85 million per year. This is distinct from repairs that may be necessary.
“Trump is playing politics with coal,” said Margaret Kran-Annexstein, director of the Colorado chapter, in a statement issued shortly after the order was posted.
Matthew Gerhart, the senior attorney for the Sierra Club at its Denver office, had even stronger language in an interview with Big Pivots.
“I think this order is a joke even by this administration’s standards,” he said. “This is quite clearly just a political move. None of the documents they cite even come close to saying there is an emergency.”
Wright’s order cited the 2025-2026 Winter Reliability Assessment issued by the North America Electric Reliability Corporation. That report in November noted total and net internal demand increases of almost 1% driven primarily by data centers and commercial and industrial customer growth. Even so, the operating reserve margins in the Rocky Mountain were expected to be met before imports in all winter scenarios.
That being said, Xcel Energy almost a year ago began expressing concerns about resource adequacy.
Gerhart also found fault with Wright’s order that the unit be available to operate at the direction of the Southwest Power Pool West in its role as the reliability coordinator. SPP exists, but not the configuration — a regional transmission organization — that would allow SPP to do this, he said. SPP has a day-ahead market and also a balancing market but not the apparatus set up to manage the operation of Craig No. 1, he said.
Will Toor, director of the Colorado Energy Office, also pointed to the report from the North America Reliability Corporation that found no short-term or long-term elevated reliability risks in the Rocky Mountain region,
“These orders will take money out of the pockets of Colorado ratepayers, and especially harm rural communities across the West who could be forced to absorb the unnecessary excess costs required to keep this plant operational,” he said. “The Trump administration is engaging in Soviet-style central planning, driven by ideology rather than the realities of the electric grid, that will drive dirtier air and higher electric rates across our state. These orders are unlawful and will not improve energy security in Colorado or the region.”
Trump has claimed authority to order coal plants remain in operation under the Federal Power Act. That nearly century-old law explicitly gives presidents authority to order electrical plants to operate under duress of war or weather emergencies. Since last April, Trump has sought to expand the power, citing emergencies caused by concerns about resource adequacy. The concerns, he has said, result from retiring fossil fuel and nuclear plants, dramatic growth in demand, and the intermittency of renewables.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, a gubernatorial candidate, also pushed back: “The DOE order is the latest in a string of attacks against Colorado, because we refuse to bend to the President. President Trump continues to take out his personal and political grievances on Coloradans who are already struggling to make ends meet. Federal intervention like this makes long-term planning impossible – this is not how you operate a business, plan an electric grid, or help a community stay prosperous. I am disappointed but not surprised by this continued revenge tour.”
Wright’s order said that 417.3 megawatts of coal-fired generating capacity across six units at three locations have retired in Colorado since 2019. It cited the Western Electricity Coordinating Council. “Looking forward, by 2029, about 3,700 megawatts of coal-fired generating capacity in Colorado is scheduled to be retired.” The order said that during that time, 675.6 megawatts of natural gas-fired generating capacity in Colorado will retire as well.
Wind turbines near Pawnee Buttes in northeastern Colorado. Photo/Allen Best
In 2025, wind accounted for over 5,300 megawatts of Colorado’s electricity generating capacity, the order noted.
Wright’s order described wind as intermittent. Of course, coal can be intermittent, too. That has been demonstrated repeatedly at Pueblo, particularly in the case of Comanche 3. The coal unit went down again in August and is not expected to be restored into operation until June 2026. In its absence, Xcel asked — and the Polis administration agreed — that Comanche 2 would not be retired this month, as had been planned for several years.
As for Craig No. 1, its retirement was planned in an agreement reached almost a decade ago. Air quality standards in Rocky Mountain National Park and other national parks and wilderness areas are being violated in part because of emissions from the unit. The regional haze standards were federally created and state enforced. The agreement with the Colordo Air Quality Control Commission was reached in 2016.
Tri-State’s electric resource plan of 2023 showed adequate resources to maintain reliability on Tri-State’s system following the retirement of Craig No. 1 as well as two other units at Craig Station that are scheduled to close in 2028. Unit 2, which Tri-State owns with its other partners in Unit 1, has a capacity of 410 megawatts. Tri-State owns 100% of Unit 3, which has a capacity of 448 megawatts. The three units were constructed and went on line in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
This Parshall flume measures the water in the Alfalfa Ditch on Surface Creek near Cedaredge. The Colorado Division of Water Resources estimates there are 2,800 diversions of more than 1 cfs without measuring devices across the Western Slope. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
The state of Colorado is ramping up an effort to measure water use on the Western Slope, developing rules and standards and rolling out a grant program to help water users pay for diversion measurement devices.
With input from water users, officials from the Colorado Division of Water Resources are creating technical guidance for each of the four major Western Slope river basins on how agricultural water users should measure the water they take from streams. The state is now doling out $7 million from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to eligible water users with faulty or missing devices to install structures such as flumes, weirs and pumps at their point of diversion.
Twenty-five percent of the funding is earmarked for each of the four river basins: Gunnison (Division 4); Colorado River mainstem (Division 5); Yampa-White-Green (Division 6); and San Juan-Dolores (Division 7). The first round of funding will go to Divisions 6 and 7, and applications close at the end of January. The goal is to have all the projects complete by 2029.
Measurement rules for Divisions 6 and 7 have been finalized and are in effect; rules for Division 4 are in the draft phase, and state officials are accepting comments until Dec. 19 on the draft rules in Division 5.
With thousands of diversions from small tributaries across rural, remote and mountainous areas, figuring out precisely how much water is used in Colorado has historically been challenging. According to state officials, there are about 2,800 diversions of more than 1 cubic foot per second from Western Slope rivers and streams that are not currently being measured. Historically, the state has required measuring devices on only diversions that have been involved in calls. When a downstream senior water rights holder is not getting the full amount of water they are entitled to, they can place a “call,” which forces junior upstream water users to cut back.
This Parshall flume measuring device is being installed on a ditch on Morrisania Mesa near Parachute. The state of Colorado has $7 million in federal funds to distribute to water users to install measuring devices on their diversions from waterways. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Compact compliance
The push for more-accurate measurement comes at a time when there is increasing competition for dwindling water supplies, as well as growing pressure on the Colorado River’s Upper Basin states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) to conserve water. Whether through forced cuts under the terms of the 1922 Colorado River Compact or through a voluntary conservation program that pays water users to cut back, the state will almost certainly face future cuts to its water use.
According to Jason Ullmann, who is the state engineer and director of the division of water resources, accurate and consistent water measurement is a prerequisite for making basinwide cuts related to the compact.
“While we’ve always been in compliance with the [1922 Colorado River] compact, we haven’t had to do a West Slope-wide administration,” Ullmann said. “We just don’t want to be in the position of having to do that on an emergency basis. We want to be proactive and provide people consistent and reliable standards for what we expect and work with them to get to a point where we do have that more accurate measurement network before that happens.”
Although the Colorado River Compact splits the river’s water evenly between the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin (California, Arizona and Nevada) with 7.5 million acre-feet each annually, the agreement says nothing about what happens when there’s not enough water to meet these allocations. A “compact call” is a theoretical legal concept, whose definition is hotly debated among water managers.
One way it could play out is that the Upper Basin states would have to cut off some water users in order to send enough water downstream to meet their obligations to the Lower Basin. If that happens, Colorado would need a plan for who gets cut off first. Under the strict application water law known as prior appropriation, the oldest water rights get first use of rivers and junior water rights are the first to be cut.
Michael Cohen, a senior fellow at the Pacific Institute, where he has written about the uncertainties of water use and measurement in the Upper Basin, said collecting better data will help water managers figure out where cuts should come from.
“Moving forward, it looks more and more likely that there’s going to be some kind of compact call,” Cohen said. “Then the state of Colorado, as well as the other Upper Basin states, need to figure out how they’re going to enforce that kind of call.”
This Parshall flume was installed in the Yampa River basin in 2020 and replaced the old rusty flume seen in the background. The state of Colorado is working toward creating measurement rules and installing measurement devices across the Western Slope. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Managing scarcity
But compact compliance is not the only reason that water measurement is needed. Scientists have shown that climate change has contributed to a 20% decline in flows from the 20th century average, and that every 1 degree Celsius of warming results in a 9% reduction in flows. The combination of climate change and a historic drought means that rivers that had never before experienced shortages or calls have started experiencing them in recent years. In the past few years, the Yampa and White rivers, in the northwest corner of the state, have had first-ever calls and have been designated “over-appropriated,” meaning there’s more water demand than supply at certain times.
“Even if you toss the compact situation out, it’s just the practical reality that we’re seeing less snowpack and we have more calls,” Ullmann said. “We’re just in need of improving that measurement accuracy because of the need for administration.”
John Cyran, an attorney who worked on developing the measurement rules for the South Platte River basin and is now a senior attorney with the Healthy Rivers department of Boulder-based environmental group Western Resource Advocates, uses the analogy of a pizza party with too-few pizzas where hungry partygoers are allowed only two slices each to illustrate how measurement is needed in times of scarcity.
“Just like sharing a shrinking pizza or Thanksgiving pie, our water supply is declining,” Cyran said. “The pie is getting smaller. So it is increasingly important to make sure that people don’t take more than their share. But we can’t manage what we don’t measure.”
Tightening up water measurement across the Western Slope could also help Upper Basin water managers as they grapple with a future conservation program that pays water users to cut back and then stores that water in a pool in Lake Powell. A criticism of past pilot programs was that the saved water was not tracked to Lake Powell. Water users downstream of a conservation project could pick up the extra water, with no guarantee that any of it reached the reservoir. Measurement rules and devices could help ensure that this conserved water is “shepherded” to Lake Powell.
Measurement is the first step toward management of a scarce public resource, Cyran said.
“The first step is measuring how much water is being diverted,” Cyran said. “The next step is management – making sure that folks only divert their share and that water we conserve stays in the stream and is not diverted by another user.”
Colorado River Basin map via the Babbit Center for Land and Water Policy/Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
University of Utah graduate student Joey Bail works to remove snow from the mid-mountain instruments operated by Storm Peak Laboratory in February 2025 at Steamboat Resort. The station measures dust on snow, which can increase snow melt rates. Storm Peak Laboratory/Courtesy photo
Changing snowpack trends in the West are bringing more variability to snow conditions and more moisture to the snowpack, threatening the future number of light and fluffy powder days. Increasing variability was the predominant message from a panel of snow experts during the presentation “Stories of a Changing Snowpack” hosted by nonprofit Yampatika on Nov. 13 in Steamboat. The panel, including representatives from the Storm Peak Laboratory and Airborne Snow Observatories, presented in-depth data and answered audience questions about how changing weather and climate conditions are affecting snowfall and snowpack impact to recreation and water supplies in northwest Colorado.
“We are seeing earlier snowmelts, heavier snow, more variability,” said Atmospheric Science Professor Gannet Hallar, Ph.D., who directs the Storm Peak Lab which sits atop the Steamboat Resort.
Hallar said across the Western states, scientists are confirming decreases in snow-water equivalent, according to measurements taken April 1, increasing spring temperatures and dust — factors that cause snow to melt. She explained the snowflake formation science behind how even small increases in winter temperatures can make a large difference in snow quality…Earlier spring runoff, hydrograph changes and increased variability of snowpack creates challenges for everything from sufficient river flows for endangered fish species to the timing of reservoir releases to agricultural irrigation, Burchenal said. Hallar said dust on snow measurements and understanding how dust on snow impacts melt timing is important because some scientists have documented that a large dust storm may lead to a 10- to 14-day earlier snow melt off…Allen and Hallar discussed the value of snowmaking additives such as Snomax, made from a protein derived from a naturally occurring microbe, used to provide nuclei for artificial snow making.
“This allows more significant volumes of snow to be produced at lower temperatures, with less water and energy.” according to the website for Snomax International. “This substantially increases the efficiency of the snow-making system, while at the same time delivering a consistent snow quality even during the most extreme temperature fluctuations.”
Westwide SNOTEL basin-filled map November 23, 2025.
The Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust brokered a new 2,348-acre conservation easement with the Snyder family on Fish & Cross Ranch west of Yampa.
CCALT/Courtesy photo
The Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust has completed a new 2,348-acre conservation easement with the Snyder family on Fish & Cross Ranch, a working cattle ranch located at the base of the Little Flattops west of Yampa.
The ranch is in an area known as “The Gateway to the Flat Tops” where landscape-level conservation investments through the Routt County Purchase of Development Rights program have created a “stronghold of interconnected agricultural lands and habitat corridors,” according to a land trust media release.
This new conservation easement adds to Routt County’s commitment to conserve working landscape and allows the family owners to continue taking care of the agricultural lands and wildlife habitat. In exchange for county funds, the landowner grants a perpetual conservation easement, or deed restriction, on the property, protecting the land from development.
Ownership of the property remains vested with the landowner, who can use and manage the property consistent with the terms of the conservation easement.
“Their commitment to agricultural conservation will carry on to future generations of their family and continue to support the rural economy in South Routt County,” CCALT Conservation Manager Monica Shields said.
“As was evident this summer, agricultural lands not only provide important wildlife habitat and scenic views, but the hay meadows and wetlands act as critical wildfire breaks during times of drought. The Fish and Cross Ranch, nestled up against the Flat Tops Wilderness area, serves all these critical community functions,” added Shields.
Routt County Commissioner Tim Redmond noted the “property links together U.S. Forest Service, BLM and state lands, as well as existing conservation easements, to form a pristine tract that protects views and critical wildlife corridors.”
Lands within the easement include sagebrush rangelands, aspen woodlands and irrigated pastures with senior water rights along Watson Creek tied to those lands through the conservation easement. The property is utilized as part of a larger cattle and hay operation operated by the Snyders as well as natural habitat. Allen Snyder and his family purchased the ranch in 2006, and four generations currently live and work on the ranch.
“We would like to thank everyone who helped make this easement possible, from the PDR board and county commissioners to the CCALT team and Natural Resources Conservation Service,” said Tyler Snyder. “We are very blessed to be able to take a step forward in continuing to pass down the generational legacy of ranching in the Yampa Valley to generations to come.”
Since the initiation of the program in 1997, Routt County has helped fund the purchase of conservation easements on 68,535 acres for approximately $32 million. Funding for the program comes from a 1.5 mill levy in county property tax approved by voters through 2035.
The Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust brokered a new 120-acre conservation easement with landowner Susan Larson on Wild Goose Ranch south of Steamboat Springs. CCALT/Courtesy photo
In addition, earlier in October the land trust and the county program worked with landowner Susan Larson to conserve 120 acres of Wild Goose Ranch south of Steamboat Springs.
The easement secures irrigated hay meadows and riparian habitat and fulfills the conservation vision of Susan and her late husband, Jim Larson. The Wild Goose Ranch is comprised primarily of irrigated hay meadows with 92% of the easement area in active hay production.
“Since our arrival in the Yampa Valley full time, our family has always felt a duty to protect the land and the water, especially here in the South Valley,” Larson said. “We have felt even more strongly about this responsibility with all the growth that has occurred in the last several years all over Colorado and notably here in Routt County.”
This protection safeguards valuable wildlife habitat for elk, mule deer, moose, black bear and species of special concern such as the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse and greater sandhill crane, while also securing scenic views along Colorado Highway 131 and U.S. Highway 40, according to a media release.
Routt County Commissioner Sonja Macys noted, “Nestled in the highly scenic South Valley floor corridor, the ranch is a vital part of the iconic landscape of working agriculture and conserved lands that residents and visitors alike enjoy when descending Rabbit Ears Pass.”
The land trust has conserved more than 820,000 acres of farmland, ranchland, wildlife habitat and open space across Colorado, including more than 83,000 acres in Routt County.
Here’s the release from the Colorado Water Trust (Kate Ryan and Blake Mamich):
October 7, 2025
Colorado’s rivers are running on empty as drought grips the intermountain west. But a record-setting response from Colorado Water Trust is helping keep critical stretches of rivers around our state flowing for fish, farms, and communities alike.
This year, Colorado Water Trust is operating more projects across more rivers than at any point in its 24-year history—and restoring more water to streams than ever before. Across the state and on both sides of the Continental Divide, Colorado Water Trust is partnering with local irrigators, water districts, state agencies, and funders to release more than 16,000 acre-feet of water (over 5.2 billion gallons) back into rivers when it’s needed most. This unprecedented effort highlights how collaboration and creativity can sustain Colorado’s rivers through crisis, offering a model of resilience at a time when the state’s waterways face one of their toughest seasons yet.
Colorado is in the grip of a devastating drought. Nearly 45% of the state is currently experiencing at least moderate drought conditions, with significant portions in severe and extreme drought. Streams across the state are shrinking, water temperatures are rising, and ecosystems, farms, and communities are all feeling the strain. In many places, streamflow gauges are reporting flows in the lowest 10-25 percentile for this time of year. Rivers in some regions are hitting historically low levels far earlier in the season. This year marks the earliest call on the Yampa River in recorded history. The situation is dire, and without swift, creative intervention, stretches of Colorado’s treasured rivers could be left dry.
In response, Colorado Water Trust is rising to meet this challenge by running nearly all of its projects across the state, ensuring that water is returned to rivers when it is needed most. The scale of the response is unprecedented—this year is predicted to see more water restored to Colorado’s rivers through Colorado Water Trust’s work than in any other year since the organization was founded. Some of this year’s projects include:
This map shows the 15-mile reach of the Colorado River near Grand Junction, home to four species of endangered fish. Map credit: CWCB
Colorado River: On the Colorado River, Colorado Water Trust is again operating its project on the 15-Mile Reach, a stretch of river critical to the survival of four endangered and threatened fish species. Colorado Water Trust is expected to restore well over 1 billion gallons of water to this critical reach by releasing water from Ruedi Reservoir near Basalt which is then restored to the Fryingpan and Roaring Fork Rivers before it reaches the 15-Mile Reach of the Colorado River. Through innovative partnerships with the Grand Valley Water Users Association, Orchard Mesa Irrigation District, and the Upper Colorado Endangered Fish Recovery Program, water is being delivered at key times to support flows in this fragile habitat. Backed by generous support from corporate partners such as Niagara Cares, Coca-Cola, and Coors Seltzer, this project has become a model of collaboration and creativity.
Yampa River: Further north in the Yampa Valley, Colorado Water Trust is implementing our projects on the Upper and Lower Yampa River. Releases from Stagecoach Reservoir, made possible through collaboration with Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District and the Colorado Water Conservation Board, have been restoring significant volumes of water to the Upper Yampa as it passes through downtown Steamboat Springs since June. This water is vital for endangered fish within the reach, as well as the recreation economy downstream. Additionally, on the Lower Yampa, strategic releases out of Elkhead Reservoir in coordination with the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program and the Colorado River District are sustaining critical habitat for endangered fish, as well as supporting the agricultural community downstream. These projects—already amounting to thousands of acre-feet—are keeping the Yampa River flowing through one of its most critical seasons. Without these boosts, irrigators, fish, and the communities of the valley would be facing even greater hardship. These projects are made possible thanks to generous funding from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the Yampa River Fund, Colorado River District, and more.
Around the state: On smaller tributaries, Colorado Water Trust is also making a difference.The Slater Creek Project, in partnership with local ranchers and Western Resource Advocates, is improving conditions for an important headwater tributary to the Yampa River while supporting the local agricultural economy. So far, this project has restored over 100 million gallons of water to Slater Creek. On the Fraser River, Colorado Water Trust has teamed up with the Grand County Mutual Ditch and Reservoir Company to improve late-season flows through the Vail Ditch Project. This effort, which will return roughly 16 million gallons of water this year, helps cool the river and support critical trout spawning runs. In Boulder County in the Indian Peaks Wilderness by the Continental Divide, Colorado Water Trust’s project out of Jasper Reservoir released water and accounted for approximately 32% of flows in Middle Boulder Creek upstream of Barker Reservoir and 25% of flows in Boulder Creek in downtown Boulder. Across the state, permanent long-term projects are also running, steadily and reliably delivering water to rivers during the hottest, driest part of the year.
Taken together, these efforts represent the most ambitious season in Colorado Water Trust’s history. By weaving together partnerships with irrigation companies, conservancy districts, state and federal agencies, and local communities, and by drawing on the support of a diverse array of funders—Colorado Water Trust is delivering hope where it is needed most.
“These projects demonstrate the power of partnership to keep rivers flowing, even in the toughest years,” said Kate Ryan, Colorado Water Trust’s Executive Director. “It just goes to show how everyone—no matter who you are or where you live—cares about protecting Colorado’s rivers and the people who depend on them.”
While drought continues to tighten its grip on Colorado, these projects demonstrate that collaboration and innovation can keep rivers alive. In the face of crisis, Colorado Water Trust is proving that when partners and funders come together, rivers can be sustained for people, farms, fish, and communities alike. This year will mark the most flow ever restored to Colorado’s rivers through Colorado Water Trust’s work—a milestone born from collaboration, ingenuity, and urgent necessity.
“It’s a strange mix of pride and worry,” said Blake Mamich, Program Director for the Colorado Water Trust “On one hand, I’m thrilled to see so much water restored to rivers this year. On the other, I know that the only reason we can do this work at this scale is because it’s so needed: drought and climate stress are hitting us harder and harder. That’s a hard truth we carry with us every day.”
As Colorado enters one of its most critical water years in recent memory, Colorado Water Trust is committed to ensuring that, even in the face of historic drought, Colorado’s rivers will continue to flow.
About Colorado Water Trust
Colorado Water Trust is a statewide nonprofit organization with a mission to restore water to Colorado’s rivers. Since 2001, they’ve restored over 26 billion gallons of water to Colorado’s rivers and streams. ColoradoWaterTrust.org.
A seventh climate monitoring station in the Yampa Basin Atmosphere and Soil Moisture Integrated Network was dedicated on Oct. 6, 2025, near the Colorado Mountain College campus in Steamboat Springs. Colorado Mountain College/Courtesy photo
Land above the Colorado Mountain College campus buildings in Steamboat Springs is now home to the latest climate monitoring station in the Yampa Valley.
The new station site, valued at $115,000 including all equipment and installation costs, was dedicated during a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday. The new site represents a growing network of hydro-meteorological stations in the Yampa River basin that are beneficial for the study of and tracking climate resiliency factors.
The station is the seventh installation in the YBASIN network, or the Yampa Basin Atmosphere and Soil Moisture Integrated Network. The goal of organizers is to eventually complete 30 stations spanning the Yampa River watershed from the headwaters of the Bear River in the Flattop Mountains to Fortification Creek west of Craig. Site investigations for two additional stations targeted for 2026 are underway.
YBASIN is a project of nonprofit Yampa Valley Sustainability Council and the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, or CW3E, which is part of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California in San Diego. The center is a key partner in managing the network and analyzing the data collected.
“We are working hard to steadily grow YBASIN in order to monitor changing conditions in our region connected to our changing climate,” said Jayla Poppleton, YVSC resilient water and watersheds director. “It’s critically important that we understand how aridification and dry soils are impacting runoff and water availability for our communities, agricultural producers and ecosystems.”
The new station is the first in the network to be placed within Steamboat city limits. The new location fills a data gap for a portion of the watershed that lacked existing measurement and provides hands-on learning opportunities for CMC students.
