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Five grants totaling $204,125 were awarded for projects that benefit the river and its tributaries.

The group is providing funding that will help ensure additional flows are available in late summer from Stagecoach Reservoir as needed.

The group is also contributing to a floodplain planning project downstream of Steamboat Springs, and a bank stabilization and riparian restoration project in that area. Two other projects will improve irrigation diversion infrastructure while incorporating techniques to encourage environmental and recreational improvements.

“Word has gotten out and we are seeing a broad range of important projects applying for Yampa River Fund grants,” said Mike Robertson, Yampa River Fund manager for Friends of the Yampa. “We believe this critical funding source can help facilitate the types of projects that improve the health of the river for the benefit of us all.”

The group’s 2024 grant recipients are the Colorado Water Trust, Friends of the Yampa, Trout Unlimited and the Community Agriculture Alliance.

The Colorado Water Trust received a grant for its 2024 Yampa River Environmental Release Program. The trust has a 10-year contract with Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District to strategically release up to 5,100 acre-feet from Stagecoach Reservoir to benefit the environment and other water users.

Farther downstream on the Yampa River, the trust will also use some Yampa River Fund grant funding in coordination with funds from the Colorado River Water Conservation District to release up to 2,000 acre-feet from Elkhead Reservoir.

Friends of the Yampa received a grant for its project involving a feasibility study, modeling and planning for the Yampa River Habitat Connectivity in Morgan Bottom. This project will conduct planning to reconnect the Yampa River to its floodplain and improve terrestrial and aquatic habitat, beginning on the Yampavian Ranch and continuing westward. Specific activities include engaging landowners, conducting hydraulic modeling and developing a conceptual design for habitat connectivity in support of holistic riparian and aquatic health.

Trout Unlimited’s grant funding will go toward its Flanders Ranch Habitat Improvement Project, which focuses on bank stabilization and riparian restoration work on a 600-foot eroding bank of the Yampa River between Hayden and Steamboat Springs. Riparian vegetation will be planted on over an acre of land to help encourage revegetation of the disturbed site. This project will help the landowner retain valuable land from further erosion and improve water quality by reducing excess sediments in the river.

The Community Agriculture Alliance’s Nickell Diversion and Riparian Restoration project plans to install a permanent stop log diversion at the Nickell Ditch. This will also include riparian restoration just above the installed diversion, combining bank grading with tree planting and other techniques.

The Community Agriculture Alliance will also use grant funds to start the planning process and development of alternatives for the Duquette Ditch Diversion just downstream of Steamboat Springs. The project will also include riparian restoration on the centennial Stanko Ranch.

Jackie Brown, chair of the Yampa River Fund Board, hailed “another successful year” for the fund.

“Our board and steering committee continue to plan for how we can meet the dynamic needs of a basin facing a multitude of water challenges at a local level,” Brown said.

The Yampa River Fund was launched in September 2019 to provide a sustainable, voluntary funding source for the Yampa River to enhance water security and support a healthy, flowing river by enhancing critical low flows and maintaining or improving river function through a holistic approach to restoration of habitat.

The Fund is governed by a 21-member founding board representing local governments, community and statewide NGOs, businesses, water providers and irrigation districts.

More information on the Yampa River Fund can be found at YampaRiverfund.org.

Craig Press
Author: Ashley Dishman
Read the original article here. 

The post River Fund announces grant recipients appeared first on Colorado Water Trust.

Senate Bill 197 would help electric utilities hold onto water rights that could otherwise be declared “abandoned” as the state transitions to clean energy. It would also enhance protections for environmental and agricultural water, and ease access to funding for tribes.

The bill grew out of water policy recommendations developed by the Colorado River Drought Task Force in 2023. The bill, which passed with bipartisan support, is the legislature’s main effort this year to address those recommendations — and to help Colorado address its uncertain water future. Polis has until June 7 to sign the bill, allow it to become law without his endorsement or veto it.

“Senate Bill 197, and the changes contained in that bill, would not have happened if the task force hadn’t met and done the work to talk about it,” said Sen. Dylan Roberts of Summit County, who co-sponsored the bill.

Lawmakers created the Colorado River Drought Task Force to help guide the state’s response to its water woes.Southwestern U.S. endured the driest 22-year period in 1,200 years starting in 2000. The Colorado River Basin’s immense reservoirs have dropped to historic lows. In Colorado, the average yearly temperature has increased 2 degrees in the last 30 years. Its cities, towns and industries could be short 230,000 acre-feet to 740,000 acre-feet by 2050.

One acre-foot roughly equals nearly 326,000 gallons, enough to serve at least two to three households in a year.

The 17-member task force met for weeks in 2023, facing early concerns about a slower-than-desired start. Members traveled all over the state and gathered public comment on how to protect the Colorado River and other state water interests. The group released 24 recommendations for new water policies and programs in December.

