Aspen Journalism (https://www.aspenjournalism.org/category/water/page/2/)
Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism
Rivers runners Sean, left, and Sam, work on closing the gash in Sean's raft, for the second time, well into the Grand Canyon.
Reporting on water and rivers in the Roaring Fork and Colorado River basins in collaboration with Swift Communications newspapers and The Water Desk at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
At the suggestion of some agriculture-dependent counties, including Mesa County, River District General Manager Andy Mueller added language to the ballot question that says the district will not utilize the additional funds for paying to fallow irrigated agriculture.
Each group met multiple times over the past year and their findings, as well as their lingering questions, were included in a 200-page demand management update report presented Wednesday to CWCB directors.
The alternative management planning process came about after the BLM in 2007 found that 54 miles of the upper Colorado River from Gore Canyon to Glenwood Canyon were eligible for a federal Wild & Scenic River designation.
The U.S. Forest Service received more than 500 comments, mainly in opposition, to a proposal by the cities of Aurora and Colorado Springs to drill bore holes to determine the feasibility of a second reservoir in the Homestake Creek drainage.
The information collected in the survey could help water managers better plan when and how much water to divert.
Some water experts say preserving these pre-compact water rights, even though they aren’t being used, could give Colorado stronger footing in potential negotiations with lower basin states by propping up Colorado’s consumptive-use tally on paper.
But despite the lower-than-average flows, this weekend is probably one of the best of the year to go boating on local waterways.
Since 2017, Water Asset Management has spent $16.6 million buying up 2,222 acres of irrigated agricultural land in the communities of Fruita, Loma and Mack, west of Grand Junction.
But water managers will have to think outside the box since the usual process of an ATM is transferring water from agricultural to municipal use, and there isn’t much irrigated agriculture in the upper Roaring Fork River basin.
Aspen locals in 1930 welcomed the work on a big dam-and-tunnel project on Independence Pass, but the community grew to miss the water in the river.