“The goal of YBASIN is to establish long-term soil moisture data to better understand how dry soil conditions impact snowmelt runoff across the watershed,” CW3E Director Marty Ralph said. “As extremes continue to impact precipitation – and correspondingly spring runoff and water availability – a continuous record will support more accurate water supply forecasting and help inform critical management decisions.”
The first station was installed near Stagecoach Reservoir in 2022. During 2023 and 2024, the network grew by five additional stations including in the Trout Creek basin, lower Elk River watershed, along the Yampa River at Carpenter Ranch near Hayden and the Elkhead Creek drainage. A sixth station, known as Red Creek, was installed south of Steamboat Lake in August.
Funding for the network was provided by the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District, Colorado River District and Colorado Water Conservation Board.
“The YBASIN network is a critical investment in the effective management of local water resources,” said Andy Rossi, general manager of the conservancy district. “By enabling direct data collection in the Yampa Valley, it will enhance forecasting capabilities for water managers. These improved forecasts will benefit agricultural producers, municipalities and the ecosystems that rely on dependable water supplies.”
The Farwell Ditch in North Routt County has been added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places as of Sept. 1 after Historic Routt County applied for its distinction, according to a news release from the nonprofit organization. “When you’re looking at historic places, you’re looking not only at buildings, but also landscapes,” said Kristen Rockford, executive director of Historic Routt County. “There are 100-year-old crabapple trees and lilac bushes and cottonwood trees … All of that together creates the character.” The application process to add the Farwell Ditch to the National Register of Historic Places began in December 2024 after two brothers, Rod and Nolan Farwell, were visiting North Routt County and wondered if the name was a family connection. The brothers, hailing from the Midwest, noticed a map of the area included Farwell Mountain near Hahns Peak — spelled the same way as their last name. After researching the ditch, the brothers found that one of the contractors, John V. Farwell of Chicago, was a distant relative…
The Farwell Ditch, which extends 18 miles in North Routt County, was constructed between 1876 and 1878. (Historic Routt County/Courtesy photo) Historic Routt County / Courtesy photo
Construction of the ditch, which spans 18 miles in North Routt County, began before Colorado became a state in 1876 and was completed about two years later. Around 100-200 people worked on the project, providing some of the first wage-paying jobs in the county. Men used picks, shovels and dynamite to complete construction. No fatalities occurred during the dangerous project, according to Historic Routt County.
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
August 15, 2025
Drought and long, hot summer days are sucking Western Colorado’s rivers dry, parching farm fields and fueling the massive wildfires proliferating across the region. A chunk of northwestern Colorado in the last week plunged into exceptional drought — the most dire category recorded by the U.S. Drought Monitor. The swath of affected land represents 7% of the state and covers most of Garfield and Rio Blanco counties, as well as parts of Moffat, Mesa, Delta, Routt and Pitkin counties…Exceptional drought is expected to occur once every 50 years, [Russ] Schumacher said. So far this summer, the afternoon monsoon rains that provide relief have been largely absent from the Western Slope. The higher-than-normal temperatures and a lack of rain have sapped the rivers in the Western half of Colorado. Streamflows statewide are at only half of the median recorded between 1991 and 2020, according to National Water and Climate Center data. The lack of water has limited fishing and rafting opportunities, reduced agricultural irrigation and threatened river environments…Nearly half of Colorado is experiencing some level of drought, according to new data released Thursday by the U.S. Drought Monitor. More than 1.4 million people live in that drought-impacted area, which encompasses the entire western half of the state, parts of metro Denver and some areas of southern Colorado…
This summer has been one of the driest on record for the state’s critical Colorado River basin, similar to 2018 and 2021, said Calahan of the Colorado River District. Drought in those years made the Colorado River look more like a creek than a river and prompted a 120-mile-long fishing ban on its mainstem…Streamflow in the basin is worst on its western flank and best on its eastern side near the headwaters, he said…The [Colorado River] district is speaking weekly with irrigators across the region to best divvy up the water that remains. Low flows are being supplemented by releases from reservoirs…A lack of water in the Eagle River near Vail prompted local water authorities to warn of a potential coming water shortage. Flows on the river near Avon were about half of normal — and the third-lowest recorded on the stream gauge’s 26-year record, said Siri Roman, the general manager of the Eagle River Water and Sanitation District…Thirteen of the 14 stream gauges with historic data in the Upper San Juan basin were reporting flows below or extremely below normal on Wednesday. The Animas River in Durango was flowing at 153 cubic feet per second — a fraction of the median of 499 cfs for the day across 113 years of data, and close to the historic low for that date of 137 cfs…Several stream gauges in the basin were recording record daily lows, like the San Juan River in Pagosa Springs and on Vallecito Creek…On the opposite side of the state, the Yampa River basin, too, is struggling. The river above Stagecoach Reservoir was flowing at less than half of the 36-year median.
An undated historic photo shows the U.S. Forest Service ranger near the Mount of the Holy Cross. Before the turn of the 20th century, public lands lacked formal protection. “Nowhere has the strength and vitality of America been better reflected in the last 100 years than in the evolution of the National Forest System,” a forest official wrote in 1990. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Editor’s note: This story is part two of a three-part series examining the notion of public lands, both in the United States and in our region. Part one looks at the earliest expressions of the commons in territories that would become the United States. Parts two and three look at the history and legacy of what is now the White River National Forest.
The evolution of the White River National Forest (WRNF) in just over a century mirrors the settlement of the American West — from an unregulated, free-for-all wilderness to strategically managed industrial tourism and sustainable, extractive industries. As the WRNF formed, it refined its management purview over user groups as they expanded from traditional timber and ranching to the ski areas, recreation sites and wilderness terrain that define the forest today.
Beginning with its original designation as a forest reserve in 1891, forest management was besieged by militant factions that argued against any management at all. This was an era when user groups included homestead farmers, fiercely independent ranchers and opportunistic loggers. Shrill denunciations and blatant noncompliance often occurred with these original land claimants who argued that public lands should be designated for those who came first and that its uses should be for what was best for them alone. Only as the forest adapted to changing times and needs did the multiuse mandate create opportunities and protections for all.
A prime example was Fred Light, a traditional rancher in the Roaring Fork Valley from the 1880s who at first resented the overlay of federal control over lands where he and other ranchers had grazed their cattle with no oversight and no fees. Light later came to appreciate the forest as it protected his interests from other users who threatened to overrun grazing lands, usurp water from the range or, in other ways, impinge on grazing entitlements. Light’s shift in temperament and his eventual willingness to follow forest regulations reflected a growing, if reluctant, acceptance that management principles are essential for all forest users to ensure equal access to the public commons.
Light’s transformation spread to other users as complexities arose around the need for sustainability. As a result, the forest mission grew into the broader interpretation of what is the best and highest use for all. This egalitarian approach required a deep and pragmatic exploration of values and resources that led to accommodating conflicting interests.
In the early days of the WRNF, however, forestry officials were immersed in countless disputes and occasional violent conflicts. Rangers were harassed, beaten and fired upon as they performed their duties according to the evolving directives of forest administrators. Juggling over the ensuing decades the utilitarian and esoteric aspects of this remarkably diverse topography of mountains, valleys, meadows, forests and rock-and-ice alpine splendor has required scientifically based and diplomatically advanced regulations to avoid the impacts of overgrazing, timber clear-cutting, mining, overcrowded recreation and other issues yet to surface.
Through it all, the WRNF remains public land — 2.3 million acres (3,593.75 square miles) of the most visited national forest in the United States, stewarded by rangers trained with the necessary skills of backwoodsmen, diplomats, defenders, peacemakers, resource managers and ecologists.
The story of the WRNF is therefore a weave of time and place, and of a people for whom the forest is both an economic lifeblood and a battleground for conservation and preservation. For many, the forest is a place of sacred, cherished, iconic and legacy landscapes in which any and all visitors may experience and celebrate the power and splendor of pristine nature.
The White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve, the second federal forest reserve to be created, came into existence in 1891 and has evolved into the White River National Forest we know today as the most visited national forest in the country. Its management purview reflects two centuries of tension between exploitation and preservation for the greater good. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Snowmass Mountain is shown in a historic U.S. Forest Service photo. The architecture of the White River National Forest was determined by vast and nearly incomprehensible geologic forces that shaped the mountain landscapes we see today. CREDIT: U.S. FOREST SERVICE
Public lands with no protection
In a foreword to Justine Irwin’s unpublished manuscript “White River National Forest: A Centennial History,” Thomas Hoots, the WRNF supervisor in 1990, led off with a crucial observation: “Before the turn of the century, the public lands were without a protector.” The national commons was being plundered and exploited by whoever got there first. Such was the opportunism that was rampant during the fever of westward expansion marked by Manifest Destiny and a willful disregard to impose limits on human agency.
This land hunger was described the following way by Gifford Pinchot, chief of the U.S. Forest Service from 1898 to 1910 and one of America’s original wise use conservationists: “There is no hunger like land hunger, and no object for which men are more ready to use unfair and desperate means than the acquisition of land.”
Pinchot led a growing advocacy for conservation of national resources against great odds as they lobbied for protection of federal lands from the unbridled influences of capitalistic greed.
Richard A. Ballinger, secretary of the interior from 1909-11, clearly defined a prevailing view: “You chaps who are in favor of this conservation program are all wrong. In my opinion, the proper course to take with regard to [the public domain] is to divide it up among the big corporations and the people who know how to make money out of it.”
Thanks to those with clearer vision for a public lands legacy for America, the world and for future generations, Ballinger’s idea did not come to fruition. And yet such has been the message from the transactional Trump administration as the monetization of public lands offers yet again the potential for financial gain.
Thirty-five years ago, Hoots described a different ethic: “The nation’s leadership recognized this dilemma and so began the long climb towards public land and resource management as we know it today. Nowhere has the strength and vitality of America been better reflected in the last 100 years than in the evolution of the National Forest System.”
Gifford Pinchot portrait via the Forest History Society
The WRNF is an integral part of that system. It is also a stellar example of a forest that has withstood numerous threats and, despite many compromises toward achieving the multiple-use mandate, has retained the conservation principles that has made it one of the most successful stories of land management in the United States. “The strength of our nation,” concluded Hoots on the centennial of the WRNF, “demands nothing less of the stewards of these public resources.”
Federal forest management dates to 1876 when Congress created the office of special agent in the U.S. Department of Agriculture to assess the quality and conditions of forests in the United States. In 1881, the department expanded the office into the Division of Forestry. A decade later, Congress passed the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, authorizing the president to designate public lands in the West into what were then called “forest reserves.”
Enter what would become the White River National Forest, the preliminary boundaries of which were drawn on federal maps under the direction of administrators in Washington, D.C. These long-distance planners for a realm of national treasures gazed over mountainous regions whose value they could only speculate, but which they reasoned were valuable in ways other than extractive, fast-buck profits measured only in capital gains for the few.
Responsibility for these reserves fell under the Department of the Interior until 1905 when President Theodore Roosevelt transferred their care to the Department of Agriculture’s new division: the U.S. Forest Service. Pinchot led this agency as its first chief, charged with caring for the newly renamed public commons.
The WRNF was created as the White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve on Oct. 16, 1891, by President Benjamin Harrison. This reserve was the second oldest in the newly conceived forest system, after a reserve established east of Yellowstone National Park, which two decades earlier became the country’s first national park. The WRNF would become the largest forest in Colorado when, in 1945, it absorbed the Holy Cross National Forest, created as a reserve in 1905. This newly defined national forest was a priority because it was being exploited with unsustainable resource extraction. It soon earned a place of immeasurable importance in the mosaic of public lands designated across the rugged western United States.
A geologic map of Colorado, produced by the survey team led by Ferdinand Hayden in 1873-74, helped draw prospectors to the mountains. CREDIT: DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
Nature laid the foundation
The architecture of the WRNF was determined by vast and nearly incomprehensible geologic forces that shaped the mountain landscapes we see today. Precambrian granite is the bedrock that was heaved up, twisted, broken, eroded and later covered with beds of sandstone and, later still, covered with an inland seaway that stretched from Mexico to Canada.
That seaway propagated plant and marine life-forms that speak to a far-different climate and ecology than today and that would eventually, under enormous pressure, form into huge coal deposits. This Cretaceous Seaway then gave rise to new landscapes as several major uplifts shed the accumulated water into major river systems and began building the mountain peaks rising from the bedrock floor. The uplifting, some from magma upwelling, brought metals and minerals to the surface where they were dissolved in super-heated groundwater and conveyed in solution into bedrock faults and fissures where they precipitated out at concentration. This formed the veins that gold and silver miners would later extract through labyrinthine tunnels and shafts.
Glaciation sculpted the finishing touches on the landscape by paring mountains into ragged escarpments and precipitous arêtes, and gouging deep U-shaped valleys where glacial runoff cut deeper still in the V-shaped drainages that we see today. Nature’s work is never complete, and so the mountains and valleys continue to be formed by erosion and an almost immeasurable continued uplifting from energies emanating from Earth’s depths.
Then biology stepped in and established an overlay of life, the flora and fauna that we see today inhabiting the niches where they are genetically suited to proliferate and thrive. These are the desert scrublands, grassy meadows, mixed forests and lichen-covered alpine terrain comprising a half-dozen life zones and multiple ecosystems that give the WRNF the diversity that characterizes a healthy and vibrant ecology.
The forest is home to one of the largest mule deer herds and one of the largest elk herds in the nation, as well as bighorn sheep, mountain goats, black bears, mountain lions, snowshoe hare, marmot, porcupine, badger, marten, ground squirrels and chipmunks, hundreds of bird types, and thousands of plant species in a veritable Garden of Eden of biodiversity.
But the human stories are what capture our imaginations, as noted in Irwin’s WRNF Centennial History; the people of the forest have differed greatly in their relationship to it: “Some have loved her, some have abused her, some have hated her, but all have made her what she is today.”
A map shows the route of the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante expedition, led by two Spanish priests trying to find a way from Santa Fe to California. They reached Utah Lake before turning back, becoming the first Europeans to explore a vast portion of what would later become Colorado and Utah. CREDIT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
The first Europeans
The first Europeans to visit the region of the WRNF and enter the traditional homelands of the native Utes were Spanish Franciscan friars Fray Silvestre Velez de Escalante and Fray Francisco Atanasio Dominguez. The two explorers and their party left Santa Fe on an ambitious exploratory mission to find an overland route to the Roman Catholic mission in Monterey, in what later became California. They ventured into the Western wilderness in July 1776, the same year the American colonies declared independence from British rule.
After traversing what is now northern New Mexico and southwest Colorado, the party traveled north, eventually passing through the Paonia area and Muddy Creek. They met the Colorado River near Divide and Mamm creeks along the Grand Hogback, a diagonal sawtooth range near Silt and New Castle. With Ute guides, they crossed the White and Green rivers, making it as far as what is now known as Utah Lake along the Wasatch Front, where they encountered a thriving indigenous community. With winter approaching, the party turned back toward Santa Fe and faced starvation as they struggled to cross the Colorado River at a location now flooded by Lake Powell, but all made it back alive.
The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 opened the door to more exploration, this from the east where a few adventuresome parties reached Colorado’s Front Range. The towering Rockies were considered too severe an obstacle to pass through, except for freelancing traders and trappers who knew no bounds and no limits in their pursuit of trade and beaver pelts.
A French trapper, Antoine Robidoux, was perhaps the first Anglo to trap in the White River in 1825, harvesting beaver pelts from Trappers Lake on the north side of the Flat Tops. The Yampa Valley, to the north, became widely visited by mountain men such as Jim Bridger, Kit Carson and Jedediah Smith.
John Fremont, an Army officer and explorer, took part in an 1845 journey that crossed Tennessee Pass from the Arkansas River basin and then followed the White River into Utah. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The seizing of Texas from Mexico in 1836 by Sam Houston stretched the promising Western U.S. boundaries, inviting more visitation as manifest destiny became a divine entitlement for Western settlement and provided a God-given mandate to force out native peoples and exploit the land and its many resources.
In 1845, John Fremont, guided by Carson, crossed Tennessee Pass from the Arkansas Valley and along the White River to Utah. With the announcement that gold had been discovered in California, streams of fortune-seekers flowed west through Colorado, many of whom recognized the grazing potential of verdant mountain valleys well-watered by rolling streams and rivers. After striking out on California gold, some returned to what would, in 1876, become Colorado to farm and raise cattle. The discovery of gold along Cherry Creek, near today’s Denver, made Colorado a hot new prospect in 1859, popularizing this mostly unmapped territory.
The next year, 1860, Capt. Richard Sopris, for whom Mount Sopris is named, prospected the Roaring Fork Valley with a party of 14. In journals, it was mentioned that they stopped to take in the soothing waters of Yampa Hot Springs at today’s Glenwood Springs. The Homestead Act was passed by Congress in 1862, encouraging more western migration and providing a relief valve for growing national tensions during the Civil War.
Official U.S. survey teams were sent west to report on resources and tribal relations. Foremost among them was John Wesley Powell, a Civil War veteran who had lost his right arm in the Battle of Shiloh, but it didn’t impede him from exploring the Green, Yampa, White and Colorado rivers. By the early 1870s, cattlemen began grazing their herds in Brown’s Park and the Meeker area in what would become northern Colorado.
As permanent settlements became established, some officials in the federal government became aware that Western lands had no protective management. They garnered congressional funding for a particularly seasoned survey team under the leadership of Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, who would later win acclaim for surveying Yellowstone. Hayden’s 1873-74 visits to the Gunnison Country, the Roaring Fork Valley and the White River produced maps that would later draw hordes of mining prospectors into Ute lands in the late 1870s.
The Hayden Survey produced detailed drawings of multiple mountainscapes across Colorado, including these depictions of Pikes Peak, the Sawatch Range and Elk Range. CREDIT: DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY
Hayden and his “Rover Boys,” including renowned photographer and artist William Henry Jackson and geographer Henry Gannett, for whom the highest peak in Wyoming is named, summited, triangulated, mapped and named most of the major peaks that we know and climb today. The scientific acumen that this team provided was monumental in their understanding of geology, flora and fauna. Hayden correctly referred to the Elk Mountains as an example of an “eruptive range” and a “geologic jumble” for the upheavals he recognized. Described as “tall, slender, with soft brown hair and blue eyes,” Hayden, a consummate geologist, was given a nickname by the Utes that translated to “crazy man who runs around picking up rocks.”
A letter from Rover Boy J.T. Gardner to his daughter in New York state characterized what must have been a crowning moment in history to witness a pure wilderness: “We are in full tide of successful career camping almost every night at 11,000 or 12,000 feet and climbing peaks 14,000 feet and over, their tops overlooking crested ridges and grand rock-walled amphitheaters where old glaciers were born, I cannot tell you how I am enjoying this wonderful region. … What a sweet sight. … The terrible grandeur around me here where life is represented by the grim bears crawling along the edges of perpetual snow fields or the mountain sheep scaling the shattered crags.”
In a later letter, Gardner described the party’s discovery of Mount of the Holy Cross where a horizontal ridge and vertical couloir form a snow-filled cross. “We are undoubtedly the first who have ever reached this peak. I do not feel in the least over-fatigued and am very well and strong.” Enduring an early-winter storm, Gardner wrote: “On this climb I wore four heavy shirts and a thick buckskin coat. The snow blew so that I had to wear spectacles to protect the eyes.”
Hayden spent 20 days nursing a sick member of the party at the base of Mount Sopris while his party explored the Crystal River Valley, with Jackson photographing it all. Unfortunately for history, Jackson’s load-bearing mule stumbled and fell into the Crystal River, breaking the glass plate negatives. All photographic documentation from that portion of the survey was lost.
Nonetheless, Hayden’s Atlas of Colorado was published by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1877, featuring six finely drawn resource maps identifying forests, pastures, croplands, and regions of coal, gold and silver. These geologic maps became a spur for treasure-seekers eager to flood into Ute lands. And there lay the age-old conflict between European trespass on the Western Slope of Colorado still controlled by the Utes under treaties, later broken, that were doomed at keeping the peace.
This story, and Aspen Journalism’s ongoing coverage of challenges facing local public lands, is supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
Tubers float down the Yampa River in Steamboat Springs on July 23, 2025. A stretch of the river running near downtown can see more than 20,000 tubers through the course of the summer, but city officials sometimes roll out recreational shutdowns to protect the Yampa’s fish. Alex Hager/KUNC
Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Alex Hager):
August 5, 2025
This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West produced by KUNC and supported by the Walton Family Foundation.
On a hot summer day in Steamboat Springs, the Yampa River feels like the beating heart of the city. On a recent July afternoon, its banks teemed with people looking for a cool refuge from the mid-80s temperatures and direct sun.
Local mom Alohi Madrigal was one of them. She and two friends watched their kids jump off the rocks into the Yampa’s clear water. A steady stream of relaxed-looking tubers floated by too, sprawled out on thick, yellow inflatables.
Even at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday, this little section of the Yampa looked like a postcard-perfect picture of a summer vacation in the Colorado mountains.
But days like this are a precious commodity in Steamboat Springs. When it gets too hot, the city shuts down this specific stretch of river: a roughly six-and-a-half-mile section that flows through downtown, just steps away from the shops and restaurants. During the driest years, it can be bereft of swimmers, tubers and anglers for weeks at a time.
This year, it was already closed for four days in July, and may close again before the summer is through.
Tubers float down the Yampa River, in the shadow of Steamboat Ski Resort, on July 23, 2025. City officials close the river to recreation when it gets too hot, too low, or lacks oxygen for fish. Alex Hager/KUNC
It’s part of an uneasy balance struck by Steamboat Springs. The Yampa is the city’s lifeblood. Its water irrigates nearby farms and ranches. The same river supplies drinking water to homes and businesses all over town. During the summer, it becomes a mecca for vacationers who flock to the resort town for a cool mountain escape. The city estimates that more than 21,000 people took tubes down this stretch of river in 2024.
But it’s also home to fish. When the river is hot and low, too many humans in the water can setress out its fish – causing lasting damage to their health or even killing them. That could create an unpleasant scene for all of those river users and throw the Yampa’s ecosystem out of whack.
As a result, the city enforces periodic shutdowns to keep the river healthy, even if it means people – and businesses that can make big bucks on equipment rentals – will have to avoid it on the days when its cool water beckons the most.
Flows for fish
It’s easy to look at the Yampa and think about the paddlers and floaters playing on its surface. It’s also easy to forget about the silent, scaly residents beneath. But those fish are at the heart of the river’s summer closures.
“It pretty much all comes down to fish health,” said Emily Burke, conservation program manager at the nonprofit Friends of the Yampa. “Fish get super stressed when river temperatures reach a certain level.”
Recreational closures on the Yampa can be triggered by three things: low water levels, high water temperature or low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water. All three make it harder for fish to survive.
Models of fish that live in the Yampa River are on display at the Steamboat Flyfisher shop in Steamboat Springs on July 24, 2025. When water is low and hot, fish can get stressed and even die. Alex Hager/KUNC
When the river gets low and hot, fish often don’t have enough oxygen to breathe, causing them to get exhausted. That could make them too tired to look for food or stop eating. Already stressed and drained of energy, the extra stress added by humans in the river can cause lasting harm to fish health and — in some cases — kill them.
