WSP11716

• File Number: 8507
• Description: Rio Grande Project
• State: CO
• Basin: Rio Grande
• Date: 7/1/1997
• Title: Water Management Study: Upper Rio Grande Basin part 1
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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Major Physical, Legal, and Institutional Characteristics

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By the turn of the century, surface waters of the San Luis Valley were fully
appropriated and shortages were frequently experienced toward the end of
the irrigation season. Farmers in the area wished to build reservoirs for
storing spring runoff to accommodate late season needs and to carry over
storage from wet years into times of drought. Local organizations in
Colorado secured permission, through a 1907 modification in the "embargo of
1896", to build nine reservoirs on the Rio Grande and its tributaries. Unlike
elsewhere in the Upper Rio Grande Basin, development of water in the
San Luis Basin occurred with minimal federal funds until the latter half of
this century.

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By the 1920s virtually all the water in the Upper Rio Grande Basin was fully
appropriated, as agricultural development occurred throughout the Basin,
especially in New Mexico's Middle Rio Grande Valley. By the early 1920s
increasing competition for use of the river among users from Colorado to
Texas generated an attempt to negotiate an interstate compact to apportion
the river's flows among the three states. In 1923 Congress formed the Rio
Grande Compact Commission, with representatives from Colorado, New
Mexico, Texas, and the federal government. Outgrowths of the commission
included: (1) the 1929 Rio Grande Compact which established a moratorium
on development of the river until a permanent compact could be negotiated;
and (2) a fully-ratified Rio Grande Compact that became effective in 1939
and has continued in effect until today. (We describe the Compact further in
the discussion ofthe Basin's laws and institutions.)

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Following the construction of Elephant Butte Dam, sediment progressively
diminished the downstream river channel's ability to carry flood flows. As a
result, in 1933 the BuRec and the U.S. Section ofthe International Boundary
and Water Commission (IBWC) developed and implemented plans that led to
the construction of Caballo Dam and numerous diversion dams and extensive
canalization, as well as to the construction of the American Diversion Dam
and Canal to deliver water to the El Paso Valley. Caballo Dam was
completed in 1938 with 100,000 of its total 331,000 af of capacity reserved for
control of floods originating downstream from Elephant Butte Dam.

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From 1935 to present, several other major facilities were built in the Upper
Rio Grande Basin. These include eight major dams: Jemez Canyon,
Abiquiu, Cochiti, Platoro, Heron, El Vado, and Nambe Falls. Heron
Reservoir, completed in 1970, is used solely to store and regulate the
imported San Juan-Chama Project water. The San Juan-Chama Project,
completed in 1971, includes three intermountain tunnels (Blanco, Oso, and

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