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e e Page 3 of3 The Pueblo Chieftain Online building an intake at a lower elevation. Under the 1922 compact, the Upper Basin states are entitled to 7.5 million acre- feet as well, with Colorado receiving 51 percent under a 1929 compact among Upper Basin states. However, the hydrology of the basin was overestimated during the wet years leading up to the 1922 compact, and the Upper Basin receives on average about 6 million acre-feet a year. The Upper Basin states are not making full use of their compact entitlements, using only about 4.4 million acre-feet. Meanwhile, growth in California, Arizona and Nevada has created full consumption of compact entitlements. In fact, California was ordered to scale back its use of Colorado River water from 5.2 million acre-feet to 4.4 million acre-feet in recent years. WHY IT MATTERS The Colorado River may be on the other side of the Continental Divide, but the Arkansas River Basin depends heavily on diversions from the Western Slope. - Jim Lochhead, a lawyer who has worked on the Colorado River Compact for years in various capacities, advised local water leaders in January that a call on Lake Powell by downstream states could reduce transmountain diversions with appropriation dates after 1922. The only transmountain transfers that predate the compact are rights owned by the Pueblo Board of Water Works. - The Arkansas River Basin imported an average of 102,200 acre-feet per year of water from the Colorado River Basin from 1980-2004, said Water Division 2 Engineer Steve Witte. That amounted to almost 20 percent of the flow of the Arkansas at Canon City, which is about 526,000 acre-feet annually. The largest diversions are made by the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, Twin Lakes and the Pueblo Board of Water Works system (Ewing, Wurtz, Columbine and Busk- Ivanhoe). - The Homestake Project, which provides water to Colorado Springs and Aurora, diverted another 24,770 acre-feet per year into the Arkansas and South Platte basins. Witte said those diversions have an impact on Arkansas River operations upstream of the Otero Pumping Station and through exchanges as Colorado Springs reuses the water. - Aurora plans to divert about 22,500 acre-feet of water from the Arkansas to the South Platte. Its water comes from agricultural transfers in the Lower Arkansas Valley made over the last 20 years. Note: An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons. @1996-2005The Pueblo Chieftain Online http://www.chieftain.comlprint. php ?article=/metro/1114699925/2 4/28/2005