Alamosa 2007 WCPlan

• Project Type: Water Conservation Plan
• Applicant: City of Alamosa
• Project Name: City of Alamosa Water Conservation Plan
• Title: Water Conservation Plan May 2007
• Date: 5/1/2007
• County: Alamosa
• Water Conservation - Doc Type: Complete Plan

Our Existing Water System
Most of Alamosa's water comes from a deep, protected, underground aquifer. We have six wells
which supply the bulk of the City's needs. One surface aquifer well supplies irrigation needs for
the front nine of the municipal golf course. Two of these six wells do not have independent
decrees, meaning water can only be pumped out of them when the other four are not providing
Alamosa's decreed capacity.
Total adjudicated water rights from these wells is 7,200 gallons per minute (gpm) for a total of
11,615 acre feet (af) per year. This is nearly 3.8 billion gallons per year. Average water
production for the City over the past five years (2001 through 2005) has been 2,595 of /yr or
roughly 845 million gallons per year.
While this might seem to imply that we have more than adequate water rights for at least the near
future there are many other factors that may well have a major impact on the security of these
water rights, not the least of which is the recent examination of the impacts of confined aquifer
groundwater use on surface rights.
Well
1
Depth
701 Ross 1225
Capacity
(gpm)
900
2
21 st Streets 1648
21400
3
12th St 1500
11800
4
Murphy 1500
11800
5
Weherl 1244
800
6
Cole Park 1000
600
7
Golf Course 16
600
8
Price Well 1630
11500
Capacity (GPM)
71200
Capacity (af /yr)
111615
Peak GPH
4321000
Note'
These wells do not have a separate adjudication of rights.
points of diversion for wells 1, 2, 4, and 6
They are alternate
The City also owns water rights associated with the "Alamosa Ranch" purchased in 1997. The
most significant of these rights are associated with the Independent or " Maddux Ditch" at 470
of /yr of consumptive use and the Excelsior Ditch at 526 of /yr of consumptive use. Converting
the rights from the Maddux Ditch or Excelsior Ditch, which are decreed for agricultural use, to
municipal use would require a "change of beneficial use" by the Colorado Water Court. This is a
complex process that could take some time.
Alamosa has approximately 49.1 miles of water pipes serving our 5.1 square mile service area.
The pipes range in size from four to sixteen inches. The City has 750,000 gallons of elevated
water storage capacity. There are another 375,000 gallons of available water storage in a surface
City of Alamosa I Water Conservation Plan I May 2007 1 Page 5 of 29