SECWCD WCPlan 1997 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Demand for Project Water- The demand for Project Water must come from entities located within the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District. The District entertains requests for allocation of Project Water from domestic, municipal, and irrigation entities each year. Since the supply of Project water is to supplement the supplies available to the users from non- project sources (privately owned decreed water rights), the use of Project Water increases during years in which there are lesser supplies of non-project water within the basin. The Arkansas River is considered an over appropriated system with a continuos call on the River. Irrigation Demand-Reclamation conducted land classification investigations prior to Project authorization in 1962. The total irrigable area within the District was estimated to be approximately 280,600 acres. This includes 12,538 acres above Pueblo Reservoir, 12,805 acres on Fountain Creek, and 255,254 acres below Pueblo Reservoir. Many of the irrigable acres located within the District have very senior decreed water rights and consequently have not requested supplemental water from the District. Also, a portion of the District's irrigable acres have been taken out of production, or are not eligible to receive a Project water allocation, because of sales and changes of use of their decreed water rights. The District's Allocation Policy states "....that it is the policy of the District not to replace with Project Water decreed water sold by persons or entities." This results in a reduction of the total irrigable acreage that are eligible to receive Project water. However, in all but the wettest years total requests to the District for supplemental water for irrigation purposes exceed the available supply from the Project. It should be recognized that the supplemental water provided from the Project through the District to the various agricultural entities constitutes only a small percentage of their total water supply (in most cases less than 10% of annual supply). All of the agricultural entities requesting an allocation of Project Water have their own decreed water rights as their primary supply. They also own and maintain all of their conveyance facilities, including diversion dams, canals, laterals, and storage facilities, if any. The District does not have any control over any of the water rights held by these entities, or their conveyance facilities. Municipal Demand-The municipal demand for Project water is associated with the Arkansas Valley cities, towns, and entities lying east and west of Pueblo; Pueblo; and the Fountain Valley Authority. The District's policies require an allocation of "....a minimum of 51 percent of the annual Project water supply to municipal and domestic use." This allocation is distributed, as requested, to Arkansas Valley cities, towns and entities lying east of Pueblo (12%), and towns west of Pueblo (4 %), Pueblo ( 10 %), and the Fountain Valley Authority participants (25 %). Finally, after all other municipal and agricultural have been meet, Pueblo West Metro District is given notice that they may make a request.