Diversions Converted to Serve Rio Grande Wildlife The environmental era also hit Colorado’s Rio Grande Basin in the 1970s. There, transbasin diversions from the Gunnison River Basin, built in the early 1900s for irrigation needs, were purchased by the agency that would become Colorado Parks and Wildlife to use to improve habitat. The Tabor Ditch runs just a half-mile and diverts an average of 700 acre-feet of water per year from the headwaters of the Gunnison to the Rio Grande Basin. Tabor’s water rights were changed in water court in 1979, so the water can now be used specifically for wildlife. Ten of the 11 Colorado Parks and Wildlife reservoirs in the Rio Grande Basin and its San Luis Valley benefit from Tabor’s diversions today. The other Parks and Wildlife-owned ditches pulling water from outside the San Luis Valley still have irrigation-tied water rights that are used for the benefit of wildlife, largely on private lands. Through creative arrangements with private landowners, the water is used to irrigate cover crops or to fill wetlands to support migratory birds. The Weminuche Pass Ditch diverts an annual average of 1,325 acre-feet of water from a tributary of the San Juan into Weminuche Creek, and the Don La Font Ditches 1 and 2 divert from the Piedra River into the Rio Grande, together yielding just 190 acre-feet of water annually. Only three other transbasin diversions deliver into the Rio Grande Basin, all carrying less water than the Weminuche and Tabor ditches and still used for agriculture or for replacing groundwater withdrawals.
Greg Poschman
rely on the supply of other cities like Denver to secure their futures. In 1981 the two cities initiated the Homestake II project. Homestake II is where transbasin diversions and Colorado water supply projects in general enter this environmental era, an era where even municipalities who were exempt from providing compensatory storage under the 1937 Water Conservancy Act began cooperating out of necessity, lest they walk away without a project. But before the cooperation, there was disappointment and hostility. When Aurora and Colorado Springs filed the Environmental Impact Statement for Homestake II, by then required by the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act, a number of environmental groups opposed the project. The Sierra Club, Audubon Society, Colorado Open Space Council, Wilderness Society and Colorado Mountain Club all fought Homestake II, along with local, grassroots environmental groups. By 1985, opposition also grew from Eagle County residents concerned about damage to the Holy Cross Wilderness Area, upon which some of their businesses depended. By 1987, public hearings took place, and in 1988, the Eagle County Board of Commissioners denied the Homestake II construction permit. This was possible because of the “1041 powers” under the Colorado Land Use Act. The 1041 statute required Aurora and Colorado Springs to obtain a permit from Eagle County for their proposed diversion structures in Eagle County. When it denied the permit, Eagle County cited 20 reasons for doing so, including probable loss of wetland habitat in the Holy Cross Wilderness and potential environmental destruction. The cities took Eagle County to court, and the Court of Appeals ruled that “the cities’ entitlement to take water from the Eagle River Basin, while a valid property right, should not be understood to carry with it absolute rights to build and operate any particular water diversion project.” Colorado Springs, Aurora and Eagle River entities spent the next decade in court, but after years of unresolved litigation, parties from both sides of the Divide came together to explore alternatives. Negotiations continued even when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Eagle County’s favor, ending the cities’ legal appeals. The Eagle River Memorandum of Understanding was signed on June 4, 1998, by Colorado Springs, Aurora, the Colorado River District, Climax Mine and numerous other parties in the Eagle River Basin. In the end, the parties agreed that Aurora and Colorado Springs could at some point proceed with a transbasin diversion under certain conditions. The project would have to use different agreed-upon points of diversion outside the wilderness area. Any project negotiated in the future would need to be locally acceptable and meet strict environmen-
A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee works to recover endangered fish species as part of the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program. Program partners cooperatively manage water to provide ample instream flows to benefit the fish.
Endangered Fish Recovery Program and Transbasin Diversions After passage of the 1973 federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), four fish species were listed as endangered in Colorado by 1991: the humpback chub, bonytail, Colorado pikeminnow and razorback sucker. The fish struggled to adapt to many changes, including alterations to river hydrology, which challenged their survival. After the listing, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sought to restore habitat and fish populations, recommending minimum streamflows for the fish in 1983. In 1988, the agency established the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program, and with it, the San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program. With the recovery programs, water had a major new beneficial use on the Colorado River which would, and still does, impact water supply priorities and management decisions in Colorado. Flows that could be left in the river to support fish habitat were valuable, in part because without them the ESA could preclude diverters from continuing to withdraw water from the Colorado River Basin. Now there were efforts to purchase property and water rights and to re-operate existing reservoirs to provide flows for the endangered fish. Recovery efforts focused on the “15-Mile Reach,” a stretch of critical habitat on the mainstem of the Colorado River near Grand Junction. There, many upstream transbasin diversions had produced a compounded impact on flows. To bring water to the 15-Mile Reach, a 1993 agreement changed the operations of Ruedi Reservoir, the West Slope’s compensatory storage pool from the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, where 21,650 acre-feet of discretionary water was identified for the program. The West Slope had been counting on that Ruedi water for future development, however. To reduce the effects on Ruedi’s participating entities, the East and West slopes entered into the “10,825 project” agreement. The agreement reduced the augmentation demand on Ruedi by half, while water users on both sides of the Divide each committed to provide 5,412.5 acre-feet of water for the 15-Mile Reach. The program continues today, and serves as a protection both for fish and for existing water diversions on both slopes.
1977 Dolores and Animas-La Plata projects reach Pres. Jimmy Carter’s hit list; Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus recommends reconsideration of both projects for Indian water rights
1981 Spinney Mountain Reservoir and Homestake project are completed; Aurora and Colorado Springs initiate Homestake II project
CITIZEN’S GUIDE TO COLORADO’S TRANSBASIN DIVERSIONS
23