One recommendation, aimed at prohibiting the installation of nonfunctional turf — grass that is not used primarily for recreational purposes — has already been signed into law by Polis. Turf replacement is popular across the state and a valuable water conservation effort that will need continued funding in the future, Roberts said.

Another offered by the sub-task force focused on tribal affairs, became a legislative resolution calling on Congress to fund a deteriorating irrigation system in southwest Colorado.

“That often doesn’t happen quickly, so we’ll have to be persistent in that effort, I’m sure,” Roberts said.

Protecting electric utilities

Colorado electric utilities are shutting down coal-fired power plants in response to the state’s transition to 100% clean electricity generation by 2040 — a process that puts their water rights at risk.

These power plants use water to produce steam to run power generators and for cooling, which means electric utilities have over time amassed large portfolios of water rights. Under Colorado water law, if that water is not used consistently over a period of time, then it could be declared “abandoned.” At that point, the utility could lose access to the water entirely.

Electric utilities want to hold onto those rights as they transition to other technologies that use water, said Jackie Brown, senior water and natural resource policy advisor for Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association.

This bill protects the electric utilities’ water from abandonment until 2050. Utilities would face limitations, like not being able to sell water out of state.

“If we didn’t have this (protection), we would be consistently fighting to maintain that amount of water, and there is zero certainty that we would win that fight,” Brown said.

The unused water would remain in rivers and streams to be used by downstream farmers, ranchers, cities and other water users.

“This keeps the status quo. Ranchers and other water users are used to the way we use water,” Brown said. “During that period of time where we’re researching, it helps the community.”

Adding more flexibility for water, funding

Senate Bill 197, one of 10 water measures passed this year, also tackles three other recommendations made by the task force.The bill would allow the Colorado Water Conservation Board, a state water agency, to waive or reduce matching fund requirements for water grants for the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and Ute Mountain Ute Indian Tribe, both of which have reservation land in Colorado. Challenges accessing those funds was a key issue that came up during task force discussions.

It would also expand the state’s instream flow program, which keeps water in rivers to help the environment especially when water levels drop in the late summer.

Water users — like a farmer or utility company — that own rights to water stored in reservoirs could temporarily loan their supply to the state to boost the flow in a stretch of a river where there is not an existing instream flow right. (The loan would still go through extensive review processes with the state.)

The proposed change will offer more flexibility on where in Colorado a temporary loan could be made, experts said.

“This could be a tool that we could propose to the owner of a storage water right: ‘Here’s something that you could do if you want to restore flows in your stream,’” said Josh Boissevain, a staff attorney for the Colorado Water Trust which works closely with the instream flow program.

Farmers, ranchers and irrigation water rights owners would also have more flexibility to loan their water to non-irrigators, like cities and towns, for temporary, compensated use under the bill — without having to permanently change the decreed water right or lose access to their water.

“The idea was, if you can create more temporary loan opportunities, that reduces the incentive to permanently change agricultural water rights to municipal use,” said Kelly Romero-Heaney, assistant director for water policy for the state Department of Natural Resources.

There were some concepts on which the task force did not reach consensus, like how to save water within Colorado to send out of state in order to comply with interstate water-sharing obligations — like those with other states in the Colorado River Basin — a concept called demand management.

The changes in the bill are incremental, but significant, and there is plenty that still needs to be discussed, said Zane Kessler, director of government relations for the Colorado River District.

“Sometimes water legislation, like water projects, works in water time — which is not always super expeditious,” he said. “That’s by design, right? This is a resource that we all depend on. Being thoughtful … taking our time is, I don’t think, ever a bad thing.”

The Colorado Sun
Author: Shannon Mullane
Read the original article here.

The post Colorado lawmakers aim to bolster water protections for electric utilities, others appeared first on Colorado Water Trust.

The panel of water-resources experts included Kate Ryan, CWT’s executive director; Hattie Johnson, restoration director for American Whitewater’s Southern Rockies Stewardship Program; Andy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District (CRWCD); and Mark Harris, senior water resources consultant for the engineering and consulting firm SGM. The discussion was moderated by Heather Sackett, AJ’s Water Desk editor and reporter, who has written numerous articles on water issues relating to the Roaring Fork and upper Colorado River watersheds.

Sackett set the tone for the evening by stating, “Informed citizens make better decisions,” noting that there are too many demands on Western water and not enough water to go around. Each panelist then briefly summarized some of their activities. Ryan described how water rights were established beginning in the 19th century, and how CWT has been “working on a lot of water-sharing projects” aimed at keeping more water in the region’s rivers. She gave as an example the agreement with local ranchers Bill Fales and Marj Perry not to exercise their water rights at times but to be reimbursed for leaving unused water in the Crystal River.

Mueller, noting that “We represent everybody,” explained that CRWCD is a government agency encompassing 15 Western Slope counties (“conservative and liberal”). Among examples of the agency’s activities, he cited the release of “clean, cold water” from Ruedi Reservoir in the unusually warm summer of 2018 to save fish in the Fryingpan River.

