Low snow years could eventually mean higher energy prices

Connection between mountain snow and desert reservoirs apparent

Despite the significant snowpack in the Gunnison Basin that’s been at, or above, average throughout the winter season and the corresponding melt that will likely fill Blue Mesa Reservoir this summer with almost 800,000 acre feet of water, there’s still a lot of concern over a drought-impacted future.

Water doesn’t just keep our mountains white in the winter and our hay meadows green in the summer. Behind the scenes it also makes our electricity significantly cheaper, and if the water behind power-producing dams drops below sustainable levels, a source of reliable and cheap renewable energy goes with it.
The Gunnison River is the fourth largest tributary to the Colorado River and, according to the United States Conference of Mayors, the combined metropolitan areas served by the resources of the Colorado River represent the world’s 12th largest economy. The river serves people through domestic use, agriculture, recreation and power production and provides habitat for countless plant and animal species.
At a number of sites throughout the Colorado River Storage Project, from Morrow Point Dam in Gunnison County to Glen Canyon Dam, the Bureau of Reclamation produces hydroelectric power that is sold to the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA).
Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell, generates enough power to help supply the electricity needs of 5.8 million people across the west. In turn, Gunnison County Electric Association (GCEA) buys WAPA power for around three cents per megawatt hour.
GCEA board president Chris Morgan says the cooperative has an annual contract with WAPA to provide power at a certain cost and that in the case of a power shortage, WAPA would have to turn to what’s known as the spot market to buy power at the market rate.
The hydropower GCEA buys from WAPA represents almost one-tenth of the coop’s power supply.
In a February 4 memo from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources Water Conservation Board, concerns about a continuing drought were laid out pretty starkly.
“Severe drought since 2000 and a supply-demand imbalance in the Lower Basin have caused both reservoirs (Lake Powell and Lake Mead) to approach critically low levels,” the memo says. “Unless something is done in response to these conditions, Lake Powell elevation could drop below the level at which the reservoir can generate hydroelectric power…”
The memo goes on to speculate that allowing Lake Powell to fall below the minimum power pool could lead to dramatically higher electric costs that could potentially increase two to four times for customers in Colorado.
Morgan says the threat of higher electricity bills isn’t imminent in the next year or two, thanks to this winter’s snowpack. But it is a concern heading into the future.
“We’ve got 90 feet of elevation in Lake Powell before we can’t generate power anymore,” Morgan says. “But it’s safe to say that if the drought that we’ve been seeing over the last ten years continues, it will be a concern.”
Morgan says GCEA customers use around 13 to 15 megawatts of electricity in the summer months and twice that much in the coldest months of the winter.
Crested Butte Mountain Resort, which consumes more power than any other GCEA customer is constantly mindful of its electricity use and has made upgrades to more energy efficient equipment as its become available. Over the last five years, the Resort has cut its power consumption by almost 20 percent.
CBMR general manager Ethan Mueller said energy is a big expense and when the price goes up, the Resort has little choice but to pass that cost onto customers.
“Clearly if we saw rate hikes, even small rate hikes, it does have an affect on us,” Mueller says. “Those are things we don’t have a lot of control over, so we have to pass those costs on. But there are two main things we try to do to limit that: increase [skier] volume, which we’re always trying to do, and reduce consumption.”
And in a place where a lot of water is trapped behind dams, it only makes sense to tap into the electricity generating potential the dams have.
One potential local source of hydropower that’s been discussed for several years is Taylor Dam, which is owned by the Bureau of Reclamation and is already served by a single-phase power line that could be used as a transmission line if a hydropower plant is ever installed at the dam.
“We’ve been doing studies and GCEA has been seriously considering putting a generation unit in there. But there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered and a lot of players are involved,” Morgan says, adding that the single-phase line could carry up to a megawatt of electricity. While a larger line could carry more power he said it would cost millions to install and could take years to negotiate.
And still, at the end of the process, generating power would depend on the availability of water, which is more predictable at Taylor Reservoir than it is downstream in Glen Canyon. But the Colorado River and its tributaries are so connected that almost nothing can happen in the headwaters without a consultation with water users further downstream.
After more than 14 years of drought in the western U.S., the potential for conflict is high and the history of water use agreements so steeped in intergovernmental agreements and court rulings that most water-related conversations are carried out by as many lawyers as water engineers.
John McClow, who serves as the attorney for the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District and also as the Governor’s representative on Colorado River matters, says people in the upper Colorado River Basin, including those in Gunnison County, need to be aware of what’s happening in lakes Mead and Powell in order to keep enough water flowing downstream and stave off restrictions on local water use.
“You can’t predict the weather but they did design the Colorado River Compact around some of the highest water years on record,” Morgan says. “If you look at the data, we could be in a long downward trend. If that’s the case, we’re going to run into trouble.”
The defining requirement of the CRC is simply to keep water flowing – at least 7.5 million acre-feet at Lee’s Ferry over any ten year period. In that way, the shortage guidelines require that the upper basin state’s look at the levels of both lakes Mead and Powell when administering Colorado River water.
This year, the discharge from Lake Powell dropped to its lowest level since the dam opened in 1963, although the actual level of the reservoir dropped lower in 2005. But the snow season is only about two-thirds of the way over in terms of average accumulation and the Bureau of Reclamation is far from certain about how this year’s snowpack will impact the reservoirs.
On its website, the Bureau says, “The unregulated inflow during the 2000-2013 period has ranged from a low of 24 percent of average in water year 2002 to a high of 147 percent of average in water year 2011.  Under the current forecast, total water year 2014 inflows to Lake Powell are expected to range between a minimum probable of 73 percent of average and a maximum probable of 124 percent of average.”
As for how that will impact the future, McClow says, “The hydrology of the river is extremely variable. So we could very easily be right back in this hole next year. We’re continuing to attempt to devise solutions even though we won’t need them in 2014.”