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The Roots of a Crisis Colorado's rivers are depleted due to a wide variety of human uses, including agricul"tural. municipal, hydropower, and recreational uses. Water is allocated among these and other uses under the prior appropriation doctrine, which was adopted by the Colorado constitution at statehood. This doctrine allows those who divert (i.e., remove) water from a stream to obtain a water right for their use of a certain amount of water. Water rights are real property rights, similar to ownership of land, and they may be bought and sold. To obtain a water right, the diverted water must be put to beneficial use - the use of a reasonable amount of water to accomplish a specific purpose, without waste. Common beneficial uses include irrigation, domestic, municipal and industrial uses. The list of uses has expanded over time, but no use previously deemed beneficial has ever been removed from the list. ~ Colorado The Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon suffers from S2'le;~ depietions due to the unintended consequences of Colorado's water law. Just east of Gier,"NOod Springs. the Shoshone :~jdropower plant ;,05 senior water rign>:s of 1408 cTS. Shoshone, unlike many large hydroelectric facilities, diverts flowing river water direGiy La its turbines rather than storing water in a reservoir. \Nhen Colorado River flows drop below 1408 cfs, so that there is not enough water in the river to satisfy the Shoshone right, the power plant can call the river for its water. This call requires upstream water users with junior rights to stop diverting water so that the water they let pass their points of diversion makes it downstream to the Shoshone plant~ which can then divert its full 1408 cfs right. However, once the Shoshone plant calls for water to satisfy its senior right, it must divert and use the water called for its decreed purpose (hydropower). The Shoshone plant or.ly"calls"the river during " vVater La\v Basics A \vater right's \alue depends on its seniority: "first in time is first in right." Seniority dates from when the diverter first put the water to LIse. The water user with the earliest or most "senior" water right on a stream gets 1009'e of his/her water right before the next "junior" user in line gets any water. Thus, a senior user whose right is not being met can "call" the river, which will cut off junior users until the senior right is satisfied. Accordingly, the more senior the right, the more valuable it is. low fIo'.'! periods, c:-ici i~ i,,~: ':3 ~~':J;:~:::;. 7"~-= :nighty Colorado River itself is left 'N:t:1 only '.<-~: :ittle water leaks out of the pO'N2r plant's :-"2~dgate, as seen in the photo above. E'len if ~~2 ::";;nt operators were willing to use ;255 wa'c2r during these low flow periods, Colorado's water :?'. system would not ailov'l them to put the sc",ec water back into the river - instead, upstiea... ";Jater users cOl)ld div2i't the water in priority long before it ever reached Glenwood Canyon. The irony in this situation is that, by calling \Nater down to Glenwood Canyon, the Shoshone cail plays a critical role in keeping upstream portions of the Colorado River flowing, segments that would otherwise be drawn to critically low levels by upstream water users. Unfortunately, this works at the expense of leaving several mi:25 of the Colorado River in GlenwGcd C~:>:;- :./ fsr up tc ~ -::"'::?7<S a /~Jr. 'OJ