Johnson described how her stewardship program has been promoting policies that improve water recreation opportunities, though she mentioned how two such measures introduced in the Colorado legislature have yet to pass. She did note the “robust” recreation on the Arkansas River (on the eastern side of the Continental Divide), which Mueller humorously quipped was possible “with Roaring Fork water” diverted across the divide.

Finally, Harris described his role working to protect water rights for agriculture and to help the wider community “understand what agriculture is doing currently.” He added that he is working to “make a more nuanced approach that agriculture brings to the other needs” (like streamflow protection). He pointed out that farmers and ranchers “serve as caretakers for a good deal of the American West.”

Much of the ensuing discussion focused on the concept of instream water conservation — employing methods by which water that could be removed from rivers or streams is left flowing. One approach is reimbursing water rights owners for not using their water, as in the Fales/Perry example. Another strategy is to purchase water rights from a holder, a method widely used by the CWT, CRWCD and others.

Notable in this latter regard has been the effort underway by those organizations and others to secure from Xcel Energy the Shoshone hydroelectric station’s senior water rights on the Colorado River. The plant does not remove water from the river but instead diverts water upstream of the station to run the turbines before returning it to the river. Thus, the intent of the project is to ensure that that water allotment stays in the river rather than potentially being diverted by another entity that purchases the rights.

In a Q&A period at the end of the evening, an audience member asked if speculation of water rights — i.e., acquiring rights to treat them as fungible commodities — was a problem. All panelists responded that it was a potential problem, with Ryan noting, “Speculation is a threat to our work.”

Mueller pointed out, “You can’t hoard a bunch of water if you’re not going to use it,” but cautioned that speculation could have “huge losses, especially for small communities.” He added, “Once the water leaves the community, you see your future floating down the river.”

More information on the panelists’ organizations can be found at coloradowatertrust.org; www.americanwhitewater.org; www.coloradoriverdistrict.org; and sgm-inc.com

The Sopris Sun
Author: Ken Pletcher
Read the original article here. 

The post Panel discusses Western water needs and challenges appeared first on Colorado Water Trust.

“This quarter, we presented a slate of projects which represent the diverse needs of water users across our district,” said Amy Moyer, Director of Strategic Partnerships. “All sectors across the West Slope are looking at strategies to adapt in a hotter, drier climate. These projects are examples of the innovation, ingenuity, and perseverance required to respond to these growing pressures.”

The grants approved by the board on Wednesday will provide funding for a wide array of projects including: municipal-level support to develop land-use policies that integrate resilient water resource management; ongoing research on the occurrence of algae in Blue Mesa Reservoir; habitat restoration along the Blue River; emergency funding to repair an irrigation ditch serving producers on the Crystal River; permitting and analysis of storage on the White River; four agriculture projects in the Upper Gunnison River Basin; diversion structure upgrades on the Little Snake River; and strategic water releases from Elkhead and Stagecoach Reservoirs to help maintain streamflow in the Yampa River.

The Community Funding Partnership program, now in its fourth year, is governed by policies which require successful applicants to demonstrate how their project serves multiple beneficiaries across a region or watershed. Multi-benefit categories include productive agriculture, infrastructure, healthy rivers, watershed health, and conservation and efficiency. More information can be found at www.coloradoriverdistrict.org/community-funding-partnership/.

The eight projects approved by the board on April 17th are listed below. Detailed project descriptions and staff recommendations are available in the public meeting packet HERE.

West Slope Growing Water Smart
Applicant: The Sonoran Institute
Total Approved: $98,426
District-Wide

Blue River Habitat Restoration Project
Applicant: Blue River Watershed Group
Total Approved: $150,000
Summit County

East Mesa Ditch Emergency Repairs
Applicant: East Mesa Water Company
Total Approved: $207,500
Pitkin and Garfield Counties

Little Snake River Diversion Structure Rehabilitation Project
Applicant: Pothook Water Conservancy District
Total Approved: $250,000
Moffat and Routt Counties

Wolf Creek Reservoir Project
Applicant: Rio Blanco Water Conservancy District
Total Approved: $550,000
Rio Blanco and Moffat Counties

Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District Agriculture Bundled Project
Applicant: Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District
Total Approved: $114,400
Gunnison and Saguache Counties

Blue Mesa Harmful Algal Bloom Study – Phase II
Applicant: Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District
Total Approved: $35,004
Gunnison County

Yampa River Reservoir Release Program
Applicant: Colorado Water Trust
Total Approved: $218,585.57
Routt and Moffat Counties

-Colorado River District

Morning AgClips
Read the original AgClips article here.
Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

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There may be no performing arts organization in the Roaring Fork Valley that puts on more free events than The Arts Campus at Willits. This offseason, several are scheduled that won’t cost you a nickel to attend.