“If you have a bunch of people splashing around in these deep pools [that] these fish are using as refuge,” Burke said, “It’s really stressful for them, and it can sometimes lead to fish die-offs.”
Measuring stations along the river gather data about its water every fifteen minutes. If the water is hotter than 75 degrees for two consecutive days or flowing lower than 85 cubic feet per second, city officials will roll out a river closure.
‘A huge economic driver’
When the Yampa is teetering on the edge of a shutdown, the people watching closest are often those whose businesses depend on it. Johnny Spillane is one of them. He owns Steamboat Flyfisher, which has a back patio that overhangs the river itself.
On a recent Thursday morning, as people milled in and out of brunch spots and started heading toward tourist activities, Spillane stood behind the counter of his store.
“You can tell in the shop right now it’s pretty quiet,” Spillane said. “If it was a busy, hopping day with people fishing in town, it would be a lot busier right now.”
The river was still open for swimming, tubing and paddling, but officially shut down for fishing.
“July days are our most important days as a business, so losing July days certainly hurts a little bit more,” Spillane said. “But at the same time, you know, losing the fish in the river would hurt a lot more than that. For us, protecting the fish, protecting the resource, is far much more important than getting an extra couple days of fishing on the town stretch, or selling a couple dozen extra flies.”
Johnny Spillane, owner of Steamboat Flyfisher, poses in his shop on July 24, 2025. “Protecting the fish,” he said, “protecting the resource, is far much more important than getting an extra couple days of fishing on the town stretch, or selling a couple dozen extra flies.” Alex Hager/KUNC
Spillane said the river closure doesn’t affect his business that much. Fewer people come into the store to buy equipment, but the shop’s fishing guides — who can run more than 200 trips each week — can take customers 20-30 minutes outside of town to other streams, rivers and lakes that are open for anglers.
Even owners of businesses that are inextricably tied to the Yampa’s “town stretch” share Spillane’s mentality.
Backdoor Sports sits just a short walk downstream from the flyfishing shop. It’s a powerhouse in the local tube renting scene. Backdoor moves so many rental tubes – as many as 400 a day during the peak of summer – that it has a drive-thru-style window to keep customers moving from signup to river in short order. The shop dispatches rental tubes from a literal backdoor, which lies no more than a couple dozen feet from the Yampa.
Stacks of inflatable tubes wait for renters at Backdoor Sports in Steamboat Springs on July 23, 2025. “The closures can be tough at times,” said Mike Welch, the shop’s owner, “But also necessary, because it’s good to protect what we have here.” Alex Hager/KUNC
“The Yampa River is a huge economic driver for the city,” said Mike Welch, a co-owner of Backdoor. “We want to make sure that it stays that way for a lot of years to come. The closures can be tough at times, but also necessary, because it’s good to protect what we have here. It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing that we’ve got.”
While it takes some extra preparation to steel Backdoor against changing river conditions and shutdowns, Welch said communication from city officials makes it easier.
“The city has done a great job in setting those parameters,” he said. “So we know what the water is looking like and where and when those closures are potentially coming. So we can plan for it.”
People ride a tube through the Yampa River in Steamboat Springs on July 23, 2025. The river is a major draw for tourists and locals alike during the summer. Alex Hager/KUNC
Welch bought the business alongside his brother and sister-in-law this spring. The previous owner, Pete Van De Carr, was a well-known local who died in February following a skiing accident.
Another shop owner, Marty Smith, said Van De Carr played a part in getting the city to specify its plans for reopening the river after a closure.
“Every day, all the outfitters in town, we would get emails from Pete saying we need to come up with a rule to reopen the river,” said Smith, owner of Mountain Sports Kayak School. “I think that they definitely listened to Pete.”
City officials say they are trying to be more transparent about the criteria they use to reopen the Yampa for recreation and communicate directly with outfitters about upcoming changes to closures. The city consults with Colorado Parks and Wildlife before reopening the river. They consider current river conditions, weather forecasts and the amount of stress that fish may already be feeling from hot, dry conditions.
‘A tough spot to be in’
For the city officials who manage closures on the Yampa, it’s all about balance.
“We hate having to do this,” said Jenny Carey, the city’s Open Space and Trails supervisor, “Because you inevitably will hear from somebody that it’s just ruining their day, their business. And that’s tough. That’s a tough spot to be in. We don’t want to do that.”
Carey said Steamboat Springs puts up signs and social media posts to inform people about the closures and the reasons for them.
“We understand that people want to be in the river,” she said, “And so it’s a difficult conversation. We do our best to educate as best we can. I think a lot of our locals are getting used to this, and they understand the reason.”
While it can be rocky trying to tell out-of-town tourists that they won’t be able to tube on a hot summer day, locals really do seem to be getting the message. In a 2024 survey of Steamboat Springs residents, 92% of people said “management of the health of the Yampa River” was essential or very important.
That’s only five points lower than the fire department. Managing the Yampa’s health ranked as more important than city parks and the police department.
“The Yampa river is considered one of the most important services that the city provides,” said Julie Baxter, the city’s water resources manager. “So we feel very grounded that we have the support of the local community members that live here in Steamboat Springs.”
Bears play along the banks of the Yampa River in Steamboat Springs on July 23, 2025. In a survey of city residents, 92% of people said protecting the health of the river was important — scoring it higher than city parks and the police department. Alex Hager/KUNC
Recreational closures on the Yampa are mandatory for rental shops, but technically voluntary for individuals who want to bring their own tubes or kayaks. But with so many locals on board, few people decide to take a dip.
“If there is a closure in place and you get in the river,” Baxter said with a chuckle, “You will likely have a local yell at you.”
Alohi Madrigal, who was raised in Steamboat Springs and still lives in town, watched her kids splash in a stretch of the Yampa that may be closed later this summer. She said a shutdown wouldn’t be the end of the world.
“There’s a million things to do here,” she said, proceeding to list off a handful of other swimming spots. “We have to take care of the river, or it won’t be here for long.”
The Yampa River Environmental Release Program is a collaboration between several local and state entities to ensure the Yampa River remains at a healthy flow and water temperature. Three of the main partners are the Colorado Water Trust, the city of Steamboat Springs and Friends of the Yampa. Friends of the Yampa is essentially the managing body for the finances of the Yampa River Fund, which provides necessary money for ideal water flow into the Yampa. Mike Robertson, the Yampa River Fund manager, explained the fund is a committee made up of groups throughout the Yampa Valley that help allocate and provide a sustainable funding source for flow releases. The money is held with Yampa Valley Community Foundation, which doles out the grants, while Friends of the Yampa acts as the managing entity. Each year, the Yampa River Fund provides about half of the money Colorado Water Trust needs to lease water from Stagecoach and Elkhead reservoirs. According to Blake Mamich, programs director at the Colorado Water Trust, the other half of the funding comes from the Colorado Water Conservation Board. The financial support of these two groups is crucial to the success of the release program in keeping the Yampa River at a safe temperature and flow rate for its ecosystem…
The Colorado Water Trust is set to release 5,100 acre feet from Stagecoach Reservoir in addition to 2,000 acre feet from Elkhead Reservoir over the course of this summer. This water will be released during times when the river is considered to be at a low flow…This water is not released all at once but must be stretched out and conserved to ensure that there is enough to sustain the Yampa during its critical period in late summer and early fall. Mamich noted that during this time, about half the water that runs through downtown Steamboat originates from Stagecoach. Factors that determine low-flow status are measured by the city. These criteria are primarily water temperature and water flow. According to city municipal code, recreational activity is closed if any or all of these conditions are met: the Yampa River flow drops below 85 cubic feet per second, the dissolved oxygen level average is less than 6 milligrams per liter and/or the water exceeds 75 degrees Fahrenheit for two or more consecutive days.
Due to decreased water flow from Stagecoach Reservoir, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) will implement a mandatory full-day fishing closure on a 0.6-mile stretch of the Yampa River between the dam at Stagecoach State Park downstream to the lowermost park boundary.
To avoid and minimize fish mortality within this tailwater fishery, a closure will take effect beginning Monday, May 19, until further notice.
“We are trying to be proactive in protecting the outstanding catch-and-release fishery we have downstream of Stagecoach Reservoir,” said Marisa Eley, CPW Steamboat Springs Area Aquatic Biologist. “This closure is an effort to protect the resource by giving the fish a bit of a reprieve as they are prone to increased stressors related to these low-flow conditions.”
When water flows are minimal, fish become concentrated in residual pool habitat and become stressed due to increased competition for food resources. The fish become much easier targets for anglers, an added stressor that can result in increased hooking mortality.
CPW works closely with the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District (UYWCD), which owns and operates Stagecoach Reservoir, to stay informed on reservoir releases.
“We are grateful for our partnership with UYWCD,” said Stagecoach State Park Manager Craig Preston. “Their dedication to keeping us updated on water flows in and out of the reservoir greatly contributes to protecting this unique fishery for current and future generations.”
“We will continue to closely monitor the inflow at Stagecoach Reservoir,” said Andy Rossi, UYWCD General Manager. “If we see increased inflow, we can respond quickly to adjust outflow and work with CPW to determine if the closure could be lifted.”
Like many rivers and streams in Western Colorado, the Yampa River offers world-class fishing and attracts thousands of anglers every year.
For more information or current fishing conditions at Stagecoach State Park, call 970-736-2436.
For more information about fishing in Colorado, including current fishing conditions and alternative places to fish, visit the CPW website.
The recently released Yampa River Scorecard Project grade of C-plus for the upper segment of the Yampa River shows a need for some improvements for overall river health in the stretch between Stillwater and Stagecoach reservoirs. Jenny Frithsen, environmental program manager at Friends of the Yampa, oversees the long-term river health monitoring and evaluation project. Frithsen said a major reason for the lower score is because that river segment is heavily utilized by agricultural water users but has less water coming in from smaller tributaries compared with downstream sections of the river.
“The first and foremost contributor to river health is water in the river, and the Upper Yampa and the Bear River are arguably the hardest-working and most heavily administered sections of river in the Yampa River system,” Frithsen said. “It probably is no surprise that the flow regime has lower scores for our ecological river health assessment. It is an altered flow regime.”
Frithsen presented a high-level overview of the 2024 river study segment during a South Routt Water Users meeting Monday evening at Soroco High School. The study looks at 45 indicators and nine characteristics of river health to determine and issue a score for combined flow and sediment regime, water quality, habitat and riverscape floodplain connectivity, riparian condition, river form, structural complexity and biotic community. On the positive side, the study team found the Upper Yampa stretch rated good in water quality, structural complexity, beaver activity, channel morphology and invasive weeds. The healthy beaver activity, especially on U.S. Forest Service land, showcases the natural engineering work of the large rodents to help mitigate the impacts of human water use and infrastructure. The beavers’ work maintains minimum flows in late summer and fall and provides a refuge for fish during low flows.
Yampa River May 3, 2025. Yampa River on Saturday evening was flowing strongly through Steamboat Springs, but the snowpack in the the Yampa-White drainage area of northwest Colorado was still less than two-thirds of average. Photo credit: Allen Best
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
May 6, 2025
Colorado’s southern mountains had another miserable snowpack. This is not good for the Colorado or Rio Grande rivers. It fits in with a theme.
Louis Meyer awoke on Monday morning at his farm about 10 miles north of Durango to see Engineer and Red mountains wearing fresh blankets of snow. The two mountains had been scantily clad for much of the winter.
The spring snow was welcome news, he said, but unlikely to change the story of southwest Colorado. Runoff will be abysmal.
A resident of southwest Colorado for about eight years, Meyer has conferred with others with deeper local knowledge. Right now, it appears that those farmers and ranchers who might normally expect to get three or four cuttings of hay will get no more than two. And in La Plata County, they will be lucky to get one cutting of hay.
Snow contributing water to the Animas, San Juan and other rivers of southwestern Colorado have only 28% of median of snow-water equivalent, according to maps released on Monday by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a federal agency.
East of Wolf Creek Pass, in the upper Rio Grande drainage, numbers were worse yet, 21% of median. Last week, before the fresh snow, they had been even less.
Water managers in the San Luis Valley warned in a May 1 posting on Facebook that they expect early runoff, low rivers flows, and a short boating season. Heather Dutton, manager of the San Luis Valley Water Conservancy District, said there had been high hopes several times of 16- to 18-inch snow dumps, even 36 inches. “It just never materialized for us.”
Snowpack in Colorado’s southern mountains always has been uneven. Some years are better, other years worse. But a trend has emerged of earlier springs and less moisture in the San Juan Mountains and Sangre de Cristo Range of Colorado, and this year’s snowpack and weather fits in with it.
Russ Schumacher, the Colorado state climatologist, and associates at the Colorado Climate Center have analyzed data from the Snotel stations in Colorado going back to at least 1979. Their studies have focused on the volumes of peak snow-water equivalent in the snow and the dates of those readings.
Snotel stands for SNOwpack TELemetry, an automated system.
“In Colorado’s northern mountains, trends over the last 45 years are fairly modest overall, with some mixed signals,” he wrote in in an April 14 posting at Colorado Climate Center.
Many stations in the San Juans and Sangre de Cristo mountains showed levels below the 10th percentile of records, he said.
“But in the southern mountains, the data make a very clear statement: snowpack is declining, and the peak is happening earlier. At many of the stations in the San Juan and Sangre de Cristo mountains, the peak snow-water-equivalent has declined by 3% to 5% per decade, and the peak has shifted two to four weeks earlier.”
The 1980s were unusually wet, which makes the recent declines look even worse. Contributing to the declines have been dust-on-snow events and the rising temperatures.
During the 21st century, Colorado has had just one year of below-average annual temperatures when compared to the 1971-2000 average, according to a study commissioned by the state government. Seven of the top 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2010.
Colorado’s northern mountains looked somewhat below average as of early April. But unseasonably warm temperatures caused the snowpack to sag as the month went on.
“It was clear by early April that it was going to be a bad year in southern Colorado,” Schumacher wrote to Big Pivots in an e -mail on April 29. “But with very little snow and a lot of sunshine in the last couple weeks, snowpack in the northern mountains has started declining early as well.”
The Natural Resources Conservation Service Snotel readings on Monday morning showed improvement after an overnight snowfall but remained far below average.
Snow was notably absent in Colorado’s southern mountains this winter. It started out OK, then got warm and dry. By late January, the odds were for a very poor runoff.
A Snotel station near Wolf Creek Pass had the second lowest peak snow-water equivalent since the station was established in 1979. The lowest reading was in 2002. This was even less than in 2018, a year plagued by wildfires in southern Colorado.
At his farm along the Animas River, Meyer first noticed a problem in February. The well that taps water for domestic purposes went dry. The water table had dropped 35 feet. He persuaded others on the ditch to begin diverting water from the Animas River through the ditch. This caused the groundwater level to rise. It worked, although he was out of water for a week to 10 days.
Meyer is relatively new to southwest Colorado but not to Colorado water issues. An engineer by training, he operated a Glenwood Springs-based water consulting business for 35 years before he retired. He then bought ranch property in southwest Colorado near the community of Mancos. After a drought in 2021, he resolved to get a property with better access to water.
The property north of Durango is where the San Juan Mountains begin to pinch the Animas River Valley. The farm he and his children tend has plentiful orchards: peaches, apples, and pears. They also grow cherries and plums along with raspberries, strawberries and blackberries.
Family members also like to raft, but on Sunday found too little water to do so.
At his office in Cortez, Ken Curtis, director of the Dolores Water Conservancy District, has been monitoring the snowpack numbers. In late April they suggested a runoff of 30% of average. Because his district owns more senior water rights, the farmers of alfalfa, pinto beans and other crops in his district will probably do better than that might suggest.
“It’s been a weird year,” he said. “We are definitely going to have a shortage.”
The good news he reported was the relative absence of dust-on-snow, a phenomenon that warms the snow more rapidly and causes faster melting.
This was the eighth or ninth year out of the last 15 that the runoff from the winter snowpack has been on the low side.
Cortez lies amid the remains of the Ancestral Pueblo, known colloquially as the Anasazi. Because of a multi-decade drought about 1200, they abandoned their cliff dwellings and took up homes along the Rio Grande to the east.
West Drought Monitor map April 29, 2025.
At least part of this drought is something different, the result of rising temperatures created by accumulating greenhouse gases. The process is called aridification, and scientists since about 2017 have conducted studies that convincingly demonstrate that it is responsible for roughly half of declined flows. Drought may go away, but human-caused aridification will not any time soon.
The Colorado River during the last 25 years has yielded significantly less water than the 20th century average — and even less than delegates from the seven basin states assumed when they drew up the Colorado River Compact in 1922.
The states, divided into the upper and lower basins, have been trying to come to grips with the new realities of the 21st century for most of the century. Results have been uneven.
First California and then Arizona gulped waters from the river with giant diversion projects. Colorado but especially other basin states were slower to put straws into the river and they have also been smaller straws.
Who should cut back given the clear evidence for need? At his farm near Durango, Meyer thinks that Colorado must recognize it needs to cut back somewhat in line with what Arizona and California have agreed to do.
Runoff into Lake Powell during March 2as 61% of average. The reservoir is 31.4% full, far better than in 2022, when capacity dipped to below 23% of capacity. Runoff in the last couple of years has been at least okay. This year’s runoff will be a stern reminder that new agreements must be hammered out.
On April 25, water journalist and author John Fleck and four collaborators – including Anne Castle and Eric Kuhn of Colorado – issued a short paper that outlined what they said are the seven essential pillars for post-2026 management of the Colorado River. The first calls for enforceable reductions in water use in both the Upper and Lower Basin.
The compact assumed far more water than occurred in the 20th century, but that faulty assumption was tolerable until the 1990s, when the Central Arizona Project withdrawals began. Then came the drought and aridification of the 21st century. The river that delivered 14.5 million acre-feet (unlike the 20 million acre-feet that was assumed) was in trouble.
Colorado, to a small extent, but Wyoming and Utah especially, had not been using the amount of water that was assumed by the compacts. California and Arizona had been – and then some.
In recent years, California and Arizona have cut back their use of the Colorado River dramatically. The argument made by Castle and Kuhn as well as the others is that there must be shared pain in reduced wager use. That runs counter to the official stance of Colorado and other basin states that it’s a lower-basin problem.
“Shared pain is also critical to inducing the various states not to litigate over the interpretation of the 1922 Compact,” they wrote. “Shared does not mean equal, either in amount, triggers or duration,” they added.
They also say that reductions in water use cannot be predicated on federal compensation, as was important in enabling Arizona and California to reduce their flows during the last few years.
Kuhn was the long-time general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District in Glenwood Springs, and Castle, an attorney who specialized in water, was undersecretary for Water and Science in the Interior Department during the Obama administration. She is now with the Getches-Wilkinson Center at the University of Colorado Law School.
Udall/Overpeck 4-panel Figure Colorado River temperature/precipitation/natural flows with trend. Lake Mead and Lake Powell storage. Updated through Water Year 2024. Credit: Brad Udall
The $2 billion pumped hydroelectric project proposed on private land located some 7 miles southeast of Craig would include an upper reservoir at Buck Peak. This view from the peak shows Craig Station visible in the distance. rPlus Hydro/Courtesy photo
Agency leaders and stakeholders have until May 26 to submit comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, regarding the “pre-application document” for a proposed $2 billion pumped-hydro-storage clean energy project that could be built southeast of Craig.
On March 27, around 40 people attended or listened remotely to a meeting hosted at Colorado Northwestern Community College that provided updated information on the project proposed by Salt Lake City-based rPlus Hydro. The presentation at the joint agency meeting included an overview of the project and operations and a review of information in the FERC pre-application document. The meeting outlined proposed studies to be conducted by rPlus Hydro for the FERC licensing process and provided agency representatives and stakeholders the opportunity to give feedback. A smaller group attended an afternoon tour at the proposed site…
Shapiro said water use from the Yampa River would not be extensive at 4,000 acre-feet of initial fill for the project’s lower reservoir, plus some 600 acre-feet of water annually to account for evaporation and seepage from two new reservoirs on 170 acres. The goal would be to use a portion of the water rights already owned by the coal-fired power plants, Shapiro said…
The majority of the pumped-hydro system would be located underground, including a below-ground powerhouse with three pump-turbine units with generation capacity of 200 megawatts each. The project would consist of one upper and one lower reservoir joined by 2.5 miles of underground water tunnels, an above-ground switchyard, access tunnel, tailrace surge chamber and accessary facilities.
An electric transmission line from the project would run either 11 miles to Craig or less than 2 miles to a Western Area Power Administration line, Shapiro said. Target completion of the licensing process is estimated for 2028, with construction from 2029 to 2033, Shapiro said.
State officials at the Division of Water Resources office in Steamboat Springs are predicting river flows and reservoir levels — which are key for agricultural, municipal and recreational uses — to land this year slightly below conditions of 2024. That means, based on current snowpack and water supply forecasts, the water season for 2025 should land about in the middle, or at median, of the past 34 years of record keeping of water flows down the Yampa River, said William Summers, water resources assistant division engineer in Steamboat…
Last year, Stillwater, Yamcolo, Stagecoach, Fish Creek and Elkhead reservoirs all filled to capacity. However this year, Stillwater, Yamcolo and Stagecoach reservoirs in southern Routt County “are a little uncertain, probably pretty close,” Summers said. The engineer noted Fish Creek Reservoir east of Steamboat Springs and Elkhead Reservoir on the border of Routt and Moffat counties “pretty much fill every year.”
[…]
SNOTEL stations for snow telemetry information record snow water equivalent amounts in the area for March 23, 2025. Credit: NRCS
The Yampa-White-Little Snake River basins currently sit at 101% of median snowpack water equivalent based on Natural Resources Conservation Service data from 1991 to 2020. The data is collected by eight area snow telemetry stations, or SNOTEL, that help forecast water supply and drought conditions. Looking more closely at individual SNOTEL stations on March 23, Dry Lake SNOTEL near Buffalo Pass registered 120% of median, while on the lower end Bear River SNOTEL by Stillwater Reservoir was at 95% of median.
When the flow of visitors in Steamboat Springs rises during heavy tourism times, so too does the waste, making management of the Steamboat Springs Wastewater Treatment Plant a challenging and often smelly job.
“It’s significantly harder to run a wastewater treatment plant in a resort town that sees a big influx of visitors than in a city where your population is static,” said Jon Snyder, the public works director for Steamboat Springs. “Consistent population makes a biological process easier to manage.”
The plant’s operational status averages 60% capacity, but utilization can range from 26% during “mud season” when Steamboat sees fewer people in town to a record high of 72% in January 2022, explained Gilbert Anderson, plant superintendent. The maximum 24-hour flow into the plant can fluctuate widely during the year; for example, the flow in 2024 peaked at 7.14 million gallons per day on April 5 and was the lowest at 1.87 million gallons per day on Oct. 16, Anderson reported. During specific atmospheric conditions such as on cold mornings with temperature inversions — especially during the busy holiday times of Christmas, New Year’s and Presidents’ Day — the waste smells may be most noticeable to nearby homeowners, Snyder said. The vintage 1980 plant maintains a six-step process inside buildings to try to contain as much odor as possible, Snyder said. Yet, residents say the wastewater smells can be noticed at homes downwind and in nearby neighborhoods
Snowfall in March has helped decrease the likelihood of drought developing this spring in Colorado’s northwest mountains. However, a warm and dry spring could still change the tide heading into summer. The National Weather Service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, released its latest seasonal drought outlook on Thursday, March 20. It showed that drought conditions are unlikely to develop in most of northwest Colorado through June…Brad Pugh, a forecaster with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s climate prediction center, said these outlooks predominantly take into account the current conditions, climatology temperature and precipitation outlooks over the next three months.
