The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Reservoir likely won’t fill, but no red flags yet
Current projections suggest that Blue Mesa reservoir will not fill this coming summer. A January 1 forecast from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center projects that April through July runoff into the reservoir will be 450,000 acre-feet, or 67 percent of average.
Dan Crabtree with the Grand Junction Bureau of Reclamation put those numbers into perspective using inflow data collected since 1972.
“To give you an idea, since 1972 there has been only one January forecast at this level,” Crabtree said. With the exception of 1990, all other January inflow forecasts have been higher than 450,000 acre-feet. But, Crabtree cautioned, those numbers can and will change.
“For instance, the 1990 forecast ended up with 382,000 acre-feet of actual inflow from the 450,000 predicted in January, so it went down significantly over the course of the season. Now, hopefully we’ll go the other way, but you just never know,” Crabtree said.
The important thing to remember is that inflow at 67 percent of average does not mean the reservoir will be 67 percent full. Frank Kugel, general manager of the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District, pointed out that it’s early in the season, and the reservoir is starting out at roughly two thirds of its capacity.
“So the likelihood of it filling? It’s too soon to tell,” Kugel said.
According to Crabtree, winter snowfall will ultimately determine inflows into Blue Mesa. In the meantime, the Grand Junction Bureau of Reclamation will maximize water levels in the reservoir by cutting back on releases and monitoring inflow.
“At the same time, we have to meet certain targets in the winter time. We don’t want to bring the reservoir up to where it’s full and have to make a flood in order to bring it to winter target. So it’s a balancing act,” Crabtree said.
Current projections suggest that it will be 12 feet from full. According to Crabtree, that represents about 10 percent to 15 percent of reservoir capacity. And while it’s something to monitor, it doesn’t raise any major red flags.
“We’ll keep an eye on things as the season progresses. If it continues to be dry then we’ll cut back releases a little bit more. We want to max storage but at the same time don’t have expectation of filling the reservoir this year under current conditions. But there will be adequate flows in the river in the later part of the season because we are being prudent and careful now,” Crabtree said.