TACAW Executive Director Ryan Honey said 29% of the 167 public events held last year had free admission. The nonprofit is hoping to build on that figure in 2024, he said.

“This year, we aim to outdo ourselves and beat that number,” Honey said. “The JW Francis and Paul Cherry show and our inaugural Listening Party featuring Pearl Jam will help us get there. We are proud to be a place where anyone in the community can enjoy arts, culture, and entertainment without worrying about the price tag.”

Tonight’s free event is a symposium called “Hanging in the Balance: Competing Needs for Water in the West.”

Presented by Aspen Journalism and Colorado Water Trust in partnership with TACAW and Aspen Public Radio, the symposium will feature a panel discussion on the challenges regarding the increasing demand for water as supply is decreasing. The panel will examine this issue of how to balance the needs of environment, recreation and agriculture with a limited resource.

A cash bar with hosted snacks opens at 5:15 p.m. and the discussion is slated to begin at 6:15 p.m. The panel will be moderated by Heather Sackett and features Kate Ryan, Hattie Johnson and Mark Harris. 

On Friday, indie outsiders turned accidental Spotify success stories JW Francis and Paul Cherry will bring their unique blend of lo-fi jangly guitar music for two solo sets by each artist. Each will play a solo set, with some cross-pollination happening with the two artists.

The rock band Pearl Jam will release its 13th album, “Dark Matter,” on April 19 and TACAW is using the release as a way to launch a new program called “Listening Party” where people can come out and have an immersive listening party around an album.

This happy-hour event will gather music lovers to enjoy community, refreshments, and listen to a new or cherished record, selected by a guest curator.

The first curator is Honey, who has been a member of the 10 Club (Pearl Jam’s fan club) since they started in 1991 and he will be on hand to mingle with fellow Pearl Jam enthusiasts, swap stories and revel in the collective excitement of experiencing new music together. As the TACAW website says, “Flannel shirts and Doc Martens are optional, but strongly encouraged.”

April 30, Jazz Aspen Snowmass presents International Jazz Day Student Showcase, which will highlight many of the top student jazz bands in the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond. This year’s performance will include bands from Aspen, Roaring Fork, Glenwood Springs, Rifle and Coal Ridge high schools. The event is free and open to the public.

May 16, TACAW presents a symposium on the issue of light pollution. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the talk begins at 7 p.m. “About Stars and Stripes: Preserving the Night Skies” features Jeffrey Hall, who will tackle the topic of light pollution from the standpoint of its connection to other issues of how we care for our planet.

Hall is executive director of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and will share Lowell’s ongoing legacy of cutting-edge research of our solar system and beyond using the Lowell Discovery Telescope, and how that research began to be challenged by the quiet, steady invasion of light pollution. As a result, Dr. Hall worked extensively on dark sky preservation in Flagstaff and throughout Arizona. His dedication resulted in Flagstaff becoming the World’s First International Dark Sky City in 2001.

June 1, TACAW will host a free community event for all things connected to the river. This year, The Roaring Fork Conservancy’s “runoff party” has moved to TACAW. The idea is to get ready for the summer on the river, from tying a fly, to river etiquette and safety. Whether novices or experts, the idea of the event is to get river-ready for the summer. There will be food trucks, gear vendors and more.

Aspen Daily News
Author: Geoff Hanson
Read the original Aspen Daily News article. 

The post Free events abound at TACAW this summer appeared first on Colorado Water Trust.

As a legal intern at Colorado Water Trust, Oliver helped develop a first-of-its-kind water and land valuation model, reviewed water sharing agreements, and wrote and briefed Trust staff on anything from the Sackett decision to the equity impacts of the 15-Mile Reach Project. In his current and former role as a law clerk at Trout Raley and Somach Simmons & Dunn, respectively, he has further refined his legal writing and research skills by drafting memos on tribal water rights settlements, geothermal regulations, the private right to condemnation, and many other issues within the Colorado doctrine.

Oliver’s personal and professional experience has given him the ability to view issues holistically, critically analyze them, then develop collaborative, considerate solutions. He is immensely passionate about the future of water in the American West, particularly Colorado’s role as a headwater state, and looks forward to the continuation of his work in this ever-changing landscape.

University of Colorado Boulder Getches Wilkinson Center School of Law
Read the original article here. 

The post Oliver Skelly (Colorado Law ’25) Named Inaugural 2024 Conscience Bay Company Western Water Policy Fellow appeared first on Colorado Water Trust.

The grant is part of GOCO’s Planning and Capacity program, which invests in projects that address opportunities, explore issues, engage communities, and examine outdoor trends.

Colorado Open Lands (COL) will partner with Colorado West Land Trust to collaborate and learn from each other’s water-focused work across the continental divide. COL will also bring together partners representing varied interests in the South Platte River Basin, including municipal water developers, water conservancy districts, those interested in farmland, and the Colorado Water Trust. Together they will explore new strategies and financing tools to encourage collaborative investments in farmland and water rights that meet multiple uses and keep the economy and ecology of the region intact.

