FLOOD10327

• County: Eagle
• Community: Eagle
• Stream Name: Eagle River
• Title: Eagle River Watershed Plan
• Date: 1/1/1996
• Prepared For: Eagle Community and Eagle County
• Prepared By: National Park Service
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Flood Mitigation/Flood Warning/Watershed Restoration

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an agreement to utilize Sylvan Lake to
provide storage for the Town of Eagle.
Sylvan Lake holds 511 acre feet.

6. Lede Reservoir: This is a private reser-
voir on U.S.F.S land south of Gypsum. It
was constructed for agricultural uses but
some water is leased to Gypsum. The
reservoir holds 375 acre feet and it is
also used for public recreation.

Water Rights

Since the Eagle River headwaters are in the
Rocky Mountains, water availability is very
dependent on precipitation, particularly
snowfall. The ability to use the water for a
consumptive use is dictated by water rights.

A very simplified explanation of water rights
is that water users must acquire water rights
to use water when there is no available un
allocated water. Water rights have a quantity
associated with the right and a priority date
(the year the right was decreed). Water users
with the oldest or most senior water rights
have the first priority for water during dry
periods when there is not enough water to
meet all demands.

The most senior rights and the largest water
right holders in the upper Colorado River are
the Shoshone Power Plant and farmers in the
Grand Junction area (referred to as the
Cameo Call). When the Eagle and Colorado
rivers are low, these water users have the
first priority for water usage during these
times. This affects how much water can be
diverted or used in the Eagle River during low
flows.

Water Usage

In the Eagle River there are two major uses of
water:

a) Trans-Basin Use
b) In-Basin Use

Both types of users are affected by the avail-
able water and the water rights in the basin.
The map following this chapter is a map of
the Eagle River watershed that displays
municipal diversions (in- and trans-basin)
and where water is returned from waste
water treatment facilities (in-basin).

Trans-Basin Use
Trans-Basin Use involves transporting water
from one watershed to another via diversion
systems. There are four diversions that take
water out of the Eagle River watershed and
transport it to certain front range cities. These
diversions include the:

1. Wurtz Ditch (City of Pueblo)
2. Ewing Ditch (City of Pueblo)
3. Columbine Ditch (City of Pueblo)
4. Homestake 1 Project (Cities of Aurora
and Colorado Springs)

Together these diversions transport approxi-
mately 34,000 acrefeet of water to theJront
range each year. trans-basin uses result in a
100% consumption of water since none of the
34,000 acre feet is returned to the Eagle River
watershed. Diversion points are depicted on
the map accompanying this chapter.

Timing of li'ans-Basin Diversions
It is important to note when out-oI-basin diver-
sions occur in relation to stream flow in the
Eagle River. Figure 1. depicts stream flow for
an average year and a dry year. Trans-basin
diversions occur during the spring melt-off
when flows are at their highest and can not
legally occur during low flow periods because
of the existing senior water rights on the
Colorado River and instream flow rights at

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