WSP09378

• File Number: 8200.200
• Description: Colorado River - Basin Hydrology
• State: CO
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 4/9/1993
• Author: CRWUA
• Title: Colorado River Profiles
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

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... though it also became the
home of Reclamation's first
multipurpose project, the
Boulder Canyon Project
whose grand centerpiece,
Hoover Dam, rises a majes-
tic 726 feet above bedrock
... though Hoover Dam pro-
vides irrigation water for
1.25 million acres in the
United States and Mexico .
... though tractors plow the
dry soil amid swirls of wind-
blown dust, Nevada does
not use one drop of water
from the Colorado River
for agriculture. It's true,
statewide agriculture
accounts for more than 90
percent of state water use,
but in southern Nevada
where river water provides
85% of the supply and
groundwater accounts for
15%, water is used solely
for municipal and industrial
customers.

NEW MEXICO
The Colorado's largest
tributary-not the longest,
but the largest - is the
San Juan, which travels a
crrcuitous route through
three states on its way from
its headwaters in the rugged
San Juan Mountains of
southeastern Colorado near
Wolf Creek Pass to the
Colorado River just above
Lake.Powellin Utah. With
an animal discharge of
some 2.5 million acre-feet,
along with its tributaries, .
which are many and. wild,
the San Juan irrigates some
100,000 acres in northwest-
ern New Mexico-about
10 percent of the state's
total, nearly 80 percent of
the land in the basin. As
was the case in so much of
the West, many of the
ditches that carry the water
to the end user in San Juan
County were built by
Mormon settlers.
The water cuts through
the air in overlapping arcs,
like birds crossing in mid-
flight, pausing a moment at
the point of impact before
showering the alfalfa below.

The whish, whish, whish of
the sprinklers breaks the
silence of this peaceful land-
scape as some 61,000 of the
acres drink in the life-giving
liquid. The remaining 39,000
acres receive flood irriga-
tion. The estimated irrigated
output per acre for San
Juan County is $350, with
alfalfa generating as much
as $650 -an annual contri-
bution to the New Mexico
economy of $35 million to
$60 million. Alfalfa is the
major crop in the region
with some 35 percent of the
acreage planted; pasture
follows in the second posi-
tion with 23 percent. Corn,
small grains and dry beans
account for 11 percent, 10
percent and 8 percent
respectively. Add to that list
sorghum, wheat, barley,
cotton, 'peanuts, sugar beets,
potatoes, lettuce, onions, .
chilies, hay, orchard crops
and vineyards and you have
a pretty complete picture of
the agricultural output of the
entire state.

UTAH
Utah was the site ofthe
first organized irrigation
effort in the Colorado
basin states in 1847. Utah
. was the host for the first.
. National Irrigation
Congress in 1891. With this .
kind of record, Utahinitiat-
ed its own reclamation
program in 1905: the
Strawberry Valley Project.
Completed in 1922, this
project taps into the
Colorado River Basin
through the Wasatch
Mountains to irrigate 17,300
acres and provide supple-
mental water for an addi-
tionaI27,300. Today 340,000
acres are irrigated with
Colorado River water, the
major crops being alfalfa,
pasture and grains. Utah's
agricultural industry is
spread throughout the state
and ranges from grazing
beef, sheep and goats to
raising poultry and mink to
growing barley, corn and
oats, potatoes, onions and

CRWUA

tomatoes, apples, cherries,
apricots and peaches. Vines
that are home to berries of
all kinds creep alongside
gullies and roads and bees
produce honey.
In these days when farm-
ing is steadily giving way to
homes, industry and other
urban development,
groundwater management
and on-farm conservation
play major roles in today's
agricultural industry in
Utah. Getting maximum
production with miriimum
amounts of water is not .
oruygoodenvrronmental
practice, but increasingly a
matter of financial survival.

WYOMING
Widely recogr1ized as a state
of many "firsts" - first to
give women the vote, first
to have a woman justice of
the peace, first woman
bailiff, first all-woman jury,
first national park, first
national forest, first to have
a county public library sys-
tem, first ranger station,..
first national monument,
first woman govem(')r, first
American Legion post - .
this aptly nicknamed
Equality State was even
first to claim state owner-
ship of water. Though it' .
probably can'tclaim first
. irrigation in the West, its
irrigation history did begin
back in 1853 when Morinon
settlers at Fort Bridger first
tried their hand at farming.
Buffalo Bill Cody initiated
the state's most ambitious
irrigation project when he
poured the earnings of his
Wild West shows into a
60,000-acre irrigation and
colonization scheme along
the Shoshone River in the
Big Horn Basin. With the
passage of the National
Reclamation Act of 1902,
Cody turned the project
over to the federal govern-
ment and in 1904 it became
Reclamation's first project
in Wyoming
Today agriculture, along
with minerals, recreation
and tourism, is one of

Wyoming's major industries
- an estimated economic
impact of well over $1 billion
a.year. About 56 percent of
Wyoming land ~ nearly 35
million acres ~ is controlled
and operated by 9,300 farms
.and ranches. The state ranks
. ninth nationally inland in
production and second, at
3,742 acres, in the average
size of farms and ranches.
Livestock and livestock
products lead the way with
some 78 percent in providing
the state with cash receipts
from agriculture. In 1992,
cattle and calf marketings
accounted for 90 percent of
the livestock cash receipts.
Sheep and lamb inventories
ranked second as did wool
production. .
The Green River Basin,
watered with supplies from
that river, the longest of the.
Colorado's tributaries, mir.-
rors state statistics with live-
stock production as the pri-
mary cash crop. Scant
rainfall and a mean annual
water balance makes most
of the basin agriculturally
dependent on such irriga-
tion. Alfalfa, smalIgrilins
and native grass are the pre- .
dominate crops in produc-
tion. Areas not irrigated are
. generally snitedto the graz-'
ing of livestock.
Because ofcliinatic and
topographic conditions with- .
in the basin, wildlife-big.
game animals such as moose,
elk, deer and antelope in .
particular-are dependent
on agricultural lands, partic-
ulady for winter habitat.
Survival of these big game
herds is vital to the economy
of Wyoming and to the val.
ues held dear to its residents.
Wyoming agriculture repre-
sents an integral link between
the well being of its people
and its wildlife.

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