Carmen Farmer, Senior Project Manager at Colorado Open Lands shared, “We are excited about this opportunity to explore a new paradigm in land and water conservation, one that emphasizes collaboration and innovation to address the complex challenges facing not only the South Platte River Basin, but also the greater challenges across an ever-growing Colorado.”

The South Platte River Basin is home to some of Colorado’s most productive farmland and largest farm economies. It is also located in one of the state’s fastest-growing counties with the most water rights in the state. Traditional conservation easements have not been enough to counter the rapid conversion of irrigated farmland, and easements have been at least four times as expensive as other regions. This project is critical to ensuring important lands and their resources are conserved.

Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) invests a portion of Colorado Lottery proceeds to help preserve and enhance the state’s parks, trails, wildlife, rivers, and open spaces. GOCO’s independent board awards competitive grants to local governments and land trusts and makes investments through Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Created when voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1992, GOCO has since funded more than 5,600 projects in all 64 counties of Colorado without any tax dollar support. Visit GOCO.org for more information.

Journal-Advocate
Read the original Journal-Advocate article.

The post Colorado Open Lands nets $298K GOCO grant for conservation planning along the South Platte River appeared first on Colorado Water Trust.

American Water Works Association (November 30, 2023)—A collaborative agreement among several water partners will increase flows and improve the health of stretches of the Fraser River in Grand County, Colorado, popular for recreational activities.

Several years of discussion and analysis led to the agreement, which stipulates that Colorado Water Trust, a nonprofit organization, will pay Grand County Irrigated Land Company (GCILC) to release water from the Meadow Creek Reservoir to increase flows in a section of the Upper Fraser River. This 10-mile stretch, between the cities of Winter Park and Tabernash, is a popular spot for fly fishing and an area where brown trout spawn in the fall. (Pictured right, fly fishing along the Fraser River.)

The water released from the reservoir will go to Denver Water’s Moffat Collection System. In exchange, Denver Water will divert about five cubic feet per second less water from the Jim Creek collection point. The Coca-Cola Company and Swire Coca-Cola (Coca-Cola’s distributor in the western United States) are funding the transaction.

The agreement is for one year, but all parties involved hope to extend the agreement as part of a long-term solution to increase Fraser River flows.

“Historically, the Upper Fraser River near Winter Park has seen low flows, particularly in August and September when resident trout are starting their fall spawning migration,” said Tony LaGreca, project manager for the Colorado Water Trust, in a press release. Since 2001, the nonprofit has restored nearly 21 billion gallons of water to 600 miles of Colorado’s rivers and streams by developing and implementing voluntary, water sharing agreements.

“Boosting flows at this time can help those fish have successful spawning runs and keep this valuable recreational fishery healthy,” LaGreca said. “We are fortunate to have an excellent partner in GCILC and we look forward to working with them long into the future to keep the Fraser River flowing strong.”

GCLIC, located in Granby, Colorado, operates an irrigation ditch that transports water to shareholders and leasing properties.

“By partnering with the Water Trust, GCILC hopes the releases of water from Meadow Creek Reservoir will, in a small way, help to mitigate the impacts to the watershed from the trans-mountain diversions, and be consistent with the Colorado River Cooperative Agreement,” said Mike Holmes, president of GCILC.

“Water in Colorado is complex, and this project has a lot of different entities involved to make sure Denver Water is kept whole in terms of water,” said Nathan Elder, manager of water supply at Denver Water. “Denver Water has the infrastructure to make it happen, Grand County Irrigators brought the water and Colorado Water Trust brought the money. All those made it work together.”

American Water Works Association
Read the original American Water Works Association article. 

The post Multi-group collaboration spawns better fishing in Colorado appeared first on Colorado Water Trust.

The river, flowing through the most populated section of the county’s postcard scenery, has been the focus of yearslong efforts to improve its water quality, aquatic habitat and recreational offerings.

In late summer 2023, it got yet another lift, benefiting from a new, collective effort led by the Colorado Water Trust and including Denver Water, local irrigators, state officials, the Colorado River District, the Coca-Cola Co. and Learning By Doing, the cooperative group of water representatives on both sides of the Continental Divide.

The parties fashioned a 10-year arrangement that — when water is available — will put additional water into Grand County’s Fraser River during the late summer, when its flows are typically low due to the end of runoff season, diversions to the Front Range and agricultural needs.

Put simply, the Colorado Water Trust secured about 50 acre-feet of water from Grand County Irrigated Land Company, which goes by GCILC and owns water rights in the area, to be used for the river and the fish that live in it. (That’s roughly enough water to serve 100 to 150 families a year.)

Under the agreement, Denver Water will leave 50 acre-feet of water in the upper reaches of the Fraser near Winter Park, instead of diverting it into the Moffat Collection system. GCLIC makes Denver Water whole by assigning 50 acre-feet of its water shares that are stored in Meadow Creek Reservoir, which is downriver of Denver Water’s Fraser River diversion point, over to the utility, which also has storage rights in the reservoir.