“In northwestern Colorado at this time of year, you know going into the springtime, mountain snowpack is a critical factor,” Pugh said.
As of March 18, much of northwest Colorado was in line with, or just above, normal snowpack. This has continued to improve in the state’s north-central mountains since January. According to OpenSnow, as of Monday the snow totals and percentage of normal on the season so far were as follows:
Winter Park – 315 inches (117%)
Copper Mountain Resort – 303 inches (113%)
Vail Mountain – 292 inches (101%)
Breckenridge Ski Resort – 284 inches (107%)
Steamboat Resort – 279 inches (108%)
Aspen Highlands — 267 inches (88%)
Loveland Ski Area – 261 inches (108%)
Snowmass – 243 inches (83%)
Keystone Resort – 239 inches (107%)
Beaver Creek – 227 inches (108%)
Arapahoe Basin Ski Area – 225 inches (112%)
Aspen Mountain – 210 inches (92%)
Ski Cooper – 206 inches (106%)
Buttermilk – 147 inches (89%)
Colorado Drought Monitor map March 25, 2025.
The latest U.S. Drought Monitor for Colorado reported no drought in many of the northwest counties including Summit, Grand, Routt and Jackson counties as well as the eastern reaches of Eagle and Moffat counties. Heading west, the monitor shows abnormally dry conditions in Pitkin County and the eastern portions of Garfield and Rio Blanco counties. Conditions continue to get progressively drier the further west toward the border.
Talk Given to Business for Water Stewardship on March 10, 2025
In Colorado, we confront challenges as opportunities. As Wallace Stegner, the famed Western writer, once put it—it’s impossible to be pessimistic in the West; it’s the native land of hope. How we manage our water is a test of that ethos.
There are no two ways to put this: we face significant water scarcity challenges in Colorado and the West. That scarcity is driven, in part, by increasing demands as population booms. And it’s also driven by our changing climate, which is reducing snowpack, changing runoff patterns, increasing evaporation, and drying soils.
While we know that climate change significantly impacts Colorado’s water, its extent and exact impact is presently unknown. That uncertainty, coupled with the unpredictability in rainfall and snowpack, is destabilizing—making it difficult for farmers, ranchers, and even cities to know what to expect each year or how to plan for the future. Unfortunately, the variable weather patterns we are seeing are very likely to be our new normal, creating considerable pressure for us to create more adaptive and resilient systems for water management.
Increased uncertainty and unpredictability in water make planning more important than ever, with an imperative of developing new and innovative strategies for water management. It is no exaggeration to say that the future success of Colorado will depend, in considerable part, on our ability to adapt to scarcity and reduce the uncertainty and unpredictability that come with it. The best and most durable solutions will go beyond individual success and will collaborate with other interests to find win-win solutions.
I know this is important to Business for Water Stewardship, and I’m excited to talk with you about it today. I also want to speak about how our management of water must remain intertwined with respect for the rule of law, as the solutions we craft are only as good as the laws they are built upon and the institutions charged with implementing and upholding them.
I. Moving Toward a Resilient and Adaptive System of Water Management
Adapting to scarcity and creating more certainty will require us to develop innovative and collaborative strategies for water management. It will also require collective action. We cannot focus on individual successes and ignore the community in which these projects occur. I appreciate how you captured this point on your website:
We believe businesses have an opportunity—and a responsibility— to ensure that their operations and investments improve communities and ecosystems where they do business. And in water-stressed regions, that responsibility is deeply rooted in how we value, use, and protect water. That’s why we help businesses work collaboratively with community and policy stakeholders to advance solutions that ensure people, economies, and ecosystems have enough clean water to flourish.[1]
I couldn’t agree more. Each of us, whether as businesses or individuals, has a responsibility to ensure that, wherever we can, we work to improve communities and ecosystems where we live and work. Let me begin by focusing on a few projects that have done that. And I want to contrast those with projects that do not.
The Maybell Diversion Project is a wonderful example of a project that has multiple benefits. Updating and modernizing the Maybell Diversion Project improved efficiency for irrigation, increases resiliency to drought, and benefitted threatened and endangered species.[2]
Before the project was completed in 2024, irrigators from Maybell Irrigation District had to trudge two hours through steep, rugged sagebrush country to manually open and close the rusted and broken metal headgate.[3] It was an arduous, yet crucial task because Maybell is one of the largest irrigation diversions on the Yampa.[4]
The Nature Conservancy worked with numerous partners to help fund the $6.8M project. Funding partners include: the Bureau of Reclamation’s WaterSMART program; the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program,[5] and the Colorado Water Conservation Board.[6]
Today, the opening and closing of the Maybell headgate can be controlled remotely and is determined by a combination of water user needs and available flows into the Maybell Ditch. The Maybell Irrigation District also coordinates with the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program and the Division of Water Resources to guide water use in the Lower Yampa.[7]
As I said previously, this project promises mutual benefits. It allows continued irrigation of historical lands, which supports local farmers and the economy. At the same time, it also improves fish habitat and removes barriers to boat passage, supporting the environment and secondary economic benefits like river recreation.
In 2021, I spoke to the Colorado Water Congress about “The Imperative of Investing in Water Infrastructure.”[8] In that speech, I highlighted important water infrastructure projects around the state, including a plan to replace the aging Grand Valley Hydroelectric facility with a new more efficient plant capable of producing 1.5 times as much power. Like the Maybell Diversion Project, that plan brought multiple benefits. In addition to producing more clean electricity, their continued use of the water right will ensure that water flows into the 15-mile Reach, a critical stretch of river for four species of endangered fish. Many local irrigators will also benefit from increased diversions at an upstream diversion point supplying the plant.
In that speech, I also emphasized the importance of developing funding sources and investment opportunities in water infrastructure. I mentioned a few success stories, like Proposition DD, HB 21-1260, which provides $20 million in funding for implementation of the Colorado Water Plan, and HB 21-240, which provides $30 million for watershed restoration in response to wildfires, including funding for flood prevention and mitigation. But those are not enough. With continued growth on the horizon, our commitment to fund projects laid out in the Colorado Water Plan is imperative. That plan is the roadmap for investing in our future and fulfilling the Plan’s vision will take billions of dollars.
Photo credit: Rye Resurgence Project
B. Rye Resurgence Project
The Rye Resurgence Project in the San Luis Valley supports continued farming, while reducing water use, improving soil health, and helping the community flourish.
During this time of drought, it is critical that we find ways to use less water without sacrificing economic opportunities. This can help build resilience in the face of shrinking water supplies. Crops, like rye, can use far less water—up to 40%—than other similar crops like barley or oats.[9] This difference is huge in a region that is trying to conserve water in order to balance Rio Grande water use with supply. Data in 2024 shows the San Luis aquifer at its lowest recorded level in history.[10]
An important element of the Rye Resurgence Project is that it recognizes that switching to crops that require less water will only succeed if there is a market where farmers can sell those new crops at a profit. The project helps build a market for Colorado rye by investing significant effort and resources in marketing, branding materials, and personnel to develop relationships between the growers and the end users of rye such as brewers, distillers, millers, bakers, and consumers.[11] Building the market for San Luis Valley Resurgence Rye gives farmers an option to reduce their impact, earn a living wage, and support the local community. By keeping farmers farming, the future health of the community will be sustained.
II. Two Cautionary Tales to Avoid in the Future
The above two projects reflect effective strategies for managing water during this challenging time. There are, however, examples that have proven to be ineffective that are important to learn from. I will discuss two such cautionary case studies, highlighting some pitfalls of mismanaging water.
A. Alfalfa for Saudia Arabia
The growing of alfalfa in Arizona to ship to Saudi Arabia is perhaps the most glaring example of a project whose success comes at the expense of the community in which it occurs.[12] The short story of this project is that Saudi firms bought up 9 square miles of land in Arizona for irrigating and growing alfalfa grass.[13] The firms grew alfalfa in Arizona to export to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates because they had already drained their own aquifers.[14]
Alfalfa is an incredibly water-intensive crop. Growing it in a desert climate drastically impacts the surrounding communities. The Saudis were using the same amount of water to grow hay just for export as what a million people in the state use for water every year.[15] The Saudis invested a huge amount of water into the crop which they couldn’t grow at home because they don’t have the water. Essentially, this is exporting Arizona’s water.
By transporting the alfalfa overseas instead of selling it domestically, this also eliminated all future economic returns on that water. If that alfalfa stayed in Arizona, for example, it could have been sold to domestic cattle producers and benefited local communities and businesses. None of those domestic gains were achieved once the alfalfa left our shores.
Potential Water Delivery Routes. Since this water will be exported from the San Luis Valley, the water will be fully reusable. In addition to being a renewable water supply, this is an important component of the RWR water supply and delivery plan. Reuse allows first-use water to be used to extinction, which means that this water, after first use, can be reused multiple times. Graphic credit: Renewable Water Resources
B. Buy and Dry Schemes
In Colorado, we have seen before what is now labelled a “buy and dry” scheme. This scheme involves the sale of relatively all the water from a community, shipping it to a thirsty urban community and destroying a local agricultural economy. That is, in short, the tale of what happened in Crowley County.[16] As captured in Colorado’s Water Plan, it is an approach that we are committed to avoiding in the future.[17]
For an example of a buy and dry project now on the table, consider the case of the (improperly named) Renewable Water Resources. That project would buy out wells that are currently used to irrigate lands in the San Luis Valley and, rather than using that water for irrigation and farming, it would be piped to the front range for new suburban houses.[18] This has several direct and indirect negative economic impacts as well as cultural impacts on the San Luis Valley. This project makes one rural community suffer while a suburban community prospers.
In contrast to the Rye Resurgence Project, which invests in farmers to help them adapt to new markets, this project disregards farmers and eliminates the economic driver for their community. Proponents say the water is necessary to ensure other communities have enough water supply to secure their future. But we can’t let ourselves be tricked into believing that economic prosperity or managing our water resources is a zero-sum game.
Perkins County Canal Project Area. Credit: Nebraska Department of Natural Resources
C. Perkins County Canal
For another example of approaching our water management challenges as a zero-sum game, take the case of Nebraska’s proposed Perkins County Canal project. In a zero-sum game, there can be some winners, but at a high cost to others. In this case in particular, there will be many more losers and lots of wasted time and money. Rather than pursue such a costly path, we can find shared goals and interests and build solutions to help achieve those.
Under Nebraska’s plans, it will invest the time, money, and effort to build a canal to divert water in Colorado for use in Nebraska under the 1923 South Platte River Compact. If Nebraska does that, then Colorado water users will likely build countermeasures to offset impacts of the canal. Under this scenario, both Nebraska and Colorado would end up investing hundreds of millions of dollars, but almost all water users in each state would end up in a position that is no better than they were before Nebraska proposed the canal.
A better approach to the issue is one that recognizes that the agricultural economy and the communities it supports doesn’t observe state boundaries. The economy is regional. Farmers own land in both states. An individual farmer might buy supplies in Nebraska and farm in Colorado. And the reverse is likely true. Durable solutions need to benefit the region and not make the success contingent on the failure of the other. I will continue to do all I can to work towards such a solution.
See Article 7.
III. The Importance of the Rule of Law in Water Management
As we adapt to changing hydrology and look for flexible and collaborative solutions, it will also be important to stand firm on certain principles. Our success not only relies on our adaptability, but also on a solid foundation of laws that are consistently enforced with predictable results.
Colorado’s framework for managing water is based on state-level oversight and ultimate responsibility. This is bolstered by significant reliance on regional and local partnerships to facilitate solutions that are tailored to the water supply needs of local communities. The Colorado model prioritizes respect for and collaboration with regional bodies, such as water conservancy and conservation districts, with a norm of deferring to local expertise and solutions whenever possible. Nonetheless, the ultimate responsibility of managing Colorado’s water and ensuring compliance with compacts, laws, and regulations falls to the State. This is especially true when we talk about compliance with interstate water compacts.
Governor Clarence J. Morley signing Colorado River compact and South Platte River compact bills, Delph Carpenter standing center. Unidentified photographer. Date 1925. Print from Denver Post. From the CSU Water Archives
A. Interstate Compact Compliance
Compliance with Colorado’s nine interstate water compacts, two international treaties, and three equitable apportionment decrees is exclusively the responsibility of the State. This authority is established by the compact clause of the U.S Constitution that allows States, as sovereigns, to enter into agreements to apportion water between them to avoid conflicts over water.
Once ratified by Congress, interstate compacts become federal law. That does not mean, however, that the federal government controls state water resources. The power to control uses of water is an essential attribute of State sovereignty.[19] When states compact with each other to apportion the waters of interstate streams, those compacts also bind the federal government.[20] As we negotiate or litigate over our interstate compacts, I am dedicated to defending Colorado from federal overreach and protecting Colorado’s compact apportionments.
To the extent a state fails to comply with its interstate compact obligations, the State—and not individual water users, conservation or conservancy districts, or local governments—is held solely liable and responsible for complying or possibly paying damages out of the State’s General Fund.[21] In 2006, for example, the State was required to pay nearly $35 million in damages and legal costs to Kansas for violating the Arkansas River Compact.[22] When there is a challenge to State actions under the terms of these agreements, it is the State that is on the hook and local and regional entities are precluded from participating as parties to help defend the State in such litigation.[23] That is because interstate water disputes, reserved to the “original and exclusive jurisdiction” of the Supreme Court,[24] necessarily invoke States’ sovereignty, with each representing “the interests and rights of all of her people in a controversy with the other.”[25]
Elected officials in charge of managing Colorado’s water are accountable to taxpayers who, as noted above, will ultimately bear the cost of any failure to comply with interstate compacts. If the State manages water in a way in which constituents do not approve, they are able express their views directly to their elected officials or engage in the election process to have their voices heard. It is critical for the State to retain full authority to administer and distribute the waters of the State arising there to comply with interstate compacts as the sovereign with the exclusive authority to do so.
For a cautionary tale of how a state mismanaged its water consider what happened in Nebraska, when it faced an issue of how to manage its groundwater. In short, Nebraska delegated its regulatory authority over groundwater to local Natural Resource Districts instead of the state’s Department of Natural Resources.[26] Those local districts represented only the interests of their own water users, and they faced no direct liability for falling out of compact compliance. As a result, the districts failed to make the difficult policy and enforcement decisions necessary for Nebraska to comply with the compact, and Nebraska was forced to pay nearly $6 million in damages to Kansas after the U.S. Supreme Court found that Nebraska had violated the Republican River Compact.[27]
B. Developing Adaptable and Resilient Strategies for Colorado
Projects like the Maybell Diversion and Rye Resurgence are important to help individuals and communities adapt to variable water supplies. We will also need statewide strategies—and legal institutions—to allow those types of water users to occur while ensuring compliance with our interstate compact obligations. Together, we are well positioned to start a broader conversation on what adaptability and resilient strategies—and what legal tools—can help us achieve this critical goal.
Stakeholders have started to suggest different possible tools that can enable Colorado to better manage our water in an adaptive and resilient manner. One suggested strategy is to create a statewide conservation program that compensates people who forego use of their water rights, particularly at times of great demands on a particular system. The Rio Grande Conservation District is implementing such a system to protect its groundwater resources, for example.[28]
A second concept that some have suggested is to create a strategic reserve of water that Colorado could release to protect its water users from mandatory curtailments that might otherwise result from a shortage of water to downstream states. Under this model, the state would acquire and manage “slack capacity,” putting the state in position to navigate shortages and times when there is more demand for water than available.
Whatever strategies are ultimately developed, they are sure to be more successful if they can be built and tested before we need them. Given the pressures we are seeing on multiple fronts, the time to develop and test such ideas is now. As we know from lessons from other countries, the stakes are high and adopting an imperfect system can give rise to most unfortunate consequences.[29]
* * *
Our ability to adapt to the scarcity of water in Colorado and reduce uncertainty and unpredictability is critical to ensuring a promising future for our state. As I have explained, the best and most durable solutions will go beyond individual success and will collaborate with other interests to find win-win solutions like the Maybell Diversion and Rye Resurgence Projects. As we adapt to changing hydrology and look for flexible and collaborative solutions, it is also imperative to ground solutions in the rule of law and an admirable system. This is a formidable challenge, but one we can undoubtedly meet in the native land of hope.
[19] Tarrant Regional Water Dist. v. Herrmann, 569 U.S. 614, 631 (2013).
[20] Texas v. New Mexico, 602 U.S. 943, 962 (2024).
[21] Kansas v. Nebraska, 574 U.S. 445, 459 (2015) (finding local district boards bore no responsibility for complying with compact and assumed no share of the penalties Nebraska would pay for violations).
[22] Kansas v. Colorado, 533 U.S. 1, 20 (2001) (remanding the case to the Special Master for a determination of damages); Fifth and Final Report of Arthur L. Littleworth, Special Master, at 3, Kansas v. Colorado, No. 105 Orig., vol. II (Jan. 31, 2008).
[23] Texas v. New Mexico, 583 U.S. 913 (2017) (denying motions to intervene by local water districts in compact dispute between states).
[25] Wyoming v. Colorado, 286 U.S. 494, 508-09 (1932); New Jersey v. New York, 345 U.S. 369, 372 (1953); see also South Carolina v. North Carolina, 558 U.S. 256, 267 (1953) (“In its sovereign capacity, a State represents the interests of its citizens in an original action, the disposition of which binds the citizens.”); Nebraska v. Wyoming, 515 U.S. 1, 21 (1995) (“A State is presumed to speak in the best interests of [its] citizens. . . .”).
[26] Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 46-702 (“The Legislature also finds that natural resources districts have the legal authority to regulate certain activities and, except as otherwise specifically provided by statute, as local entities are the preferred regulators of activities which may contribute to ground water depletion.”).
Snow blankets the mountains around Teton Pass on Jan. 12, 2025. (Angus M. Thuermer Jr./WyoFile)
Click the link to read the article on the WyoFile.net website (Dustin Bleizeffer):
March 17, 2025
If you want to know how weather is shaping life in Wyoming on any given day, just ask a Wyoming Department of Transportation employee, like Andrea Staley.
Her phone was blowing up early Friday afternoon with reports about a rash of crashes along Interstate 80 between Rawlins and Vedauwoo — Wyoming’s busiest roadway.
“By about 11 [a.m.], the road surface had gotten real icy,” she told WyoFile. “And with the wind, the visibility was causing issues.”
Staley, a WyDOT senior public relations publicist for southeast Wyoming, pines for “boring winters.”
“They’re my favorite,” she said.
This map depicts Wyoming’s 2025 winter precipitation as of March 14, 2025. (Wyoming State Climate Office)
It’s been a bit of a mixed bag, according to local meteorologists. But no big surprises, and for an economy that thrives on predictable levels of snow and cold, the weather basically delivered.
Wyoming is emerging from a fairly mild winter that has been devoid of brutal, prolonged cold snaps or massive snow dumps. With a “snow water equivalent” hovering around 94% of the median across the state, snowpack is “looking pretty good,” according to Natural Resources Conservation Service Water Supply Specialist Jeff Coyle.
There’s lower-than-normal snowpack in the northeast, including the southern portion of the Bighorn Mountains and some parts of the Black Hills on the South Dakota border.
“We’re on course to be kind of an average year in most areas of the state,” Coyle said, adding that both high elevations and basin areas appear to be meeting typical expectations. The wild card, of course, is what Mother Nature might deliver this spring — a time when Wyoming can see its biggest snow dumps.
A view of the Laramie Plains from the Snowy Range in southeast Wyoming on March 1, 2025. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile)
Despite an early February snowstorm that helped pad winter snowpack in the southeast, areas around Cheyenne and Laramie are about a foot below average, according to Cheyenne National Weather Service Meteorologist Mike Charnick. Accumulation of the white stuff in the Snowy Range, however, is average and even a bit more in some areas there.
In terms of overall winter precipitation in the southeast, it was among the top 10 or 12 driest years, according to another Wyoming meteorologist.
Generally speaking, it was a “mild” winter in terms of temperature — particularly in the southeast, Charnick said. “We have certainly been pretty far above average,” he said. “The lowest temperature in February was minus six [degrees Fahrenheit] and minus 12 [degrees Fahrenheit] in January.”
Winter was warmer-than-usual in other parts of the state, too.
“Western and southwest Wyoming was in the top third of warmest years over the last 115 years, whereas the rest of the state was pretty close to normal,” Riverton National Weather Service Meteorologist Lance VandenBoogart said.
Westwide SNOTEL basin-filled map March 16, 2025 via the NRCS.
Congress ended a program that offered $8.3 million, mostly to ranchers, to conserve water in 2023. Wyoming wants it renewed.
Wyoming’s federal delegation has filed legislation to restore millions of dollars to pay state irrigators in the Colorado River Basin for conserving water.
Bills filed in the U.S. Senate and House would restore the System Conservation Pilot Program that Congress ended in December.The program contracted to pay $8.3 million in 2023 to 21 entities in Wyoming,
The conservation effort aims to supply more water to downstream states without harming Wyoming water users. Headwater upper-basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico favor voluntary paid-for conservation over uncompensated reductions proposed by California, Nevada and Arizona.
The seven Colorado River Compact states propose competing programs to share dwindling flows in a river system that supports some 40 million people in the southwest and Mexico.
It’s uncertain whether the bills might enable the conservation program this year, according to members of the Upper Colorado River Commission who met Tuesday.
“With that uncertainty,” said Wyoming State Engineer Brandon Gebhart, “the four of us as [upper-basin] commissioners haven’t had sufficient time to figure out what a program would be.”
He made his remarks to fellow commissioners Becky Mitchell, Gene Shawcroft and Estevan Lopez representing Colorado, Utah and New Mexico respectively.
The federal representative on the commission, Anne Castle, resigned on Jan. 28 as requested by the Trump administration, according to her resignation letter obtained by journalist John Fleck. She stated she was worried that the administration’s policies are creating “a more disordered and chaotic Colorado River system.”
Bills moving
The pilot program contracted with 21 entities to conserve 15,571 acre feet of “consumptive use” in 2023, according to the latest report posted on the commission’s website published in June 2024. Eighteen of the contracts offered ranchers up to $611 an acre foot for water left in the stream.
(A report on the 2024 program has not been posted on the commission’s website, but could be available this summer if the previous publication schedule is followed.)
The four states and federal government had hoped to continue the program in 2025, but it expired in December when the U.S. House failed to reauthorize it.
“Last year, the Commission was hopeful that the SCPP would be reauthorized and could be used as a potential tool,” Mitchell, the chair of the Upper Colorado group said at the meeting. “However, that federal package that we saw [at] the end of last year did not include much in the way of natural resources legislation.”
