The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
The Black Canyon of the Gunnison was declared a national monument in 1933, and was upgraded to national park status in 1999.
The federal government holds the right to reserve water for public interests, a doctrine that extends onto national park lands and other federal reservations. Following a 1982 court decision between the city of Denver and the National Parks Service, it was determined that the federal government had reserved enough water “to preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System.”
In 2001 the National Parks Service filed an application in Gunnison District Water Court to quantify their federal reserved water right, based on a 1933 priority date, for the amount of water the Parks Service felt necessary to protect and preserve the Black Canyon.
The Parks Service and various environmental groups have argued that the Black Canyon has been in a state of environmental degradation due to sediment and vegetative build-up, caused by a lack of spring flushing flows ever since the Wayne Aspinall series of dams was built above the canyon in the 1960s.
With their 1933 priority date, the National Parks Service called for base flows of at least 300 cubic feet per second throughout the year, and higher flushing flows between May and June.
Within weeks of that application, 386 different individuals and entities, including ranchers, developers and recreational users, filed statements of opposition in the local district water court.
Local water officials said the problem was not that the Parks Service was requesting a certain flow, but that their request would have superseded longstanding water rights for ranching and agriculture in the Gunnison Basin due to its older 1933 priority date.
Water rights in Colorado are awarded through a system of prior appropriation, whereby older (senior) water rights have priority over newer (junior) rights.
Most Gunnison Valley ranchers have a 1941 water right issued through a blanket decree by the local district court that year, providing additional water deemed necessary for adequate irrigation for the valley’s rough soils.
In 2002 the federal government entered settlement negotiations with the hundreds of parties opposed to the Park Service’s application. At that time the federal government began agreeing to water rights stipulations with local water users. Twenty-two stipulations were forged during 2003, and 84 more by March 2007.
But in 2003 an agreement was reached between the state and the Department of the Interior that environmentalists said would have given the park too little water, leaving a large amount of water in Blue Mesa Reservoir open for future development interests, including trans-mountain water diversions to the Front Range. A coalition of environmental groups followed suit soon after.
In 2006, federal district court judge Clarence Brimer set aside the previous agreement, calling the decision “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion,” and the case returned to Colorado water court.
In July 2007 an agreement was reached between the state and federal and local water users to uphold the 106 stipulations signed between 2006 and early 2007. That agreement was necessary because the federal government does not have the authority to allocate water resources within the state.
Between July 2007 and June 2008 the 60 individuals and attorneys representing the various interests had been studying stream flow models, hydrographs and historical records of the Black Canyon to reach an agreement about how much water should flow through the canyon. Interest groups included the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District (UGRWCD) the National Park Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Department of the Interior, the Western Area Power Administration, Trout Unlimited, High Country Citizens’ Alliance, and others. Much of the negotiations were conducted in confidentiality.
On Friday, June 6, 2008 government officials and environmental groups announced that a tentative settlement agreement had been reached among the principal parties in the case.