Image

This map shows how the Fraser River flows northwest from Winter Park to Granby. The agreement involving Denver Water and the Colorado Water Trust means more water will flow along that stretch of the river late in the season, aiding conditions for fish. Instead of diverting water into the Moffat Tunnel (shown in blue on the map), Denver Water will leave water in the Fraser basin for environmental purposes. Image credit: Denver Water.

“Historically the Upper Fraser River near Winter Park has seen low flows, particularly in August and September when resident trout are starting their fall spawning migration. Boosting flows at this time can help those fish have successful spawning runs and keep this valuable recreational fishery healthy,” said Tony LaGreca, the Colorado Water Trust’s project manager for the initiative.

The latest agreement required significant coordination with water users and state officials and comes on top of other work over the last decade to improve the popular river.

Denver Water has a significant impact on the Fraser’s flows as it diverts water from the upper reaches of the river into its Moffat Collection system for use on the Front Range.

Consequently, the utility in the last decade has emphasized work to improve the condition of the river. Such efforts are part of the Colorado River Cooperative Agreement, a landmark pact signed in 2013 that pledged greater cooperation between Front Range and West Slope water interests.

That work includes the creation of a sediment trap near Winter Park to capture road sand running off U.S. 40 that would otherwise mar water quality in the river. That project, a collaboration of Denver Water and several partners, has been working since 2013 to ensure cleaner water in the Fraser by keeping hundreds of tons of sand out of the waterway.

Denver Water also worked with Learning by Doing and other partners beginning in 2015 to restore a stretch of river called Fraser Flats north of Winter Park. The work included changes to the streambed to create deeper channels and planting of hundreds of willows and cottonwoods along the banks.

That project has been successful in creating better aquatic habitat by shading the river and giving fish more places to cool off when water levels drop, leading to a boost in fish numbers.

Denver Water has also completed several other environmental improvement projects in Grand County as part of its mitigation agreements related to the ongoing expansion of Gross Reservoir in Boulder County.

Once complete, Gross Reservoir’s expanded capacity will provide more flexibility to Denver Water in how it manages its water supply and kick off an agreement that would see Denver Water leave up to 1,000 additional acre-feet of water in the Fraser River to address periods of high temperatures and low stream flows.

This latest effort, with the Colorado Water Trust, took a lot of time to put together, said Nathan Elder, manager of supply for Denver Water.

Elder credited his colleague, Cynthia Brady, a senior engineer at Denver Water, for leading the work and coordinating with so many organizations, including state water officials who needed assurance the project wouldn’t affect other water interests.

“We had to find a way to meet everybody’s needs. It didn’t come together quickly; a lot of different stakeholders needed to come together and work closely with the Colorado Division of Water Resources,” Brady said.

“Ultimately this proved to be a good agreement, and a good project where everyone saw benefits. I’m glad we at Denver Water could be involved and play a big role in making this happen.”

Denver Water
Author: Todd Hartman
Read the original Denver Water article. 

The post Another big boost for the Fraser River appeared first on Colorado Water Trust.

Most of the water from the Dolores River ends up in Mcphee Reservoir, just outside of the town of Dolores, and is diverted south, to water fields and ranches in Cortez, the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation, and Dove Creek, the former of the two are outside of the Dolores River watershed.

Any leftover water by then is in the San Juan River basin, leaving very little for the lower Dolores River.

A Nearly Two-Decade Collaboration

In 2022, legislation for a National Conservation Area (NCA) along the lower Dolores River was first introduced to Congress by Democratic Senator Michael Bennett. The legislation had been in the works since 2008 by a bipartisan group of stakeholders, known as the Lower Dolores Working Group, which included Senator Bennet’s staff members.

“The Lower Dolores Working Group included water districts like Montezuma Valley Irrigation Company and Dolores Water Conservancy District, and… the Ute Mountain Ute tribe and ranchers and motorized recreation folks and conservation folks and private property owners, basically anyone that could be affected by whatever happens with the river corridor,” said Jeff Widen in a Daily Yonder interview, senior regional conservation representative for the Wilderness Society and one of the original members of the working group.

Every stakeholder who was interviewed by the Daily Yonder for this story expressed their support for the current legislation. The common thread was that this bill brought people together, across political lines and social divides. The past fifteen years have been spent in conversation and collaboration to make something that every party supports.

But another common refrain was that this bill is delicate. A few changes could make it all fall apart, said Widen.

The legislation was reintroduced in 2023, with an identical bill being introduced in the House soon after by Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert. In July 2023, the bill had a hearing in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Widen hopes that the bill will get a markup, where they make any agreed-upon changes, in November, but “you never actually know until it happens,” said Widen. The House of Representatives bill has not yet had a hearing, due to the just recently resolved lack of a House Speaker.