Maps of ranch land along South Piney Creek show how low flows in 2022 resulted in curtailment of irrigation compared to the flush water year of 2023. The images were presented to the Upper Colorado River Basin Commission in February 2025. (Screengrab/UCRBC)
Although bills to resurrect the program have been filed, “the future of SCPP legislation remains unclear, as does federal funding,” she said. In 2023, the multi-state program administered by the Bureau of Reclamation received $125 million through the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.
The Colorado River Basin System Conservation Extension Act would extend the program through 2026, at which time stopgap rules governing drought allocations expire. U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Colorado Democrat, sponsored the Senate version with U.S. Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming Republicans. U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, also a Republican, has offered a version in the U.S. House.
“Our bipartisan legislation extends these important programs to help address drought issues across our states.” Barrasso said in a statement. Lummis called the program “forward-thinking.”
Hageman said the pilot program to pay ranchers allows irrigators and water managers a chance to explore alternatives to “severe water regulation during droughts.”
Both bills have begun to advance in their respective chambers.
Yampa River Basin via Wikimedia.
Piney creeks, Little Snake River
The 2023 program saw significant contracts awarded in the Little Snake River drainage in Carbon County and also around Big Piney in Sublette County.
The largest single contract was for $2.6 million in the Little Snake. Irrigators along North, Middle and South Piney creeks collectively signed up for $3.4 million.
By the end of the 2023 summer, a consultant estimated the program conserved 8,477 acre feet of water or about 55% of the 15,507 acre-foot contracted goal for Wyoming, according to calculations made from the 2023 Upper Basin report.
In the Piney creeks area, the program saved about 55% of the stated goal, in the Little Snake about 42%.
“In all cases, the participant completed the required conservation activities,” the 2023 report states. “Variation in average estimated [conserved consumptive use] and actual [conserved consumptive use] is to be expected” due to annual variations in temperature and precipitation, the report said.
In theory, the water that ranchers — plus one municipal and one industrial entity — did not use would flow on to Lake Powell. That would help prevent lower basin states from demanding their share — allowed under laws, compacts and agreements — and forcing reductions in upper basin usage.
Myriad factors complicate that concept, however, including whether conserved water actually makes it to the reservoir, how and whether upper basin states are credited for conserved water, what toll evaporation takes and more.
Green River Basin
What’s not complicated is the impact of diminishing river flows to the economy of Wyoming’s Green River and Little Snake River basins and Cheyenne, which uses Colorado River Basin water diverted across the Continental Divide.
“Hydraulic shortages, the increased variability and the changed timing of the available water supply increases the uncertainty to all of our water-use sectors,” Gebhart told fellow commission. “If our farmers and ranchers are forced to reduce or eliminate the herd size because they don’t have the water to grow the food, it can take many years to recover and regrow these herds.”
There are larger implications, he said.
“These shortages also impact the fish, wildlife, wetlands, the riparian areas, and that has an impact on our tourism [and] recreation sectors,” Gephart said. “Not only do [lower flows] negatively impact our economy, but they impact our culture, and it impacts the relationships that have evolved and exist between all of our water use sectors. This can create conflict.”
Map of the Colorado River drainage basin, created using USGS data. By Shannon1 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
The Colorado River District’s State of the River meetings are a spring tradition in Western Colorado, bringing communities together to discuss the most pressing water issues facing our region. These free public events provide valuable insights into river forecasts, local water projects, and key challenges impacting West Slope water users.
Eleven meetings are planned across the Western Slope; see the list below. These events offer an opportunity to hear directly from water experts and better understand the factors shaping the future of our rivers. A complimentary light dinner will be provided, and all events include a Q&A session to address your questions and concerns.
While each program is tailored to reflect local water priorities, key topics at all events will include:
River flow forecasts
Updates on the Colorado River system
Local water projects and priorities
Current challenges facing Western Colorado water users
Shoshone Water Rights Preservation Project updates
If there are specific local issues or projects you would like to see highlighted, please include that information in your registration.
Registration is required, but attendance and dinner are free. We encourage all community members—whether deeply involved in water issues or just beginning to engage—to join us and participate in this important conversation.
Secure your spot today and be part of shaping the future of water in Western Colorado.
Click each event below to register!
Agendas will be posted for each meeting once they are finalized.
Click the link to read the article on the Sky-Hi News website (Ali Longwell). Here’s an excerpt:
February 23, 2025
The storms also put the water supply in the Colorado River headwaters basin near Kremmling just above the 30-year normal
At the Steamboat Resort, 40 snow inches fell at the mountain, bringing the resort’s snowpack to 110% of the 30-year median…At the Winter Park Resort, 46 snow inches fell at the mountain, bringing the resort’s snowpack to 114% of the 30-year median.
“The streamflow forecasts for the Colorado River Basin were not well before this storm. They were looking quite bad,” he said. “This storm will certainly help with the water supply forecast. But then now we’ll have another 10 days, maybe more, of dryness.”
GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado — The Colorado River District’s Board of Directors held its first quarterly meeting of the year on Jan. 21-22 and approved $480,000 in Community Funding Partnership grants to support water projects across the Western Slope. A highlight in this round of funding is a $300,000 grant to the Colorado Mesa University’s Ruth Powell Hutchins Water Center to support the Center’s growth over the next three years, including hiring an executive director and establishing a long-term growth strategy for the organization. The River District funding award will be matched by $ 300,000 from Colorado Mesa University.
The grant and partnership with CMU will strengthen the Water Center’s ability to serve as a West Slope hub for water policy and academic education, fostering leadership and innovation in water resource management. The funding will also support strategic planning and program expansion, positioning the West Slope as a central source of research, collaboration, and leadership in Colorado’s River.
“Supporting the CMU Water Center is an investment in the expertise and leadership needed to secure Western Colorado’s water future,” said Colorado River District General Manager Andy Mueller. “CMU has long been a trusted leader in West Slope education and data-informed research. This partnership empowers local knowledge and innovation and will create future generations of water leaders in the Colorado River.”
“At CMU, we take pride in being a voice for Western Colorado, and we see the Water Center as central to that mission,” said Colorado Mesa University President John Marshall. “With this investment from the Colorado River District—matched by CMU—we are establishing a strong, foundational hub for water research and policy rooted in Western Slope expertise, helping students and professionals drive solutions for our region’s water future.”
In addition to the CMU Water Center grant, the Board approved $180,000 in Community Funding Partnership grants for critical water projects across the Western Slope. An $80,000 grant will support the Terror Ditch Pipeline Project in Delta County, piping just over a mile of ditches to reduce water loss and mitigate infrastructure collapse risks, benefiting over 500 acres of agricultural land in the Gunnison Basin. Another $100,000 grant will fund the Upper Yampa Watershed and Stagecoach Reservoir Water Quality Model Project in Routt County, which will develop decision-making tools to address harmful algal blooms and improve water quality in the Upper Yampa River Basin.
The Community Funding Partnership, launched in 2021, is designed to support the development of multi-benefit water projects across Western Colorado. To date, the program has funded over 130 projects and leveraged nearly $100 million in funding for projects that benefit agriculture, infrastructure, healthy rivers, watershed health and water quality, and conservation and efficiency.
For more information on the Colorado River District’s Community Funding Partnership and how to apply for future funding opportunities, visit www.ColoradoRiverDistrict.org.
Yampa River near Deer Lodge Park. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Premiered Jan 22, 2025
Discover the magic of the Yampa, the last wild river in the Colorado River Basin, and learn how to build a movement to protect a wild river near you. Step 1: Be proactive… Since 2012, OARS has joined forces with American Rivers and Friends of the Yampa, to host an annual Yampa River Awareness Project (YRAP) river trip. This initiative invites key decision-makers, stakeholders, and activists on a transformative rafting journey along the free-flowing Yampa River, offering them the chance to experience firsthand what could be lost if the river is threatened by a major dam, diversion, or dewatering project. Filmed during the 2024 YRAP trip, A Guide to Fighting for Wild Rivers illustrates how immersing people in a river’s beauty and sharing its ecological significance fosters deep, personal connections that inspire long-term conservation. Each trip builds a growing network of passionate river defenders, united by a shared commitment to preserving the Yampa for future generations. Explore Yampa River rafting trips: https://bit.ly/49DoNCA The step-by-step conservation model shared in the film takes a cue from early river crusaders like David Brower, Bus Hatch, and Martin Litton, whose advocacy efforts helped achieve several major conservation wins for western rivers, galvanized by people’s love of a place.
The Bureau of Reclamation has selected 36 projects to receive a total of $3.3 million in federal funding to enhance water efficiency across the Western United States. The funding, provided through the Small-Scale Water Efficiency Projects program, will support initiatives such as the installation of flow measurement or automation systems, canal lining to reduce seepage, and other similar projects that aim to improve water management on a smaller scale.
“As stewards of vital water resources, it is our responsibility to ensure that every drop is used efficiently,” said Bureau of Reclamation Chief Engineer David Raff. “These investments, while focused on smaller-scale projects, have a lasting impact on our ability to conserve water, protect ecosystems, and support the communities that depend on these critical resources.”
The Bureau of Reclamation is now accepting applications for the next Small-Scale Water Efficiency Projects program funding opportunity, with a deadline of January 14, 2025.
For more information on how to apply for funding, visit grants.gov. To learn more about the program and find details about projects in your area, visit the program’s website.
The projects selected are:
Arizona:
Coldwater Canyon Water Company, Upgrade Manual Read Meters to Advanced Meter Reading Technology: Reclamation Funding: $91,786
Global Water Resources, Turf Removal Incentive Program for Residential and Non-Residential Customers: Reclamation Funding: $50,000
Joshua Valley Utility Company, Phase III: Upgrade 400 Meters to Advanced Reading Technology: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Sonora Environmental Research Institute, Inc, High-Efficiency Clothes Washer Replacement Program for Low-Income Households: Reclamation Funding: $47,500
California:
City of Hercules, Enhancing Park Irrigation Efficiency with Cloud-Based Controllers: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Cucamonga Valley Water District, Water Savvy Parkway Transformation Program: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Desert Water Agency, Grass Removal Program: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Fresno Irrigation District, Meter Installation Program: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Jackson Valley Irrigation District, Propeller Meter Upgrades: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency, Remote Data Acquisition for High Production Groundwater Wells: Reclamation Funding: $97,878
San Lorenzo Valley Water District, AMI Water Meter Replacement Project: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, Water Use Efficiency Plant Voucher Project: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Colorado:
Community Agriculture Alliance Inc, Automate Headgates on the Bear River: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Town of Fraser, 2026 Water Meter Modernization and Replacement Project: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Town of Simla, Municipal Water Meter Upgrade for Water Efficiency: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Idaho:
A&B Irrigation District, Water Accounting Software Implementation and Project Upgrade: Reclamation Funding: $47,500
Boise Project Board of Control, Automation of the Brooks Lateral: Reclamation Funding: $24,967
Fremont Madison Irrigation District, Fremont-Madison Irrigation District Automation and SCADA Project Phase 4: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Jefferson Irrigation Company, Flow Measurement of Irrigation Canal Turnouts for Jefferson Irrigation Company, LTD: Reclamation Funding: $99,715
Long Island Irrigation Company, Main Diversion Replacement: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Upper Wood River Water Users Association, Inc, Bypass Canal Lining Project: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
North Dakota:
Agassiz Water Users District, Agassiz Water Users District 2024 Remote Read Water Meter Project: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
City of Bottineau, City of Bottineau, Advanced Metering Infrastructure Project – Phase I: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
City of Mandan, Mandan Advanced Metering Infrastructure System Update Project: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
City of Watford City, Watford City Advanced Metering Infrastructure Project – Phase II: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Southeast Water Users District, Southeast Water Users District: Advanced Metering Infrastructure Improvements Phase II Project: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Nevada:
City of Boulder City, Boulder City Water Meter Upgrades: Reclamation Funding: $98,613
Oregon:
Colton Water District, Automated Meter Reading: Reclamation Funding: $100,000
Reclamation provides cost share funding the Small-Scale Water Efficiency Projects to irrigation and water districts, Tribes, states and other entities with water or power delivery authority for small water efficiency improvements, prioritizing projects that have been identified through previous planning efforts.
Small-Scale Water Efficiency Projects are part of the WaterSMART Program. It aims to improve water conservation and sustainability, helping water resource managers make sound decisions about water use. The WaterSMART Program identifies strategies to ensure this generation, and future ones, will have enough clean water for drinking, economic activities, recreation and ecosystem health. To learn more, please visit www.usbr.gov/watersmart.
“New plot using the nClimGrid data, which is a better source than PRISM for long-term trends. Of course, the combined reservoir contents increase from last year, but the increase is less than 2011 and looks puny compared to the ‘hole’ in the reservoirs. The blue Loess lines subtly change. Last year those lines ended pointing downwards. This year they end flat-ish. 2023 temps were still above the 20th century average, although close. Another interesting aspect is that the 20C Mean and 21C Mean lines on the individual plots really don’t change much. Finally, the 2023 Natural Flows are almost exactly equal to 2019. (17.678 maf vs 17.672 maf). For all the hoopla about how this was record-setting year, the fact is that this year was significantly less than 2011 (20.159 maf) and no different than 2019” — Brad Udall
From email from the Community Agriculture Alliance (Sally Cariiveau):
November 5, 2024
The Colorado River Basin is in the midst of a 23-year drought. Reduced precipitation, mostly in the form of snow in the westernmountains, has caused water administrators at the federal, state and local level to seek ways to cut back usage. But many of us in thehigh country do not need water managers to tell us to reduce usage. Mother nature kindly, or unkindly, does that for us.
With limited storage at higher elevations, snowpack is the source for virtually all water on the West Slope.As the Basin experiences asteady decline in precipitation, West Slope water users, especially irrigators, find that in many years, they are subject to “naturalcurtailment.” Less snowpack means less water.
Snowpack is a shared resource in the Mountain West. The water from snowmelt that feeds the West Slope also feeds the Colorado River.The Colorado serves Lake Powell and then Lake Mead, and ultimately consumers in the Lower Basin (Arizona, California and Nevada).
With minor exceptions, all Colorado River water used in those Lower Basin states is stored in the Powell/Mead reservoir system, whichinsulates them from the near-term impact of reduced hydrology upriver from Powell. This system has led to a commonbelief that theUpper Basin states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) can mitigate drought-induced problems in the Lower Basin simply bysending more water downstream.
Unfortunately, data indicates that during times of hydrological shortfall, the Upper Basin is already naturally experiencing reductions.Recent history provides a high-level example. In the five years from 2016 to 2020, usage averaged 4.6 million acre-feet in the UpperBasin. In 2021, a low-precipitation year, that figure fell to 3.5 MAF, clearly demonstrating the natural curtailment effect.
During the 2016 to 2020 period, Lower Basin usage averaged 10.7 MAF, an amount which actually climbed to over 11.0 MAF in 2021.As abenchmark, the 1922 Colorado River Compact optimistically allocates 7.5 MAF to each basin.
Yampa River Basin via Wikimedia.
In dry years, natural curtailment impacts nearly everyone on the West Slope. Ranchers on tributary creeks often have to choose whichheadgates and ditches to operate.Even irrigators on the mainstem of the Elk and Yampa have years when, in late summer, they arerequired to use far less than their adjudicated rights.
Fishing, rafting/tubing and other recreational uses on the Yampa are often restricted, while water districts experience cutbacks duringlate-season low flows.
Meanwhile, solutions to Colorado River shortages have been elusive, and discussions difficult to facilitate. Politics and public messaginghave played a major role; Lower Basin organizations have used every major media outlet to build public sympathy for their argument thatthey should not be the only ones to “sacrifice.”
Natural curtailment in the Upper Basin has been, until very recently, far outside of public perception. But it exists, and water users andorganizations of the Lower Basin must acknowledge and understand it as a key component of future operating agreements.
We in the Upper Basin need to make natural curtailment a part of our story. Raising public awareness of this elemental fact can help usto defend our rights in the Colorado River.
This photo shows the newly-installed headgate stem wall at the Sheriff Reservoir dam in Routt County. The town is moving forward with repairs to the dam’s spillway after the Colorado Division of Water Resources placed restrictions on the 68-year-old structure in 2021.
Town of Oak Creek/Courtesy photo
On Tuesday, Oct. 15, the Colorado River District Board of Directors unanimously approved $366,655 in funding from the Community Funding Partnership program to support two critical water infrastructure and restoration projects. The Sheriff Reservoir Dam Rehabilitation Project and the Gunnison River Basin Drought Resiliency and Restoration Project aim to increase water security for agriculture, protect local drinking water supplies, and enhance environmental health on Colorado’s western slope. Including these recent approvals, the Community Funding Partnership has awarded a total of $3.3 million to 26 West Slope water projects in 2024.
“These projects are a perfect example of our mission in action—protecting critical drinking water supplies while also improving infrastructure and supporting productive agriculture,” said Melissa Wills, Community Funding Partnership program manager at the Colorado River District. “By investing in these efforts, we are also leveraging significant federal and state funds and delivering long-term benefits to communities throughout the region.”
The Sheriff Reservoir Dam Rehabilitation Construction Project, spanning Routt and Rio Blanco counties, aims to restore the dam’s safety and functionality, protect downstream communities, secure water supplies for the Town of Oak [Creek], and improve flows in both Trout Creek and Oak Creek. Additionally, the Gunnison River Basin Drought Resiliency and Restoration Project will enhance irrigation efficiency and restore riparian habitats along Kiser, Tomichi, and Cochetopa creeks. Led by Trout Unlimited, this effort will work to reconnect floodplains, reduce streambank erosion, lower water temperatures, and boost late-season stream flows in Delta, Gunnison, and Saguache Counties.
Since its establishment in 2021, the Colorado River District’s Community Funding Partnership has funded over 125 projects and leveraged more than $95 million in federal funding to benefit local communities across the West Slope. The program, supported by voters through ballot measure 7A in November 2020, focuses on five key areas: productive agriculture, infrastructure, healthy rivers, watershed health and water quality, and conservation and efficiency. By serving as a catalyst for securing matching funds from state, federal, and private sources, the program continues to play a vital role in advancing multi-purpose water projects in the region.
The two projects approved by the board on October 15th are listed below. Detailed project descriptions and staff recommendations are available in the public meeting packet HERE.
Sheriff Reservoir Dam Rehabilitation Construction Project
Applicant: Town of Oak Creek
Total Approved: up to $232,155.00
Location: Routt and Rio Blanco Counties
Gunnison River Basin Drought Resiliency and Restoration Project
Applicant: Trout Unlimited
Total Approved: $134,500
Location: Gunnison, Delta, and Saguache Counties
For more information on the Colorado River District and the Community Funding Partnership program, visit coloradoriverdistrict.org.
Environmental Program Manager Jenny Frithsen with nonprofit Friends of the Yampa conducts water quality sampling in fall 2023 on a tributary to the Yampa River. Friends of the Yampa/Courtesy photo
Click the link to read the article on the Craig Press website (Suzie Romig). Here’s an excerpt:
October 5, 2024
In early fall with lower and warmer water levels, river users commonly see algae coating rocks or floating in the Yampa River, in coves and edges of area reservoirs and especially in stagnant ponds of water left over from higher flows. However, this fall watershed study groups and some citizens are raising algae alarm bells and asking questions about what appears to a strong presence of algae in the watershed. Some residents are asking water experts if the toxic level spike from a blue-green algae bloom in early September at Stagecoach Reservoir, which led the state to issue a brief red warning level closure at Morrison Cove, may be a foreshadowing of greater, growing concerns systemwide in the Yampa River watershed…
“As there are warmer temperatures and less water, this is the risk that we are going to face in the future, and a healthy watershed is more important than ever,” said Jenny Frithsen, environmental program manager at nonprofit Friends of the Yampa, during an Upper Yampa River Watershed Group meeting on Wednesday.
For the first time since the state algae monitoring program was formalized in 2018, an algae bloom caution warning occurred at Elkhead Reservoir in September, said Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Specialist Ashley Rust with Colorado Parks and Wildlife…COepht.colorado.gov/toxic-algae shows that of the 10 waterbodies listed at a yellow caution level for algae, three are in Routt County including Elkhead, Stagecoach and Steamboat reservoirs. In August 2020, a red warning level was issued briefly for a toxic spike from an algae bloom at Steamboat Lake…Supervisory Hydrologic Technician Patricia Solberg with the U.S. Geological Survey said algae was present at very noticeable levels in the river through Steamboat this year during the August sampling. Solberg said the USGS has been testing once annually since 2019 in late summer or early fall for the aquatic indicator chlorophyll-A as well as algae biomass at three sites, including upstream of Stagecoach, in Steamboat and in Milner.
The Upper Yampa Water Conservancy has launched a new website gathering historic, current and forecasted watershed data from the Yampa River Basin last week. The new website, the Yampa River Dashboard, provides a centralized location to access watershed data as a way to assist local water managers and the public with timely information related to recreation, water quality standards, flood irrigation and reservoir management.
“The new Yampa River Dashboard is an essential tool for the City in our ongoing efforts to monitor, protect and enhance the health of the Yampa River,” said Julie Baxter, water resources manager for the City of Steamboat Springs, in a statement. “The dashboard is also a valuable resource for community members, offering updated information on river conditions.”
The conservancy is encouraging both water professionals and the public to utilize the new tool. Whether looking for recreational opportunities, timing flood irrigation, managing reservoir releases, or looking for water quality standards, users can find the data needed to make more informed decisions about the Yampa River.
With leaky water and sewer pipe infrastructure dating to the early 1970s, the Steamboat II Metropolitan District is facing a proposed steep increase in water and sewer base rates to be voted on at a board meeting Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The district water and sewer service covers three neighborhoods, two schools and a church, pictured in 2022 from above. Charlie Dresen/Courtesy photo
With aging water and sewer pipe infrastructure dating to the early 1970s, a water main break repair and a section of line replacement in the Steamboat II Metropolitan District in 2022 cost more than $500,000…Those types of expensive repairs hit hard for the special taxing district that currently has $600,000 in reserves for capital improvements, said Jeb Brewster, a mechanical engineer and Steamboat II metro district manager since April. Regional experts say shortages in funds to repair aging infrastructure is a problem threatening various residential-based special taxing districts across Routt County that do not have as deep of pockets as cities and counties.
So, the Steamboat II district that serves water and sewer customers for some 420 residential properties, two schools and a church is faced with approving a proposed water and sewer combined rate jump of approximately 46%. The five-member volunteer district board is expected to vote on the increase at its next meeting Oct. 21…Metro district leaders note the water and sewer base rates charged to their customers have not increased significantly for at least 20 years except for minor increases in usage tiers. Water tap fees for homes being built helped supplement the budget in the past, but now the district is very close to full build-out.
As volunteers with Trout Unlimited Yampa Valley Fly Fishers, husband and wife Steve Randall and Kathy McDonald were happy to help with the release of some 20,000 rainbow trout fingerlings into the Yampa River on Monday…Randall and other volunteers helped Colorado Parks & Wildlife staff carry, release and disperse into the Yampa River many tubs of squirming 3-inch trout raised at the fish hatchery in Glenwood Springs. The small fish were dispersed where CPW supervised $500,000 is aquatic habitat improvement work this summer at the upstream reach of Chuck Lewis State Wildlife Area…
Randall called it “so cool” to see the newly restored section of the river that before was full of “old cars, junk and eroded streambanks silting in different places.”
