The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Cool temperatures contribute to extended runoff
The spring showers that sent a surge of drought-quenching water into Front Range reservoirs last month didn’t do much to ease local concerns, but the cooler temperatures that came with them gave local water managers some hope that the summer won’t be as dry as once feared.
“We’ve received some precipitation, but not a sufficient amount to improve the overall snowpack or water supply conditions,” Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District manager Frank Kugel says. “The bigger benefit has been the cooler temperatures that have delayed the snowmelt … and that will help with late summer flows. That’s when we’re at our lowest flows for the summer.”
The extended release of the year’s snowpack, which provides most of the Gunnison Basin’s water for the year, will be a boon to ranchers and farmers who need water for irrigation when it’s in the shortest supply. It also saves the UGRWCD from releasing stored water from Blue Mesa Reservoir and the Aspinall Unit to satisfy downstream water demands.
The UGRWCD bought 4,500 acre-feet of water earlier this year as part of an agreement with the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association. According to the agreement, the purchased water could be released downstream to avoid a call on upstream junior water uses that would have affected many Gunnison Valley users.
Kugel says the snow that fell in the first three weeks of April did a lot to delay the release of the stored water—a delay that will have its biggest benefit in June, when water storage slows down and the threat of a call on water returns. “We were looking at a bigger deficit for April and the rain and snow has offset the need for more storage,” he says.
Taking a long time to melt isn’t going to change the amount of water in the snowpack, however, and right now the amount of moisture on the ground in the Gunnison Basin is abysmal. Water content in the snow at Crested Butte Mountain Resort as of May 1 was just 39 percent of average for the year. In the Slate River valley, the snow’s water content was 36 percent of average.
Readings from the Schofield Pass SNOTEL site showed a little more water, with 66 percent of average. On Mt. Emmons, water content was 68 percent of average.
With so little water waiting in the mountains, Kugel said, it would take at least one above-average winter to refill the reservoirs in the Aspinall Unit.
Fortunately, the low water level in the Aspinall Unit isn’t having a negative effect on hydroelectric power production at the dams.
According to Curecanti Field Division manager Ted Dunn, low water in the reservoir is always a concern, but not for reasons of power generation. His concerns are mostly the same as everybody else’s when it comes to water. The Bureau of Reclamation’s job in the Aspinall Unit is producing as much power as they’re asked to produce and that’s not a problem right now.
The penstock, or pipe feeding water to the generator, is well under the surface of the water, Dunn says, and the reservoirs would have to be much lower before operations were impacted.
More than the flow of water, the bigger concern for Dunn is the dreaded ‘sequester’ that has led to a stop in the flow of cash at the Interior Department and a hiring freeze that has left four maintenance positions open at Curecanti.
“It’s just a busy season,” Dunn says.
