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<br />Mr. Travis Smith, Superintendent <br />October 16, 2003 <br />Page 9 <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />the Tres Rios terms and conditions in 1986, 1987, and 1997. The Rio Grande had annual <br />credits in 1997 and 1998 and so credit water would have been available for storage in these <br />years. <br /> <br />The amounts of the credit water that were available in these years (1948, 1949, 1958, <br />1970, 1973, 1984, 1997, and 1998) was estimated in essentially the same way as the water <br />available under the Tres Rios terms and conditions, Le., as the flow at Del Norte that exceeded <br />the demands of the ditches. In this situation, however, the water was limited both to the outflow <br />from Rio Grande Reservoir on a daily basis and to the Rio Grande's credit on an annual basis. <br /> <br />~ <br /> <br />Table 5 shows the monthly and annual storage volumes resulting from this analysis. <br />Credit water was available for storage in 8 years in the period amounting to as much as 99,072 <br />acre-feet in 1948. When spread over the 57-year period, it averaged 4,449 acre-feet annually. <br />Of course, a reservoir enlargement of about 99,000 acre-fe~t would have been required to <br />realize this full average. If ttie reservoir enlargement was less than about 99,000 acre-feet, <br />some of the water could not have been captured and the average would have been smaller. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />DIRECT FLOW STORAGE <br /> <br />We understand that an enlargement of Rio Grande Reservoir would provide additional <br />reservoir capacity for "direct flow storage". The reservoir capacity could be used for this purpose <br />not only by the District, but also by the Rio Grande Canal Water Users Association and the <br />Commonwealth Irrigation Company. As discussed below, direct flow storage is recognized in <br />decrees held by the District in Case No. W-3980, The Rio Grande Canal Water Users <br />Association in Case No. W-3979, and by the Commonwealth Irrigation Company in Case No. <br />95CW18. The decree in Case No. W-3980 allows the District to store water available under its <br />direct flow priorities 1903-178, 1903-22E, 1903-24F, 1903-30F, and 1903-34G in Rio Grande, <br />Santa Maria, and Continental Reservoirs when the flow at Del Norte, after curtailments are <br />deducted, exceeds 2,285 cfs. The District has stored some direct flow water in the reservoirs <br />under this decree since 1989. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />In this part of our Illvt:6tigation, we calculated the volumes of additional direct flow water <br />that were historically available for storage in an enlargement. These were the volumes that were <br />diverted into the Farmers Union Canal under the appropriate priorities. The calculations were <br />made daily using Division of Water Resources records for the diversions of river water into the <br />