Peak runoff past, water managers plan for future water shortage

Governor’s executive order adds urgency

With drought conditions in the Gunnison Basin stretching into a second year, local water managers are starting to feel pressure from the top to contribute to a plan that could help avert a projected mid-century water shortage.

On May 14, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper issued an executive order calling on managers from each of the state’s eight major river basins to come up with a Colorado Water Plan that anticipates more demand for a shrinking supply of water.
The effort is shaping up to be an approach to water conservation different from the one started eight years ago when the Interbasin Compact Committee and Basin Roundtables were formed. That process encouraged people to play a role in their regional water future, while the current orders ask each basin to submit a report to the state by next December.
“Our efforts through the roundtable and compact committee are getting a bit more urgency to providing a statewide plan. So we’ve been gearing up to try to accomplish that,” Gunnison River Water Conservancy District manager Frank Kugel says. “There is some concern as to whether this is moving from top down as opposed to the original grassroots efforts the roundtables [were envisioned to be].”
According to the executive order, the available science is suggesting the state will see a water shortage of more than 500,000 acre feet by 2050. “Moreover, our largest regional gap is set to occur in the South Platte Basin, our most populous, as well as our largest agriculture-producing, region,” the order says.
That kind of concern over Front Range interests has given rise to fears that Western Slope communities will see more pressure in the future to divert water east of the Continental Divide.
“From the governor’s perspective I don’t think they want to leave anything off the table,” Kugel said. “From our perspective, we’ll be very concerned about plans that would impact the Gunnison Basin.”
And this is a sensitive time to be talking about water in the Gunnison Basin, where the largest reservoir in the state, Blue Mesa, will only fill slightly more than halfway this summer.
On the Gunnison River, the runoff is already on its way out, peaking May 28.
Meetings of a Taylor River Local Users Group have resulted in slightly increased flows on that river to start the season. On Saturday, flows from Taylor Reservoir were increased to 150 cubic feet per second (CFS) and will get bumped up to 200 CFS on June 8. The final increase of the summer will happen the following week, when flows will go up to 250 CFS, where they’ll stay through mid-August.
According to Bureau of Reclamation hydrologist Erik Knight at a State of the River meeting in Montrose on Monday, June 3, Blue Mesa will peak this year in the next few weeks at 50 feet below full, or just over 50 percent of capacity. Then it will be a long nine months before the reservoir starts to fill again.
Kugel said a presentation by state climatologist Nolan Doesken showed a “wildly cyclical period of water supply over last five years,” going from wet to dry to drought to a less severe drought. “He did show a forecast where there was no clear indication of whether it would be wetter or drier than normal. But it was pretty likely we’d have warmer than normal temperatures,” he said.
Warmer temperatures mean more water will evaporate and ride the jet stream east, leaving less for the rivers and fields. This year, however, cooler-than-expected springtime temperatures have slowed the runoff enough to delay a call on the Gunnison Tunnel until July.
“We had feared it would be as early as June but cool temperatures have delayed runoff and the wet late April and early May certainly helped,” Kugel said.