[…]
CPW Aquatic Biologist Billy Atkinson said with rapid initial grown of young trout, the released fingerlings should be 10 inches and ready to challenge anglers in about two years. Standing along the river in waders, Atkinson explained that a previous restoration project in 2008 in the river section was not successful for sustained habitat for bigger fish and not structurally sound. The previous project failed so much so that the river was threatening to reroute and cut west away from the fixed point of a bridge downstream, he said. The redesigned restoration project that started in mid-July included constructing multiple rock structures to direct stream energy away from banks, adding bank full bench features with coir fiber wrapped sod and willow vegetation mats, adding an inner berm design feature to help fish during lower flows, regrading vertical eroding banks and removing transverse and mid-channel bars to reshape the channel bed to appropriate dimensions. The project is intended to prevent further degradation that would result in more costly maintenance, additional loss of habitat and continued contributions of excessive gravel to the river system, according to CPW.
Oak Creek officials are moving quickly to address needed rehabilitation work at the Sheriff Reservoir Dam while also working to identify and undertake improvements to the town’s drinking water and wastewater treatment systems. Town Council members on Thursday approved $10,000 in funding to hire W.W. Wheeler & Associates in its effort to secure funding for the dam rehabilitation project. In a separate decision, council approved $50,000 for an agreement with AquaWorks DBO Inc. to support wastewater and drinking water improvements needed for the town to comply with state and federal regulations…
Built in 1954 and located 12 miles southwest of Oak Creek within the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest in Rio Blanco County, the Sheriff Reservoir Dam is owned and operated by the town of Oak Creek. The dam is currently subject to storage restrictions and is considered a “high-hazard embankment dam,” according to the state’s Division of Water Resources. Conditions leading to that designation include inadequate spillway capacity and operational issues linked to an aging low-level outlet works gate. Other issues include a sinkhole discovered in the dam’s foundation and outlet issues linked to a stem casing that is not watertight and a gate that does not close properly. W.W. Wheeler & Associates estimates total cost of the rehabilitation work to be $5.5 million…
Coal fired plant near Hayden with the Yampa River 2015. Photo credit: Ken Nuebecker
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
August 17, 2024
Will there be a water bonus as we close coal plants? In the short term, yes. It’s harder to say in the long term. Here’s why.
Use it or lose it. That’s a basic premise of Colorado water law. Those with water rights must put the water to beneficial use or risk losing the rights to somebody who can. It’s fundamentally anti-speculative. But Colorado legislators this year created a major exception for two electric utilities that draw water from the Yampa River for coal-burning power plants. They did so through Senate Bill 24-197, which Gov. Jared Polis signed into law in Steamboat Springs in late May.
The two utilities, Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, plan to retire the five coal-burning units — two at Hayden and three at Craig — they operate in the Yampa River Basin by late 2028. These units represent Colorado’s largest concentration of coal plants, 1,874 megawatts of generating capacity altogether. That’s 40% of Colorado’s total coal-fired electrical generation. Together, they use some 19,000 acre-feet of water each year.
What will become of those water rights when the turbines cease to spin? And what will replace that power? The short answer is that the utilities don’t know. That’s the point of the legislation. It gives the utilities until 2050 to figure out their future.
While the legislation is unique to the Yampa Valley, questions of future water use echo across Colorado as its coal plants — two units at Pueblo, one near Colorado Springs, one north of Fort Collins, and one at Brush — all will close or be converted to natural gas by the end of 2030.
This story was originally published in the July 2024 issue of Headwaters Magazine. Photo above of the Hayden Generating Station and the Yampa River was taken by Ken Neubecker in spring 2015. All other photos by Allen Best unless otherwise noted.
Both Xcel and Tri-State expect that at least 70% of the electricity they deliver in 2030 will come from wind and solar. The final stretch to 100%? That’s the hard question facing utilities across Colorado — and the nation and world.
Natural gas is expected to play a continued role as backup to the intermittency of renewables. Moving completely beyond fossil fuels? No one technology or even a suite of technologies has yet emerged as cost-effective. At least some of the technologies that Xcel and Tri-State are looking at involve water.
Fossil fuel plants use less than 1% of all of Colorado’s water. Yet in a state with virtually no raw water resources left to develop, even relatively small uses have gained attention. Colorado’s power future will have implications for its communities and their water, but how exactly that will look remains unknown.
Emissions Goals
The year 2019 was pivotal in Colorado’s energy transition. State lawmakers adopted legislation that specified a 50% economy-wide reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 100% by 2050. A decade before, that bill would have been laughed out of the Colorado Capitol. Even in 2019, some thought it unrealistic. But proponents had the votes, and a governor who had run on a platform of renewable energy.
Something approaching consensus had been achieved regarding the risks posed by climate change. Costs of renewables had plummeted during the prior decade, 70% for wind and 89% for solar, according to the 2019 report by Lazard, a financial analyst. Utilities had learned how to integrate high levels of renewables into their power supplies without imperiling reliability. Lithium-ion batteries that can store up to four hours of energy were also dropping in price.
Colorado lawmakers have adopted dozens of laws since 2019 intended to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Tied at the legislative hip to the targets adopted in 2019 were mandates to Colorado’s two investor-owned electric utilities, Xcel Energy and Black Hills Energy. By 2030 they must reduce emissions by at least 80% compared to 2005 levels. Both aim to do even better.
Xcel, the largest electrical utility in Colorado, was already pivoting. In 2017, it received bids from wind and solar developers in response to an all-sources solicitation that caused jaws across the nation to drop. In December 2018 shortly after the election of Gov. Polis, Xcel officials gathered in Denver to boldly declare plans to reduce emissions by 80% by 2030. Platte River Power Authority, the provider for Fort Collins and three other cities in the northern Front Range, later that month adopted a highly conditioned 100% goal. In January 2020, Tri-State announced its plans to close coal plants and accelerate its shift to renewables — it plans to reduce emissions by 89% by 2030. In December 2021, Holy Cross Energy, the electrical cooperative serving the Vail and Aspen areas, adopted a 100% goal for 2030. It expects to get to 91% by 2025.
Colorado Springs Utilities burned the last coal at the Martin Drake power plant along Fountain Creek in August 2022. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Colorado’s emissions-reduction goals are economy wide, not just for power production. In practice, this means replacing technologies in transportation, buildings and other sectors that produce greenhouse gas emissions with low- or no-emissions energy sources. As coal plants have closed, transportation has become the highest-emitting sector. Colorado had 126,000 registered electric vehicles and hybrids as of June but hopes to have 940,000 registered by 2030. Buildings pose a greater challenge because most of us don’t replace houses the way we do cars or cell phones. Solutions vary, but many involve increased use of electricity instead of natural gas.
A final twist that has some bearing on water is Colorado’s goal of a “just transition.” House Bill 19-1314 declared that coal-sector workers and communities were not to be cast aside. Efforts would be made to keep them economically and culturally whole.
Possible Water Dividends
The Cherokee Generating Station north of downtown Denver is now a natural gas-fired power plant.
Where does this leave water? That’s unclear and, as the 2024 legislation regarding the Yampa Valley spelled out, it is likely to remain unclear for some time. The law prohibits the Division 6 water judge — for the Yampa, White and North Platte river basins — from considering the decrease in use or nonuse of a water right owned by an electric utility in the Yampa Valley.
In other words, they can sit on these water rights through 2050 while they try to figure what technologies will emerge as cost competitive. Xcel Energy and Tri-State will not lose their water rights simply because they’re not using them during this time as would, at least theoretically, be the case with other water users in Colorado.
Conversion of the Cherokee power plant north of downtown Denver from coal to natural gas provides one case study of how energy shifts can affect water resources. Xcel converted the plant to natural gas between 2010 and 2015. Its capacity is now 928 megawatts.
Richard Belt, a water resources consultant for Xcel, says that when Cherokee still burned coal, it used 7,000 to 8,000 acre-feet of water per year; since 2017, when natural gas replaced coal, it uses 3,000 to 3,500 acre-feet per year.
Does that saved water now flow downstream to farmers in northeastern Colorado?
“If the wind is really blowing, there could be some water heading downstream on certain days,” Belt answered. In other words, there’s so much renewable energy in the grid that production from the gas plant at times is not needed. A more concrete way to look at this conversion, Belt says, is to step back and look at Xcel’s water use more broadly across its system. It also has the Rocky Mountain Energy Center, a 685-megawatt combined-cycle natural gas plant along Interstate 76 near Keenesburg that it bought in 2009 and began operating in 2012. With the plant came a water contract from Aurora Water.
Xcel has been renegotiating that contract, which it projects will be effective in early 2025. The new contract will allow Xcel to take water saved at Cherokee and instead use it at the Rocky Mountain Energy Center. That will allow it to use 2,000 acre-feet less of the water it has been leasing from Aurora each year. Belt says it will save Xcel customers around $1 million a year in water costs.
“Another way to look at this dividend is that we’re going to hand [Aurora] two-thirds of this contract volume, around 2,000 acre-feet a year, and they can use that water within their system,” Belt explains.
Other coal-burning power plants have also closed in recent years, with water dividends of their own. One small coal plant in southwestern Colorado at Nucla, operated by Tri-State, was closed in 2019. In 2022, Xcel shut down one of its three coal units at the Comanche Generating Station in Pueblo.
Colorado Springs Utilities stopped burning coal at its Martin Drake coal-fired plant in 2021, which is located near the city’s center, and replaced it with natural gas. It used some 2,000 acre-feet of water per year in the early 2000s, and was down to only 14 acre-feet per year in 2023. Colorado Springs Utilities — a provider of both electricity and water — delivers 70,000 to 75,000 acre-feet of water annually to its customers. Whatever water savings were achieved in that transition will be folded into the broader operations. The city’s remaining coal plant, Ray Nixon, burns both coal and natural gas. The city delivers about 2,000 acre-feet per year to Nixon to augment groundwater use there.
The 280-megawatt Rawhide coal-fired power plant north of Fort Collins is to be shut down by 2030. Platte River Power Authority, which owns and operates the plant, had not yet chosen a replacement power source as of June 2024. Platte River delivers electricity to Estes Park, Fort Collins, Longmont and Loveland.
The Cherokee plant along the South Platte River north of downtown Denver uses significantly less water since tis conversion from coal to natural gas. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
That leaves just the 505-megawatt Pawnee among Colorado’s existing coal plants. The plant near Brush is to be retrofitted to burn natural gas by 2026. The water dividend? Xcel is trying to keep its options open.
The one commonality among all the possible power-generating technologies that Xcel may use to achieve its goal of emissions-free energy by 2050 is that, with the exception of some battery technologies, they all require water, says Belt. And that, he says, means it would be unwise to relinquish water without first making decisions about the future.
That’s why this year’s bill was needed. Colorado’s two biggest electrical providers, Xcel and Tri-State, both with coal plants retiring in the Yampa Valley, have questions unanswered.
The Future of Energy
Strontia Springs Dam and Reservoir, located on the South Platte River within Waterton Canyon. It is ranked #32 out of 45 hydroelectric power plants in Colorado in terms of total annual net electricity generation. Photo by Milehightraveler/iStock
What comes next? Obviously, lots more wind and solar. Lots. The graph of projected solar power in Colorado through this decade looks like the Great Plains rising up to Longs Peak. Construction of Xcel’s Colorado Power Pathway, a 450-mile transmission line looping around the Eastern Plains, will expedite renewables coming online. Tri-State is also constructing new transmission lines in eastern Colorado. The plains landscape, San Luis Valley, and other locations could look very different by the end of the decade.
Very little water is needed for renewables, at least once the towers and panels are put into place.
You may well point out that the sun goes down, and the wind doesn’t always blow. Storage is one holy grail in this energy transition. Lithium-ion batteries can store energy for four hours. That works very effectively until it doesn’t. Needed are new cost-effective technologies or far more application of known technologies.
One possible storage method, called iron-rust, will likely be tested at Pueblo in 2025 by a collaboration between Xcel and Form Energy, a company that proclaims it will transform the grid. It could provide 100 hours of storage. Tri-State’s electric resource plan identifies the same technology.
Granby Dam was retrofitted at a cost of $5.1 million to produce hydroelectricity effective May 2016. It produces enough electricity for about 570 homes. Photo/Northern Water
Other potential storage technologies involve water. Pumped-storage hydropower is an old and proven technology. It requires vertical differences in elevation, and Colorado has that. In practice, finding the right spots for the two reservoirs, higher and lower, is difficult.
Xcel Energy’s Cabin Creek project between Georgetown and Guanella Pass began electrical production in 1967. In this closed-loop system, water from the higher reservoir is released through a three-quarter-mile tunnel to the second reservoir 1,192 feet lower in elevation. This generates a maximum 324 megawatts to help meet peak demands or to provide power when it’s dark or the wind stops blowing. When electricity is more freely available, the water can be pumped back to the higher reservoir. Very little water is lost.
Near Leadville, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has a pumped-storage hydropower project at Twin Lakes, the Mt. Elbert Power Plant, with a more modest elevation difference. The plant can generate up to 200 megawatts of electricity.
Graphic credit: Joan Carstensen
A private developer with something similar in mind has reported reaching agreements with private landowners along the Yampa River between Hayden and Craig. With private landowners, the approval process would be far easier than if this were located on federal lands. Cost is estimated at $1.5 billion.
Belt points out that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has streamlined the permitting process for pumped-storage hydro but that technology remains expensive and projects will take probably 10 to 12 years to develop if everything goes well.
“During that 10 to 12 years, does something new come along? And if you’re committed to pumped storage, then you can’t pivot to this new thing without a financial impact,” he says, explaining a hesitancy around pumped storage.
Green hydrogen is another leading candidate in the Yampa Valley and elsewhere. It uses electrolysis to separate the hydrogen and oxygen in water. Renewable energy can be used to fuel the electrolysis. That’s why it is called green hydrogen as distinct from blue hydrogen, which uses natural gas as a catalyst. A news story in 2023 called it a “distant proposition.” Costs remain high but are falling. Tax incentives seek to spur that innovation.
Gov. Polis’ administration remains optimistic about hydrogen. It participated in a proposal for federal funding that would have created underground hydrogen storage near Brush. That proposal was rejected, but Will Toor, the chief executive of the Colorado Energy Office, has made it clear that green hydrogen and other emerging technologies remain on the table. Xcel says the same thing. “It’s not something we are going to give up on quite yet,” says Belt. The water savings from the conversion of coal to natural gas could possibly play into those plans.
Gov. Jared Polis stopped by the Good Vibes River Gear in Craig in March 2020 prior to attending a just transition workshop. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Polis is bullish on geothermal, both kinds. The easier geothermal uses the relatively constant 55 degree temperatures found 8 to 10 feet below ground to heat and cool buildings. The Colorado Capitol has geothermal heating, but the most famous example is Colorado Mesa University, where geothermal heats and cools about 80% of the campus. This technology may come on strong in Colorado, especially in new construction.
Can heat found at greater depths, say 10,000 feet or from particularly hot spots near the surface, be mined to produce electricity? California generates 10.1% from enhanced geothermal, Nevada 5.1%, and Utah 1.5%. Colorado generates zero. At a June conference, Polis said he thought geothermal could produce 4% to even 8% of the state’s electricity by 2040. Geothermal for electric production would require modest water resources.
Nuclear? Those plants, like coal, require water. Many smart people believe it may be the only way that civilization can reduce emissions as rapidly as climate scientists say is necessary to avoid catastrophic repercussions. Others see it as a way to accomplish just transition as coal plants retire.
Costs of traditional nuclear remain daunting. Critics point to projects in other states. In Georgia, for example, a pair of reactors called Vogtle have been completed but seven years late and at a cost of $35 billion, more than double the project’s initially estimated $14 billion price tag. The two reactors have a combined generating capacity of 2,430 megawatts.
New reactor designs may lower costs. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2023 certified design of a small-modular reactor by NuScale. It was heralded as a breakthrough, but NuScale cancelled a contract later that year for a plant in Idaho, citing escalating costs.
With a sodium fast reactor, integrated energy storage and flexible power production, the Natrium technology offers carbon-free energy at a competitive cost and is ready to integrate seamlessly into electric grids with high levels of renewables. Graphic credit: http://NatriumPower.com
Greater optimism has buoyed plans in Wyoming by the Bill Gates-backed TerraPower for a 345-megawatt nuclear plant near the site of a coal plant at Kemmerer. It has several innovations, including molten salt for energy storage and a design that allows more flexible generation, creating a better fit with renewables. Ground was broken in June for one building. An application for the design is pending with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Gates has invested $1 billion and expects to invest many billions more in what he estimates will be a $10 billion final cost. He also hopes to see about 100 similar plants and reduced costs. Other companies with still other designs and ideas say they can also reduce costs. All these lower-cost nuclear solutions exist in models, not on the ground. Uranium supply remains problematic, at least for now, but more difficult yet is the question of radioactive waste disposal.
Into The Future
The potential for nuclear is balled up in the issue of just transition. Legislators in 2019 said that coal communities would not be left on their own to figure out their futures. What this means in practice remains fuzzy.
Consider Pueblo. Xcel Energy on August 1 is scheduled to submit to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission what is being called the Pueblo Just Transition Electric Resource Plan. Through that plan, Xcel must determine to what extent it can, through new generating sources, leave Pueblo economically whole after it closes the coal plants. Existing jobs will be lost, although others in post-closure remediation of the site will be gained. What, then, constitutes a just transition for Pueblo?
What will Xcel propose in October for Pueblo as it makes plans for the retired of the last of the Comanche coal-burning units in 2030? Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
A task force assembled by Xcel Energy in January delivered its conclusions after nearly a year of study: “Of all of the technologies that we studied, only advanced nuclear generation will make Pueblo whole and also provide a path to prosperity,” concluded the task force. They advised that a natural gas plant with carbon capture would be a distinctly secondary choice.
What will happen with the water in Pueblo? Xcel Energy has a take-or-pay water contract with Pueblo Water for 12,783 acre-feet per year for the Comanche Generating Station. It must pay for the water even if it does not take it. Pueblo Water has a similar take-or-pay contract for 1,000 acre-feet annually for the 440-megawatt natural gas plant operated by Black Hills Energy near the Pueblo airport.
The draw of these water leases from the Arkansas River isn’t that notable, says Chris Woodka, president of the Pueblo Water board, even in what he describes as a “small year,” with low flows in the river. These water leases constitute some 5% or less of the river’s water, Woodka says. Xcel could tap that same lease for whatever it plans at Pueblo. And if it has no use? “We haven’t had many conversations around what we would do if that lease goes away, because it is so far out in the future.”
Xcel and Tri-State both own considerable water rights in the lower Arkansas Valley, near Las Animas and Lamar. Neither utility has shared plans for using the water, as the ideas of coal or nuclear power plants that initially inspired the water purchases never moved forward. Water in both cases has been leased since its acquisition to Arkansas Basin agricultural producers in order to maintain an ongoing beneficial use.
Yampa River. Photo credit: Yampa River Integrated Water Management Plan website
Why don’t Tri-State and Xcel lease their water in the Yampa River as they do in the Arkansas? Jackie Brown, the senior water and natural resources advisor for Tri-State, explains that there is no demand for additional agricultural water in the Yampa Basin. About 99% of all lands capable of supporting irrigated agriculture already get water. This is almost exclusively for animal forage. This is a valley of hay.
However, the Yampa River itself needs more water. The lower portion in recent years has routinely suffered from low flows during the rising heat of summer. Some summers, flows at Deerlodge, near the entrance to Dinosaur National Monument, have drooped to 20 cubic feet per second. Even in Steamboat, upstream from the power plants, fishing and other forms of recreation, such as tubing, have at times been restricted.
One question asked in drafting the legislation this year was whether to seek protection with a temporary instream flow right for some of the 45 cfs that Tri-State and Xcel together use at the plants at Craig and Hayden. The intent would have been to protect the delivery of some portion of that water to Dinosaur National Monument through 2050. That idea met resistance from stakeholders.
Instead, a do-nothing approach was adopted. Those framing the bill expect that most of the time, most of the water will flow downstream to Dinosaur anyway. In most years, no demands are placed on the river from November through the end of June. The challenge comes from July through October. The amount of water, used formerly by coal plants, that reaches Dinosaur will depend upon conditions at any particular time. Have the soils been drying out? Has the summer monsoon arrived?
The Yampa River at Deerlodge Park July 24, 2021 downstream from the confluence with the Little Snake River. There was a ditch running in Maybell above this location. Irrigated hay looked good. Dryland hay not so much.
“Even if you’re adding even half of that [45 cfs], it is a big deal,” says Brown. “If you can double the flow of a river when it’s in dire circumstances it’s a big deal.”
A study conducted by the Colorado River Water Conservation District several years ago examined how much water released from Elkhead Reservoir, located near Hayden, would reach Dinosaur. The result: 88% to 90% did.
Brown says river managers will be closely studying whether the extra water can assist with recovery of endangered fish species and other issues. “There’s a lot of learning to be done. My key takeaway is that that’s really going to contribute to the volume of knowledge that we have and the future management decisions that are made.”
A larger takeaway about this new law is that it gives Colorado’s two biggest electrical providers time. Xcel and Tri-State don’t know all the answers as we stretch to eradicate emissions from our energy by mid-century. Many balls are in the air, some interconnected, each representing a technology that may be useful or necessary to complement the enormous potential of wind and solar generation now being created. All of these new technologies will require water. Some water in the conversion from coal is being saved now, but it’s possible it will be needed in the future.
No wonder Xcel’s Belt says its “imprudent in a very water-constrained region to let go of a water asset that you may not get back, until you know how some of these balls are going to land.”
Yampa River downtown with low flows. Photo credit: Colorado Water Trust
From email from the Colorado Water Trust (Blake Mamich, Katie Weeman and Holly Kirkpatrick):
(August 2, 2024) – On July 29, Colorado Water Trust (the Water Trust) began boosting flows in the Upper Yampa River with the initial order of 1,000 acre-feet of water (326 million gallons) at a rate of up 10 cfs for instream flow use by the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB). This weekend the flow rate of the releases will increase to up to 45 cfs. The Water Trust is able to release this water out of Stagecoach Reservoir thanks to a ten-year, Temporary Lease for Instream Flow Use Water Delivery Agreement (ISF Lease) with the CWCB and has the contractual opportunity to purchase up to 5,000 acre-feet of water in 2024 if and when the Upper Yampa River needs additional flow. This project, in partnership with the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District (UYWCD), the CWCB, and the City of Steamboat Springs (City) aims to support a healthy Yampa River, the fish and wildlife that depend on it, as well as the municipal, industrial, agricultural, and recreational uses on the river.
Why this project is needed: Nearly every year, no matter the snowpack and monsoon conditions, the Upper Yampa River’s flows start to dip below healthy levels in the summer and/or fall. These low flows and high temperature conditions on the river create unhealthy environments for fish species and can force the City to institute recreational closures on the Upper Yampa which closes the river to all human interaction and harms local businesses conducting tubing and fly-fishing activities.