Protecting the Values and Interests of Everyone Involved

The Lower Dolores Working Group originally started as a Wild and Scenic Suitability study in the mid-2000s. The Dolores River, below Mcphee Dam, was given Wild and Scenic River suitability in 1976 and again in 2013. However, local consensus was against Wild and Scenic designation because the designation comes with a water right, which many farmers and ranchers in the area worried would take their allotments of water away, despite the new water right being far junior to any already established.

The National Conservation Area legislation trades Wild and Scenic suitability for similar protections in the form of a National Conservation Area and a Special Management Area (SMA), without the water right for the river. Management Area (SMA). The SMA would exist on Forest Service-managed land, while the NCA would exist on Bureau of Land Management land.

“I felt like there was a threat from Wild and Scenic,” said Al Heaton, a rancher who runs cattle along the Dolores River and an original member of the Lower Dolores Working Group, “I feel like this legislation, if we can get it through, protects a lot of the things that Wild and Scenic would protect without threatening some of the other values and uses.”

The legislation would create an Advisory Council made up of local stakeholders to provide input to land managers, similar to the Lower Dolores Plan Working Group. This way the NCA and SMA would be managed according to the values and uses of all stakeholders. “The lands belong to everyone. They need to be used respectfully, but they need to be available to all uses,” said Steve Garchar, Dolores County Commissioner.

In June 2023, many of the members of the Lower Dolores Plan Working Group and stakeholders in the future of the Dolores River had the opportunity to float the river. For some, it was the umpteenth time on the river, but this specific trip was an opportunity to introduce Senator Michael Bennet, his staff, and his family to the river they were all fighting to protect. Other attendees included Democratic Senator Hickenlooper, county commissioners from four different counties, representatives from various conservation groups, land managers, and more.

“​​You’re talking about a very diverse set of people. San Miguel County headquarters, their County seat is in Telluride. Dolores County’s seat is in Dove Creek. You couldn’t find two more economically and culturally different counties and yet they became really fast partners in trying to get this legislation done,” said Mike Preston, Ute Mountain Ute water consultant. He has been involved with the working group from the beginning when he was the manager of the Dolores Water Conservancy District.

The NCA and SMA would come with protections for the values and interests of all of the involved parties. The proposed legislation would honor existing mining, and logging claims, but prevent future claims within the protected area. Livestock grazing will continue to be managed as it currently exists through the BLM. New dams on the Dolores or its tributaries will be prohibited. The legislation also requires land managers to manage the NCA and SMA with the benefit of native fish in mind.

The collaborative nature of this legislation is very evident in the way those involved have come to care about each other’s interests. Widen, who works for a nonprofit dedicated to the wilderness, says he “will be one of the ones defending [Al Heaton’s] grazing allotment if anyone ever tries to challenge it, because we worked together for so many years, and that’s the agreement we made.”

What About the Water?

However, the NCA legislation does not address the fact that there is not enough water in the river, which affects the fish populations and the broader ecosystem.

In an analysis of biodiversity on unprotected public lands across Colorado, it was found that the Dolores River Canyon is the largest and most biologically diverse unprotected publicly-owned landscape in Colorado. However, much of the area with the highest biodiversity falls outside of the currently proposed NCA and SMA land, in Montrose and Mesa Counties to the north.

“The Dolores River is over appropriated by a long shot,” said Widen.”Unless there’s a big heavy precipitation year, all the water is spoken for, there is no extra water in the river physically in an average year.”

The NCA, while it does protect the free-flowing nature of the Lower Dolores and its tributaries which includes the San Miguel River, does not address the instream flow issues. The Lower Dolores from Mcphee Dam to the confluence with the San Miguel River has the poorest native fish population of any large Western Colorado river. 

“The low flows on the Dolores…are the single biggest threat to the Dolores River, but they’re not the only threat,” said Mike Fiebig, director of the Southwest River Protection Program at American Rivers, “There’s still plenty of other things that could damage that river, whether it’s further dams or diversions out basin, oil and gas development within the river corridor, or mining development.”

The water issues in the Dolores River are a microcosm of what’s happening across the whole Colorado River Basin, said Fulton. But to get more water into the river will require some creativity.

“The only way to get more water is for someone to give up their water rights or sell ’em,” said Widen. He sees the potential for willing water rights holders to sell or lease water rights for the river itself. But this would require interested and willing water rights owners.

The Colorado Water Trust is a Colorado-based nonprofit that does just this, working with landowners who want to use some or all of their water rights to benefit the river, using short or long-term leases or loans. Tony LaGreca, stewardship manager for the Colorado Water Trust, says that due to the complexity of the Dolores River, the tools they use for other river projects won’t work effectively.

This is primarily because of the sheer amount of water that would need to be leased or purchased to get the river up to even its baseline flow. Also, because there are no large municipalities or economic drivers downstream, “we’re really limited to the strictly environmental and recreational benefits, which are not very high on a lot of people’s list of benefits, and generally don’t draw big dollars,” said LaGreca.