How the partnerships work: This is a truly collaborative cross-industry effort between local, state, and federal agencies. Since 2012, Colorado Water Trust has led the effort to contract for water out of Stagecoach Reservoir to purchase and lease water to restore the Upper Yampa if and when the river experienced low flows. Because stored water must be released for a beneficial use, the mechanisms for releasing water to protect the health of the river are complex. Throughout the years, this project has become increasingly collaborative, resulting in a flexible ten-year contract with UYWCD and culminating in the second execution and operation of a ten-year ISF Lease with the CWCB. In the summer and fall, Colorado Water Trust coordinates and leads weekly meetings to report on implementation, discuss input and observations, and address questions from the community. Attendees include representatives from the CWCB, the City, Colorado River Water Conservation District, Friends of the Yampa, Yampa River Fund, the Upper Colorado Endangered Fish Recovery Program, Routt County, UYWCD, and Tri-State Generation and Transmission and local business representatives. During the coordination meetings, attendees provide real-time and on-the-ground observations, critical standards and thresholds are discussed, and pivotal questions are raised and deliberated. Once it is determined that the Upper Yampa needs boosted flows, Colorado Water Trust goes to work in executing our existing ten-year water supply contract with UYWCD and fundraising for the cost of the water.
How the funding works: It is a different compilation every year, but in 2024 we have major support from the CWCB’s Instream Flow program, as well as support from the Yampa River Fund, an anonymous donor in Steamboat Springs, and the Colorado River Water Conservation District.
What’s the impact: Since 2012, Colorado Water Trust has restored nearly 21,000 acre-feet of water to the Upper Yampa (5.88 billion gallons). We anticipate 2024 may be our biggest year yet. We aim to purchase and release up to 5,000 (1.6 billion gallons) of water from Stagecoach Reservoir to the Upper Yampa when it needs boosted flows. This can lower temperatures and protect fish and can hold off recreational closures for the benefit of the local economies and people tied to the river.
Yampa River downtown. Photo credit: Colorado Water Trust
According to a report titled Evaluating the Economic Contribution of Boatable Opportunities on the Yampa River written by Hattie Johnson with American Whitewater and Rachel Bash with Lynker Technologies, “In the example shown here, the extra 30 days of flows over 85 cfs in Steamboat Springs provide the region with about $500,000 of economic contribution.” This is a conservative estimate for Colorado Water Trust’s 2022 purchases and releases on the Yampa River. It is based on reports from rafting and fishing participants and was intended to be a tool that could easily be updated when more data is collected.
How the Upper Yampa is fairing this year: After a relatively cool spring, hot temperatures and dry conditions are taking their toll. Stream temperatures are rising and flows are dropping quickly. This was not unexpected as mid to late July is often when the river starts to need added flows.
QUOTE FROM COLORADO WATER TRUST
”It’s becoming apparent that in almost any year, wet, dry or average, the Upper Yampa River can benefit from additional flow in the late summer and fall months. That’s why it was an easy decision to make this year an operational year for the Instream Flow Lease with the CWCB. This lease was signed in 2022 and the legislation hat allowed it was adopted in 2020, so it’s exciting to use this contemporary tool for streamflow restoration for the first time.” Blake Mamich, Colorado Water Trust.
QUOTE FROM UYWCD
“Recent years have proven that our river system is changing in response to new climate realities,” said Andy Rossi, General Manager for the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District. “Our partnership with the Colorado Water Trust and the use of CWCB’s Instream Flow Lease will be critical to protecting our river ecosystems and the communities that depend on them for years to come.”
QUOTE FROM CWCB
“The Colorado Water Conservation Board is proud to support continued partnership with the Colorado Water Trust,” said Lauren Ris, CWCB Director. “This important Instream Flow agreement on the Upper Yampa means we are not only addressing immediate ecological needs but also investing in the long-term health and resilience of the river for future generations.”
Stagecoarch Reservoir outflow June 23, 2019. Photo credit: Scott Hummer
Declining stream flows can have cascading impacts on communities, fish, and wildlife. WRA is supporting policies and agreements to put water back into the rivers that sustain the West.
Healthy rivers are the foundation of the West, but climate change and growing water demands have stretched our rivers thin. Across the region, low flows have resulted in cascading impacts to communities, fish, and wildlife. Drying streams become disconnected from the rest of the river system. Low water levels inhibit fish passage, cause harmful algal blooms, result in higher water temperatures that are dangerous to fish, and increase the spread of invasive species. Communities feel the effects of these low flows as water supplies decline and popular outdoor recreation spots close.
Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem – add water. But unfortunately, water is in short supply in the West. In many cases, much of the water flowing in our rivers is already spoken for, having been legally allocated to cities, farmers and ranchers, industry, and other water users. Under state law in Colorado, water users have long been incentivized to use their full water allotment or risk losing it – a huge deterrent for water conservation.
Thankfully this is changing, as new policies are adopted that promote conservation while protecting water rights. For example, in 2013, a law was passed that allows water users who participate in water conservation programs to leave water in rivers and streams while still maintaining their full water rights. This helped open the door to innovative water sharing agreements to boost river flows.
In 2020, WRA worked with a team of partners to compile a list of high priority streams across Colorado that could benefit from such agreements. Among these streams was Slater Creek.
Located northwest of Steamboat Springs, the picturesque Slater Creek watershed supports numerous ranches, sustains habitat for native fish, and is a popular destination for camping, hunting, and boating. But in the hot summer months, flows in Slater Creek often drop below what is needed to maintain a healthy stream for fish and wildlife.
Seeing this, WRA sprang into action and met with members of the local ranching community to discuss a water sharing project to restore Slater Creek. We built relationships within the community, listened to their concerns, and assured them that any project would be protective of their water rights, and any water sharing agreement would be voluntary, fairly compensated, and mutually beneficial to participants and the river. Through these conversations, we were introduced to a rancher who was interested in working with us. We connected with the Colorado Water Trust, an organization with expertise in water sharing agreements, to get the project off the ground.
Ditch headgate that will be closed under the agreement to leave water in Slater Creek. Photo credit: Western Resource Advocates
Under this new agreement, WRA and the Colorado Water Trust will lease water from the rancher this summer to boost flows in Slater Creek. The rancher will be paid to stop irrigating from mid-July through October, when the river needs water the most. This will benefit 32 miles of Slater Creek, including reaches with instream flow water rights, and will put up to 130 million gallons of water back into the stream. WRA will be monitoring stream health and documenting river flows over the course of the lease. State law limits such leases to five out of every ten consecutive years to preserve agricultural lands. WRA and the Colorado Water Trust plan to continue working in Slater Creek to lease water in the years when it is most needed.
The water sharing agreement in Slater Creek is a prime example of how we can work together to implement solutions that both protect rivers and benefit communities in the face of drought and climate change.
Across the West, WRA is supporting agreements and policies that put water back into the streams that sustain our communities, fish, and wildlife.
Yampa River near Deer Lodge Park. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
July 8, 2024
Tri-State agreement includes provision for water rights valued by Moffat County at $2-3 million
The settlement agreement supported by 16 intervening parties that was submitted to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission has a major provision about water rights.
This is apart from the Colorado legislation passed in the 2023 session that allows Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission the ability to retain the water rights they are now using to produce steam at their coal plants near Hayden and Craig to generate electricity. The utilities will be able to retain their direct-flow rights until 2050 while they figure out whether those water rights will be needed in the future.
The settlement agreement is for augmentation water that Tri-State owns. It is held in Elkhead Reservoir near Hayden. The Colorado River Water Conservation District also holds augmentation water in that reservoir.
Why does augmentation water matter? Because, beginning in 2002, the Yampa River became a river that didn’t always have enough water for everybody than wanted it. In 2018, a drought year, a “call” was put on the river for the first time. And in 2022, the Yampa formally became an administrated river.
That means that if somebody wanted to drill a well in the Yampa River drainage for a new home on a plot of land of 35 acres or less, they needed to come to the table with water that could replenish the river, i.e. augmentation water. This is for all wells after the state designation of March 1, 2022.
To meet the need for augmentation water, Moffat County has been leasing water from the River District. The amount is determined by the amount needed on a per-acre-foot basis.
Jeff Comstock, who directs Moffat County’s Department of Natural Resources, said the precise amount of water that Moffat County will be getting from Tri-State will depend upon a determination in water court. The water given to Moffat County by Tri-State can be used into perpetuity.
Moffat County estimates the value of the augmentation water right that is to be transferred at $1 million to $3 million.
Volunteers Jeremy Bailey and Brad Luth pose near King Solomon Creek during winter sampling efforts in North Routt County.
From email from Katie Berning:
On June 11, 2024, the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC) unanimously voted to approve a proposal to designate approximately 385 miles across 15 rivers and streams in the Upper and Lower Colorado, Eagle, Yampa and Roaring Fork River basins as Outstanding Waters (OW). Approximately 278 of those stream miles are along tributaries of the Yampa River. The designation protects streams with existing excellent water quality for their benefit to the environment, wildlife and recreation, and safeguards those streams from future degradation, including pollution from development, mining, oil and gas extraction, and other uses.
Friends of the Yampa is honored to be a part of the Colorado River Basin Outstanding Waters Coalition (CRBOWC). For two years, advocates from the coalition and within these communities worked extensively across the state, gaining broad support for the designation, by conducting outreach to local, state and federal government entities; water rights holders; water districts; water providers and interests; businesses; land managers; and landowners.
In the Yampa Basin, this work could not have happened without countless hours donated from dedicated volunteers. The full-day missions took place about each season and were accomplished by foot, raft, snowmobile, ski, bicycle and off-road vehicle. Environmental program manager Jennifer Frithsen headed up all logistics including collecting samples then delivering samples in a full spectrum weather events to ACZ in Steamboat and to Eagle County for testing.
Friends of the Yampa extends a heartfelt thank you — on behalf of the mighty Yampa River — to the following volunteers: Jeremy Bailey, Marla Bailey, Ben Beall, Angus Frithsen, Brad Luth, Maggie Mitchell, Mike Robertson, Jojo Vertrees and Sophie Vertrees. Special thanks to Jeremy Bailey and Brad Luth. Your willingness to snowmobile during the winter of 2022-23 and 2023-24 to remote parts of Routt County to dig out streams and collect water samples in record snowfall and challenging weather helped make this possible. We love you guys!
The timing of the OW designation is apt with June being National Rivers Month (and Yampa River Month). It is expected that the designation will become final when the WQCC approves the rulemaking documents in August 2024.
“Clean water is essential to a thriving Yampa River Basin. Our community values these streams for their beauty, the habitat they provide for fish and other organisms, and the clean water they provide to the Yampa, where residents and visitors alike flock to fish, paddle, tube or just recharge. The Outstanding Waters designation is an extra layer of protection for these pristine streams in the face of climate uncertainty and development pressure.” said Jenny Frithsen, Friends of the Yampa environmental program manager.
About The Colorado River Basin Outstanding Waters Coalition
The Colorado River Basin Outstanding Waters Coalition is composed of American Rivers, American Whitewater, Audubon Rockies, Colorado Trout Unlimited, Eagle River Coalition (previously Eagle River Watershed Council), Friends of the Yampa, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Roaring Fork Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, Western Resource Advocates, and Wilderness Workshop, which have a common goal of safeguarding clean water in Colorado. The CRBOWC proposed Outstanding Water designations to protect the outstanding waters of the Upper and Lower Colorado, Roaring Fork, Eagle, and Yampa river basins.
Environmental program manager Jenny Frithsen and conservation program manager Emily Burke collect samples in North Routt County for analysis for the Outstand Waters project.
A gas exploration company with Florida ties is pursuing plans to pull groundwater out of existing coalbed methane wells in southern Wyoming, then pipe it into the lower reaches of the water-stressed Colorado River Basin.
The project was formally initiated in December, when the State Engineer’s Office received 21 groundwater test well applications from Mark Dolar of Dolar Energy, LLC. The test wells are all located on Bureau of Land Management property south of Rawlins in the Atlantic Rim gas field.
Two test well applications have since been rescinded by Dolar to comply with the state of Wyoming’s sage grouse and big game migration policies, according to an email from State Engineer Brandon Gebhart.
A project review letter from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department summarizes what the project proponent seeks to do with the water.
“If the water is of sufficient quality, the applicant hopes to transport groundwater to Colorado via a pipeline,” states a letter signed by Habitat Protection Supervisor Will Schultz.
But Sen. Larry Hicks (R-Baggs), who’s on staff with the Little Snake River Conservation District, has met with Dolar and believes that’s one of several uses of the water being considered if the plans move forward. Exchanges within Wyoming, he said, could also be an outcome.
“The simple fact is the market’s much more lucrative now than it was 20 years ago,” Hicks told WyoFile. “He doesn’t have to send it to Colorado.”
Sen. Larry Hicks (R-Baggs) during the Wyoming Legislature’s 2024 budget session. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile)
Hicks used that rough historic benchmark because there have been repeated efforts since Atlantic Rim field drilling started in the mid-2000s to make use of the water surfaced during gas production. Currently, he said, the produced water is injected back into the ground — which takes energy and money — and it doesn’t make sense given the currently dismal economics of natural gas.
“The water is probably, at this point in time, as valuable or more valuable than the natural gas,” Hicks said. “It’s just a matter of figuring out how you utilize that water, and whether there’s a sufficient enough quantity to justify a lot of expenditures.”
Energy companies in the past ultimately determined that using Atlantic Rim formation water didn’t pencil out, even though it’s considered pretty high quality. And they’ve tried, even building out infrastructure.
A historic endeavor
Steve Degenfelder, then a land manager for Atlantic Rim driller Double Eagle Petroleum, recalled that his former employer secured permits to surface discharge a limited volume of untreated water via a pipeline and separately desalinate other volumes. Neither worked out long-term.
“We did discharge some into Muddy Creek, but very little,” Degenfelder said. “We just got a lot of resistance from the environmental community and BLM.
Gas drilling infrastructure in the Atlantic Rim field in 2015. (Ken Driese)
Groundwater in the Atlantic Rim area is both abundant and filled by snowmelt coming off the west slope of the Sierra Madre Range, Degenfelder said. During the heyday of the Atlantic Rim field’s development, the two largest drilling companies were producing roughly 100,000 barrels of byproduct water daily — the equivalent of a small stream that flows continuously carrying nearly 7 cubic feet per second. Oftentimes water encountered during the drilling process has a lot of organic matter like oil, but in this region, it’s pretty pristine, he said.
“There’s a great deal of water to be had and it’s class three water [in Wyoming regulation],” Degenfelder said, “so it’s very good for livestock and wildlife to consume.”
But it’s also too salty for the most likely use: irrigation. The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality has standards, and the Atlantic Rim water generally doesn’t cut it.
“The sodium is too high,” Hicks said. “[DEQ] was concerned that when you irrigate with high-sodium water, you poison the soil. It turns white.”
White crusts of natural salts along a tributary to Muddy Creek. (Carleton Bern/U.S. Geological Survey)
Already, there are issues with too much salt in Atlantic Rim waterways, and disturbing the soil in the region through industrial activity might have increased salinity levels at times. Salt concentrations in the main drainage in the area — Muddy Creek — increased by between 33% and 71% in the years 2009-2012 compared to 2005-2008, according to a 2015 U.S. Geological Survey study. But the sharp uptick in salinity also doesn’t perfectly align with the height of the drilling boom, the Earth Island Journal reported at the time.
It’s unclear how Dolar Energy would deal with water that’s too salty for irrigation.
Hicks’ understanding is that Dolar Energy seeks to “cherry pick” the highest-quality water from the test wells and potentially market that only.
What’s the plan this time?
Mark Dolar did not respond to multiple WyoFile requests for an interview. His company’s website includes little information, though it does feature a short podcast that describes his interest in natural gas resources in the Atlantic Rim field. A map included on the website shows that he’s also done business in the Pinedale area, three parts of Utah plus Colorado’s Piceance Basin.
Dolar’s bid to put Wyoming water in a pipeline and send it to Colorado has been attempted before on a much larger scale.
Conceptual route for the Flaming Gorge Pipeline — Graphic via Earth Justice
More than a decade ago Fort Collins, Colorado resident Aaron Million pushed a failed proposal to tap Flaming Gorge Reservoir and pipe the water across southern Wyoming and the Continental Divide to the Colorado Front Range. Although it’s been shot down repeatedly, a fourth iteration of the project was still on the table as of 2022, and the dream of the largest privately funded water project in the history of the West is still not dead, according to a recent feature story in the progressive magazine Mother Jones.
Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Utah side near the dam in September 2021. (Dustin Bleizeffer/WyoFile)
Degenfelder has met Dolar before but was unaware of his recent proposal. “I wonder what those guys can sell Wyoming water to Colorado for?” he asked.
The Atlantic Rim and Muddy Creek drain into the Little Snake River Basin, a tributary of the Green River that’s part of the overallocated Colorado River Basin. Amid long-term drought, it’s an era of depleted reservoirs and cuts to water allocations in the region — which may be mandatory in Wyoming’s portion of the basin by 2025.
Given the shortages, Hicks’ sense is that the value of water in the Colorado River Basin has increased “astronomically” and that there’d be a market for the Atlantic Rim water. Still, he said, there are many factors that could prevent the plan from coming to fruition, one of them being the economics of tapping less than two dozen abandoned wells.
“Is there enough water there of sufficient quality that it doesn’t have to be treated?” Hicks asked.
Hurdles and hurdles
Hicks sees another hurdle: It’s unclear whether water taken out of Atlantic Rim-area aquifers and surface discharged is subject to interstate water agreements.
“If he produces all of that [water] and they say, ‘That’s connected to the surface water,’ Wyoming’s only entitled to 14% of that under the Upper Colorado River Compact,” the state senator said.
Groundwater is subject to the Colorado River Compact “to the extent it is Colorado River System water as that term is used in the compact,” Gebhart, the state engineer, explained in an email.
“However, the seven states which are subject to the compact have never mutually determined to what extent groundwater constitutes Colorado River System water,” Gebhart wrote. “The ability to use groundwater within Wyoming is only subject to our individual state laws.”
Gas drilling infrastructure in the Atlantic Rim field in 2015. (Ken Driese)
Constitutionally, the groundwater is owned by the state of Wyoming. If Dolar Energy proceeds with its plans, the company intends to file applications for the “points of use” of the Atlantic Rim groundwater, Gebhart said.
Permitting for activities and disturbances to federal land is another potential obstacle.
The State Engineer’s Office sent Dolar Energy’s 21 groundwater test well applications to the Bureau of Land Management on Feb. 15, according to the state engineer. At that time, the state office shared concerns about who would be responsible for the currently plugged and abandoned coalbed methane wells if they weren’t going to be used after being reentered.
The BLM’s Wyoming office hasn’t taken any action because Dolar Energy hasn’t submitted anything, said Brad Purdy, deputy state director for communications. All of the leases for the old wells have been terminated, he said.
“If the company is interested in doing commercial H2O wells off of those CBM wells, we have to get some applications,” Purdy said. “We don’t have any right-of-way applications, we have no [applications to drill] to reenter a plugged well. The proponent has a lot of stuff they need to submit before we can run NEPA and even begin to analyze this.”
Wildlife managers’ concerns are another potential impediment to Dolar Energy’s plans.
Coalbed methane gas pads litter the Atlantic Rim field in the Muddy Creek drainage in south-central Wyoming. (Google Maps screenshot)
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s review letter shows that 19 of the 21 applied-for test wells (two were later rescinded) are located within the designated Baggs Mule Deer Migration Corridor. Of those, six wells are located on ground that’s both “stopover” and “high use” habitat. One well each fell solely within high use and stopover areas, while the remainder would be located within “low” or “medium” use areas.
“The proposed well sites were recently plugged and the pads reclaimed,” Game and Fish’s letter states. “We are concerned that disturbance at these well sites, specifically within the high use area and stopovers within high use areas, will impede or reverse the reclamation process while also negatively impacting migrating mule deer.”
“Lastly, it should also be noted that a water pipeline in the Baggs area will likely traverse sensitive and vital wildlife habitats, much like these exploratory wells,” the letter noted.
The size of Wyoming’s proposed and controversial West Fork Dam in the Medicine Bow National Forest in Carbon County is in flux as federal environmental analysts juggle economics and conservation in a review of the planned 264-foot high concrete structure, key analysts say.
As now planned, the structure would flood 130 acres and hold 10,000-acre-feet of water on a headwaters tributary of the Colorado River Basin where drought and climate change plague a river system that supports 40 million people. The dam’s reservoir would hold enough water to supply 20,000 households for a year but it would be used principally to benefit a few dozen irrigators, federal and state documents show.
Releases from the proposed reservoir would flow down Battle Creek to irrigators in the Little Snake River Valley in Wyoming and Colorado. But Wyoming’s plan has drawn public scrutiny and controversy over its purported benefits and impacts.
Studies and analysis reveal that some parts of the plan are uneconomical, officials with the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service said last week. That’s leading the agency to consider reducing the cost and scope of the project, cutting the amount of water to be impounded and also employing irrigation conservation measures, federal analysts said.
Even as reviewers flesh out various ways to supply irrigators with late-season water, along with some public benefits and habitat improvements, Wyoming’s design remains “one of the leading alternatives,” said Shawn Follum, an engineer with the federal conservation service.
As envisioned by the Savery-Little Snake Water Conservancy District, Colorado’s Pothook Water Conservancy and the Wyoming Water Development Office, the 700-foot-long dam near the confluence of Battle and Haggarty creeks would span a gorge and back up water for almost two miles.
Project backers estimated in 2017 that the entire project would cost $80 million, most of which the state of Wyoming would fund.
Some alternatives being considered in the environmental impact statement are “just not economically viable,” Follum said. “There’s no net benefit to the government.
“There’s a possibility of maybe changing the scope of that dam a little bit as we’re going through some of the economics to try to reduce some costs,” he said.
“We haven’t identified a modified West Fork [Dam] that’s practical yet,” Follum said. “But we are looking at [whether] we [can] reduce the need of the impounded water with some conservation measures, like lining a ditch to reduce seepage.”
Ongoing studies could propose a smaller project: “That’s what we’re hoping,” he said. But analysts haven’t resolved that size issue, Natural Resources Conservation Service public affairs specialist Alyssa Ludeke said.
“We just don’t have the final answer on that yet,” she said.
December deadline
A draft environmental impact statement likely won’t be completed and released for public comment until December, the two officials said in a telephone interview. The federal conservation service began reviewing the project in December 2022, coordinating with other federal and state agencies, including the Wyoming Water Development Office, the Medicine Bow National Forest and the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments.
The state lands office proposed exchanging Wyoming property located inside the Medicine Bow for federal property at the dam site, a swap officials said would expedite environmental reviews. Wyoming sought 1,762 acres of federal land in exchange for an equal value of state property — until last month.
That’s when Jenifer Scoggin, director of the land office, reduced Wyoming’s proposal by 272 acres, or about 16%.
Wyoming’s Office of State Lands and Investments proposed this 1,490-acre Forest Service parcel be traded to Wyoming to enable construction of the West Fork Dam. the parcel is 16% smaller than Wyoming’s original request. (OSLI via Medicine Bow National Forest)
The amendment to seek only 1,490 acres was “based on discussions with the U.S. Forest Service,” Scoggin wrote Jason Armbruster, Bush Creek/Hayden District ranger with the Medicine Bow. The change “addresses resource issues” identified by field studies, she wrote.