There is potential for farmers and ranchers to let fields go fallow for a year and lease their water without losing rights, which could put more water in the river while also helping with additional income. “They could probably get just as much if not more money for their water than what they would get for a cutting of alfalfa,” said Fulton.

Another potential way for more water to end up downstream would be if one or more of the native fish in the Dolores was put on the Endangered Species list, which could mandate the government to release more water from Mcphee Dam to preserve the fish population, said Fulton. This is not a popular option for landowners and water rights holders and is one of the reasons that fish are a main priority for protection with the NCA legislation.

But even though the NCA legislation does not address getting more water into the river, this bill is an example of community-led conservation and compromise, said Fulton, no one got everything they wanted. But everyone has something they feel good about supporting.

“The Dolores is a really special place,” said Fiebig. “In an era of increasing climate change where rivers are receiving less moisture…protections like this are something that we need to do. We need to do more of them, not less of them.”

The Daily Yonder
Author: Llana Newman
Read the original Daily Yonder Article. 

The post An Unlikely Coalition to Protect Colorado’s Dolores River appeared first on Colorado Water Trust.

The Colorado Water Trust is a nonprofit that works to match distressed streams with water right holders interested in selling, donating or leasing water that can be used to boost streamflows. It spearheaded the Fraser’s 10-year instream flow agreement. Participants also include Learning By Doing, an East Slope-West Slope partnership that works on local stream restoration projects

Coca-Cola Corporation, as well as one of its bottlers and distributors, Swire Coca-Cola, have pledged $24,000 annually to pay for the water and the restoration work, according to Tony LaGreca, Colorado Water Trust’s project manager for the Fraser program.

Erica Hansen, external communications manager for Swire, said the Coca-Cola companies have 35 environmental water projects across a 13-state region, including 10 in Colorado that are completed, underway or pending.

“We operate in several states that are high drought risk,” Hansen said. “Any drop we use we’re putting back into nature. The Fraser River project is one of the ways we do that.”

LaGreca said the new initiative represents an important step forward in restorative water management in Grand County and Colorado.

“There was a time,” he said, “when we did not have irrigation companies coming to us to find ways to put water into the river for fish. But more and more we are having successful partnerships to increase flows as part of a larger water management strategy.”

Grand County is home to the headwaters of the Colorado River and the Fraser River, one of its tributaries. Both waterways are heavily diverted to the Front Range to serve residents and farms from Denver up to Fort Collins and out to the Nebraska border.

Over the years, as droughts have become more common and climate change has sapped flows, Grand County’s rivers have become increasingly stressed.

To help solve the problems, two of the largest transmountain diverters, Denver Water and Northern Water, among others, signed on to the Colorado River Cooperative Agreement in 2013. The agreement gives the water agencies some leeway to develop new water supplies to which they have water rights, while also funding efforts to keep rivers and wetlands in the headwaters region healthier, and to ensure mountain tourist economies have enough water to thrive.

Mike Holmes is president of the Grand County Irrigated Land Company. As part of the restorative work underway, he and his shareholders agreed to sell a portion of their water stored in a small reservoir to benefit the river. Each year the program operates, the ranchers will deliver about 50 acre-feet of water. An acre-foot equals nearly 326,000 gallons of water, the amount used by two to three average households in a year. Holmes said the growers have been working to improve the efficiency of their irrigation systems, freeing up water for the river.

“This year, with the abundant snowpack, we had the water available, and so we worked with the water trust to execute a lease and then went through a review by the Colorado River District. It’s a pretty streamlined process,” Holmes said.

Though 50 acre-feet is not a lot of water, it should make a difference in the Upper Fraser, where Denver is allowed to divert even when the river’s fall flows are already shrinking, LaGreca said.

Denver Water’s role in the restoration effort is to allow the Colorado Water Trust to use the utility’s collection system to put water into distressed stream segments in the headwaters. In turn the irrigators give Denver Water access to water stored in Meadow Creek Reservoir, farther downstream, according to Nathan Elder, Denver Water’s water supply manager.

Work on the program for 2023 wrapped up earlier this month and will begin again next September.

Scott McCaulou is director of the corporate water stewardship program at Business for Water Stewardship. The Portland-based nonprofit is funded by the Bonneville Environmental Foundation and helps connects corporations to environmental water restoration initiatives.

“This first year of the agreement between the [irrigators] and the water trust is a small step but the hope is that it grows into a longer-term partnership and helps develop more flexible water management tools in the Upper Colorado,” McCaulou said. “We see it as a good contribution to something that could grow if it is successful this year.”

Fresh Water News
Author: Jerd Smith
Read the original Fresh Water News Article.

The post Coca-Cola, Upper Colorado River irrigators, water agencies join forces in Grand County appeared first on Colorado Water Trust.