Some of the parcels the state sought required Wyoming to surmount “larger hurdles than we could jump,” said Jason Crowder, deputy director of the state lands office.
“We’ve been working for the past year or so trying to come up with a package of land that would move easily through the federal exchange system,” he said in an interview. “It just made sense to change the make-up of the parcels involved [to follow an] easier path.”
The Medicine Bow will use the updated Wyoming proposal as the basis for a “feasibility analysis,” forest spokesman Aaron Voos wrote in an email. That finding — whether the exchange is possible — is the first of two steps.
If the swap is feasible, the Medicine Bow would then determine whether it is in the public interest.
Alternatively, the environmental review might suggest that the state construct and operate a reservoir under a federal permit instead of acquiring the land underneath and surrounding the dam and reservoir. Wyoming has not favored that path.
The Natural Resources Conservation Service and U.S. Forest Service continue their independent reviews.
“I believe the land exchange will probably be slower than the EIS itself,” Follum said. “But that won’t impact [us at the conservation service] because we’re going forward with the kind of a dual assumption; it’ll either be a land exchange or permit.”
The conservation service identified six alternatives when it announced its environmental review, including a no-action alternative. Three other alternatives consider building the dam as proposed under a Forest Service permit or through a land exchange. A fifth option calls for locating a reservoir elsewhere and a sixth calls for water conservation and habitat-improvement projects.
A major project to update the Maybell Diversion and headgate on the Yampa River is nearing completion as its users prepare for irrigation season. The Nature Conservancy, Maybell Irrigation District and JHL Constructors have worked together on the $6.8 million endeavor, which makes possible the first remote operation of the headgate in over 126 years.
Maybell is home to one of the largest irrigation diversions on the Yampa River. It provides water to about 2,000 acres of irrigated hay meadows in Northwest Colorado through a series of lateral ditches that come off the Maybell Diversion located just west of Craig toward Dinosaur National Monument…In the past, the headgate was manually operated, requiring a 3-mile round-trip hike and special tools and equipment to open the gates to the ditch. This often meant water was not used efficiently or at the most opportune times for ranchers. In addition, the Maybell Diversion has previously posed challenges for both fish and recreational boat passage through that part of the river in Juniper Canyon. In the past, fish movement was constrained by low river flows, especially during irrigation season. The Maybell reach has been considered a recreational-use hazard due to landslides, large boulders that block the river and push-up dams that hinder fish and boaters alike.
The newly modernized diversion and headgate will allow for remote operation and improved water delivery control to agricultural lands. It also aims to improve fish passage and recreational boat access. The redesign will connect two sections of floatable river with a constructed riffle at the diversion.
“We are excited to have this project completed,” said Mike Camblin, president of the Maybell Irrigation District. “Water is a precious resource, and this project allows us to manage it in the way the 21st century demands. We’re grateful to our partners, The Nature Conservancy, JHL Constructors and others who made this possible.”
Power distribution lines in the Yampa River Valley October 2020. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots
Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):
April 18, 2024
Bill moving through Colorado Capitol that would allow Xcel Energy and Tri-State G&T to keep water rights for 20 years after last coal plant closes
Colorado’s Yampa River Valley has five coal-burning units that will cease operations from 2025 to 2030. Two are at Hayden and three are at Craig. All require water for cooling.
What will become of that water once the coal plants close?
SB24-197, a bill that is rapidly moving through the Colorado Legislature, would allow Xcel Energy and Tri-State Power and Generation to hold onto their water rights, even if they are not using them, until 2050. That is a precedent-setting exception to Colorado’s famous use-it-or-lose-it provision in water law.
The utilities say they may very likely need the water once they figure out how they will replace the coal generation. Neither utility has announced specific plans, but in response to a question at the bill’s first hearing in a Senate committee last week, Xcel Energy’s Richard Belt identified pumped-storage hydro and hydrogen as leading candidates. The federal government has devoted considerable funding and support for development of both technologies, he said.
“Those are the two leaders,” said Belt. “There aren’t many on the horizon that would fill the niche in that decree.”
Both technologies would provide storage. Xcel and other utilities are on their way to having massive amounts of cheap renewable energy. Still to be solved is how to ensure reliability when winds quiet for long periods. And the sun, of course, always goes down.
Storage will be essential and perhaps some kind of baseload generation. Xcel’s current plans call for an increase in natural gas capacity to ensure reliability even if the natural gas plants are used only infrequently, say 1% or 2% of the time. Xcel Energy is also adding literally tons of four-hour lithium-ion battery storage.
Cabin Creek pumped hydro reservoir. Photo credit: EE Online
The company’s biggest storage device is still its oldest, the 324-megawatt Cabin Creek pumped storage unit. Water from the upper reservoir is released to generate electricity when it is needed most, then pumped back uphill when power is relatively plentiful.
A developer has secured rights from landowners at a site between Hayden and Craig. See story. Another pumped-storage hydro possibility has been identified in the area between Penrose and Colorado Springs.
Hydrogen has less of a track record, at least in Colorado. However, it is part of Colorado’s all-of-the-above approach. See story. Hydrogen can be created from natural gas, but to meet Colorado’s needs it must be created from water. It would then be stored. Like pumped-storage hydro, it would be created when renewables are producing excess electricity, and the hydrogen could then be tapped to create electricity when needed most. That electrical generation would also use water for cooling, Belt said.
The bill, said Belt, proposes to allow Xcel the time for the economic and feasibility details of these emerging technologies to be resolved “instead of forcing a near-term decision driven by the processes of current water law.”
Normally, utilities would be required to demonstrate purpose of water, which can take several years, or risk abandonment. Because they will not have to, some see this as allowing the utilities to speculate. The utilities insist that it’s too soon to know exactly what their future water needs will be. But in addition to owning land in the Yampa Valley and water, they have expensive transmission linked to the rest of Colorado.
State Sen. Cleave Simpson, a Republican from Alamosa — and a former lignite coal-mining engineer, made note of that infrastructure on the floor of the Senate on Monday morning when he spoke in favor.
The bill will allow the utilities to hold onto the water in Western Colorado “so the region can have a true just transition and so hopefully it can continue to be an energy producing
region using existing infrastructure.” Upon advice of the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, the bill was amended by the Senate to specify that the water must remain in the Yampa River Basin.
Coyote Gulch near the confluence of the Little Snake and Yampa Rivers July 2021.
Since Colorado adopted carbon reduction targets in 2019, there have been questions about what might happen to the water in the Yampa Valley. It’s not a huge amount of water, but it can matter in a basin that since 2018 has had several calls on the river after having none for the previous 150 years.
The issue was hashed out by the legislatively-created Drought Task Force in 2023. The task force called attention to the idea of allowing utilities to preserve their water rights until 2050, but the idea failed to get a full endorsement.
Sen. Dylan Roberts, a prime sponsor, explained at the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee meeting that additional work in recent months has produced legislation that has ended objections. Indeed, Western Resource Advocates supported the full bill, as did others.
Jackie Brown, who represented Tri-State on the task force, told the Senate committee members that the measures in SB24-197 “provide Tri-State certainty that our water resources remain intact and available for future dispatchable carbon-free generation as needed and is projected in our electric resource plan. While we continue our planning process, keeping this utility water in the Yampa River helps all water users, creating a win-win situation.”
The Glenwood Springs-based Colorado River District in 2021 conducted a study of what happens to water when released from the Elkhead Reservoir, which is located near Hayden. The study found that 14% of the water was picked up by irrigators, 10% was lost to transit – and the rest of it flowed downstream. That suggests what will become of this water while it is not used.
Downstream lie segments of the Yampa where endangered fish species live. Those stretches have become nearly non-existent during the hot and dry summers of recent years.
Routt County Commissioner Tim Corrigan said his county supports the bill. He said hebelieved that Moffat County did also. He emphasized that the solution will help the environment as well as other users. The energy transition in northwest Colorado, he said “will take place over a very long time.”
The bill also has provisions applicable across Colorado. It allows the owner of a decreed storage water right to loan water to the Colorado Water Conservation Board for a reach of river for which the board does not hold a decreed instream flow water right. It also requires the CWCB to establish an agricultural water protection program in each of the state’s water divisions.
Simpson, on the Senate floor, also explained that the bill would create what he called a much-needed program, crafting a pathway to loan water from water storage for a reservoir to benefit an instream flow program “without going through the whole CWCB process with getting an adjudicated flow.”
Yampa/White/Green/North Platte river basins via the Colorado Geological Survey
The coal-fired Tri-State Generation and Transmission plant in Craig is scheduled to close in 2028. Senate bill SB24-197 would allow the water rights associated with the plant to be protected from abandonment until 2050. Photo credit: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
State lawmakers are considering a bill that would let two energy companies with coal-fired power plants in northwest Colorado hang on to their water rights even after the plants’ planned closures in 2028.
Senate Bill SB24-197 says that industrial water rights held by Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association Inc. will be protected from abandonment through 2050. Under Colorado law, a water right that is not being used could end up on an abandonment list, which is compiled every 10 years.
Abandonment is the official term for one of Colorado’s best-known water adages: Use it or lose it. It means that the right to use the water is essentially canceled and ceases to exist. The water goes back into the stream where another water user can claim it.
Supporters of the bill say this protection from abandonment would give the companies a grace period to transition to clean-energy sources and eventually use the water again in new methods of energy production. In the meantime, the water will remain in the stream for the benefit of the environment, recreation and downstream irrigators.
State Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, is one of the bill’s sponsors, and represents Clear Creek, Eagle, Garfield, Gilpin, Grand, Jackson, Moffat, Rio Blanco, Routt and Summit counties.
“The idea is if we can find a way to ensure that the water rights of the power companies are protected over the next couple of decades, this will give them a stronger incentive to find a new way to produce energy in the region,” Roberts said.
Tri-State plans to shut down its coal-fired power plant in Craig in 2028, the same year that Xcel Energy plans to close the Hayden Generating Station, which has prompted questions about what will happen to the water currently being used by the facilities.
Jackie Brown is a senior water and natural resource advisor at Tri-State. She said the bill preserves future opportunities for economic development by energy utilities in Moffat and Routt counties.
“The measures in this bill provide Tri-State with certainty that our water resources remain intact and available for future dispatchable, carbon-free generation as needed and projected in our Electric Resource Plan,” Brown said in a statement. “While we continue our planning process, keeping the utility water in the Yampa River helps all water users, creating a win-win situation.”
According to Brown, the water used from the Yampa River by both energy companies is estimated to be about 44 cubic feet per second of flow. But, if the bill passes, engineers will officially quantify by 2030 the amount of water that the industries have historically used, and that is the amount that will be protected from abandonment. Any portion of the water rights that the energy companies lease to a third party would not be protected from abandonment.
The Yampa River begins in the Flat Tops Wilderness, flows through the city of Steamboat Springs and west through Routt and Moffat counties to Dinosaur National Monument, and eventually joins with the Green River. The Yampa River basin was one of the last to be developed in the state and in recent years has begun experiencing some of the issues long present in other areas such as shortages, calls, an overappropriation designation and stricter enforcement of state measurement rules.
In 2018, irrigators placed the first call on the river, triggering cutbacks from junior water users. When an irrigator is not receiving the entire amount of water to which they are legally entitled, they can place a call, which requires water-rights holders with younger water rights to stop irrigating so the senior water user can get their share. The Colorado River Water Conservation District, the Colorado Water Trust and others have made releases out of Elkhead Reservoir to get extra water to these senior downstream irrigators and keep the call off the river.
The Lefevre family prepares to put their rafts in at Pebble Beach for a float down the Yampa River to Loudy Simpson Park in Craig in June 2021. When the coal-fired power plants shut down in 2028, the water they currently use will be left in the water to the benefit of the environment, recreation and downstream irrigators. From left, Marcie Lefevre, Nathan Lefevre, Travis Lefevre and Sue Eschen. CREDIT: HEATHER SACKETT/ASPEN JOURNALISM
Support from environmental groups
SB 197 has gained support from environmental groups, including Conservation Colorado, The Nature Conservancy and Western Resource Advocates. Josh Kuhn, senior water campaign manager with Conservation Colorado, said leaving the water in the river will have environmental benefits such as lowering the often-too-high temperature of the Yampa, boost flows for recreation and the environment, and prevent calls on the river.
But the benefit to the river and water users from SB 197 may only be temporary. The energy companies will still own the water rights and may begin using them again whenever they want.
“It has been made clear that there’s no assurances that the water will be there on a permanent basis because Tri-State wants the ability to use that water to generate additional renewable clean-energy supplies in the future,” Kuhn said. “So there is a shared understanding that this is being done on a temporary basis.”
With the impending closure of the coal mines and power plants that by one estimate will result in 800 lost jobs, some see the Yampa River as an underutilized amenity that could supply recreation jobs and enhance quality of life. Supporters of the bill say keeping the energy companies’ water in the river and protected from abandonment will ensure that the water is not diverted out of the basin.
“The Yampa is already a river that suffers the impacts of climate-driven drought,” Kuhn said. “And so, in order to help protect that river and the economy that’s dependent upon it, they were looking for solutions to make sure that none of that water was exported to another basin.”
The protection of the energy companies’ water rights is just one facet of SB 197, which would also implement recommendations from last year’s Colorado River Drought Task Force. These include expanding the state’s instream-flow temporary loan program to let owners of water stored in reservoirs to loan it for the benefit of the environment in stream reaches where the state does not hold an instream-flow water right; expanding the state’s agricultural water rights protection program; and waiving the matching funds requirement for water project grants to the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribal nations.
Roberts was the sponsor of 2023’s SB 295, which created the drought task force. Although the 17-member task force did not advance protections for industrial water rights from abandonment as an official recommendation (it failed on a 9-7 vote), it was included in the narrative section of the report that it provided to lawmakers.
“I’ve been working on this for months with the energy companies, with the state, with environmental groups and with local stakeholders in Routt and Moffat counties,” Roberts said. “And we narrowed the proposal significantly, and now almost everybody who was opposed on the task force is supportive of this idea moving forward.”
SB 197 passed unanimously in the Senate on Wednesday [April 17, 2024] and will now be up for approval by the House.
Children age five and younger, and women who are pregnant, planning to become pregnant or breastfeeding, are more susceptible to health impacts from commonly called “forever chemicals,” which have been found so far in unhealthy levels in one neighborhood water system in Routt County…Sleepy Bear mobile home park, located along U.S. Highway 40 on the western edge of Steamboat Springs, has recorded PFAS levels in the neighborhood water system that are higher than health advisory and national drinking water standards. The mobile home park is not part of the city water system and uses a well water system, according to the local park manager…
“Most people living in the United States have some amount of these chemicals in their blood,” according to the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment. “People in communities that have been contaminated by PFAS — through water or other sources — are more likely to have health impacts.”
[…]
Consumer drinking water testing for Sleepy Bear showed 9.2 parts per trillion of PFOA, which is more than double the newly released legally enforceable standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA limits PFOA and PFOS drinking water standards to four parts per trillion. The CDPHE, which issues water system permits in the state, advised Sleepy Bear residents to “consider taking action to reduce your exposure.” Since the EPA previously issued a health advisory in June 2022, Sleepy Bear voluntarily participated in a proactive testing program for PFAS water sampling in June 2023. Sleepy Bear contracted water operator Ron Krueger, owner of Crystal Clear Water Treatment in Lakewood, said Thursday he is awaiting direction from the CDPHE for next steps…
Mount Werner Water & Sanitation District General Manager Frank Alfone said the district has been conducting voluntary PFAS testing that will continue throughout 2025. The most recent testing in February showed no detectable levels of PFAS in the city drinking water supply.
Colorado’s statewide snowpack is currently at 96% of the 30-year average, and storms in the forecast could push it closer to 100%. While a majority of the snow is slated to arrive early next week, experts are predicting snowfall varying from 1 to 3 inches for many of Colorado’s ski resorts over the course of the next couple days…[Jim] Kalina said a storm system moving in early next week is expected to bring favorable conditions to those looking to hit the ski slopes.
The Colorado Headwaters Basin — including the northern and central mountain regions as well as parts of the Western Slope — is currently at 97% of the 30-year median. In terms of whether or not it will push the Colorado Headwaters Basin up to 100% snowpack, Kalina said “It looks like a pretty good storm, so it could bump it up a little bit to be in that kind in of range.”
…the Yampa-White-Little Snake River Basin, which is currently at 105% of the 30-year median for snowpack…The USDA National Resources Conservation Service reported that The Colorado Headwaters Basin generally reaches its snowpack peak around April 12, and the Yampa-White-Little Snake River Basin generally reaches its snowpack peak around April 7.
As the Stewardship Manager for Colorado Water Trust, I am lucky to have several interesting jobs outside of developing new projects. I write a monthly forecasting memo that helps our staff plan for the upcoming season’s operations. I travel around the state and visit our projects to ensure they are still operating as designed. I collect streamflow and water temperature data to inform project design. It’s all great work but there is one job that is arguably the most important; I maintain and update (read the next words in an important sounding voice) The Master Dashboard Accounting Spreadsheet.
This spreadsheet tallies the streamflow volumes and the number of river miles with improved flows. Volume and miles restored are the primary metrics that describe our impact. We must report accurate records to the Division of Water Resources, and our funders like to see our volume and mileage metrics, as well. Heck, the first thing you see on our website is a cool animation tallying up our volumes and stream miles. Just looking at the site now, I see that we have restored 73,242 acre-feet of water to 612 miles of Colorado’s rivers, which is very impressive… or is it? Honestly what do those numbers mean? Is our work important? Impactful? Let’s dig a little deeper to find a better way to highlight the benefits our work.
Let’s start with terms. Acre-feet is a weird one—it’s a very important term in the water world but doesn’t translate well to a general audience. Us water nerds often try to better explain the term. “An acre-foot of water is enough water to supply two average households for one year” we will say in a very serious tone. Great, so now we can visualize how many showers and toilet flushes the Water Trust has restored. Hmm… perhaps if we convert it to gallons it will make more sense. I see that we have restored 22.6 billion gallons—that sounds impressive! Let’s convert it to metric tablespoons to get a truly enormous number. Unfortunately, the human brain is epically bad at comprehending large numbers so perhaps we should look at this another way.
Rivers and streams are not simple units easily counted and categorized. Rivers are homes for fish, drinking water for towns, irrigation water for farmers, places of recreation, and focal points for communities in the arid west. Rivers are local and personal. Our Yampa River Project is a great example for examining the alternative metrics we can use to measure our impact on the river and the community that depends on it. Low summertime flows on the Yampa lead to high water temperatures that are unhealthy or even deadly to the trout who call the river home. To help protect the trout, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) is often forced to close the river to extremely popular recreational activities like angling and tubing. While the closures help keep fish alive, they severely impact summer tourism and the local economy. Since 2012, the Water Trust has partnered with the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District, Colorado Water Conservation Board, City of Steamboat Springs, and the Yampa River Fund to release additional water from Stagecoach Reservoir 18 miles upstream of Steamboat. These releases help cool temperatures for the fish and keep the river open for recreation. Now, let’s take a closer look at some of the metrics that tell the story of our impacts to the Yampa and the Steamboat community.
Take a look at the plot below, which shows the flows in the Yampa River in Steamboat during the late summer of 2023. The blue shading shows the flows that the Water Trust released. Last summer, Water Resources Specialist, Blake Mamich, saw that dropping flows and high river temperatures were exceeding regulatory thresholds (which lead to river closures) so he acted quickly, coordinating releases to boost stream flows and keep the river cool.
Graphic credit: Colorado Water Trust
Let’s look at some of the metrics that help tell the story of this successful project. In 2023, the Yampa River Project:
Released water for 60 days, keeping the river cool to keep the city compliant with regulations.
Boosted flows for fish for nearly two months.
Averted 38 days of river closures, keeping the river open when it would have otherwise been closed for over a month during the busy tourism season.
Water Trust releases often accounted for over 30% of the entire flow in the Yampa River, and has accounted for over half of the flow in years past.
Now there are some metrics that show the impact of our work a little better than 3,288 acre-feet or one billion gallons. Let’s look beyond the flow numbers to see how the project is providing benefits to the upper Yampa community. A 2019 study by the Steamboat Chamber of Commerce found that summer tourism has a $166 million-dollar impact on the city which supports over 2,000 jobs. While I am not an economist, it’s not unrealistic to imagine that a 38-day closure of the river flowing through the heart of town would reduce those numbers. It’s also interesting to note that less than 2% of the economic benefits would easily pay for this project to run in perpetuity. Looking beyond the tourism impacts, the water continues to flow downstream of Steamboat where it is available to agricultural users along the length of the river. This project is also a long-term investment in sustainable river health as the Water Trust has operated this project in 10 of the last 12 years, providing a decade of benefits.
Digging more deeply into the impact of our projects really shows why our work is so important. They go beyond just putting flows into the river—they make tangible and long-term impacts on the habitats and communities that rely on healthy rivers across the state.
I will keep updating the Master Dashboard Accounting Spreadsheet and reporting our volume numbers since they are still very important to our work, but I promise to chime in here on occasion to highlight all of the benefits that our projects generate. So next year when you are reading the annual report and you see we have restored enough water to cover Manhattan Island to a depth of 5 feet*, know that there is a story behind the numbers.
*That is true by the way.
The Yampa River emerging from Cross Mountain Canyon in northwest Colorado had water in October 2020, but only the second “call” ever was issued on the river that year. Photo/Allen Best
A second atmospheric river of moisture in a matter of days is further bolstering Colorado snowpack levels that have continued to lag a bit behind normal…An initial atmospheric river storm system that wound down over the weekend dumped as much as three feet of snow in parts of the mountains, with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center saying the Ruby and Ragged ranges west of Crested Butte and south of Marble were particularly hard-hit. The Mesa Lakes area on Grand Mesa got about 15 inches of snow in that storm and Park Reservoir saw about a foot of snow fall, while another measuring site on Grand Mesa got only about 4 inches, said Dennis Phillips, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Grand Junction. The second atmospheric river that arrived this week is expected to be a stronger system, he said…
The federal Natural Resources Conservation Service on Tuesday said that statewide snowpack in Colorado stood at 93% of normal for Feb. 6. It has seen little growth since the middle of last month or so, after increasingly sharply from below 70% of normal at the start of January.
Snowpack in the Colorado headwaters basin on Tuesday stood at 96% of normal for Feb. 6. The Yampa-White-Little Snake basins were at 95% of normal, as was the Gunnison River Basin, and the Arkansas River Basin was at 91%.
Southwest Colorado is drier, with the combined San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan basins at 84% of normal and Upper Rio Grande River Basin at 80%. On Grand Mesa, snowpack levels at NRCS sites Tuesday ranged from 93% at Mesa Lakes to 74% at Overland Reservoir. Mountain snowpack is relied upon to bolster streamflows, reservoirs and agricultural and municipal supplies when that snow melts and runs off.
Colorado Drought Monitor map February 6, 2024.
Most of Southwest Colorado is in varying levels of drought, with moderate drought stretching into western and southern Mesa County, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
