7806

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7806
• Author: U.S. Department of the Interior.
• Title: Quality of Water, Colorado River Basin.
• USFW Year: 1997.
• USFW - Doc Type: Progress Report No. 18,
• Copyright Material: NO

Chapter 4

Ruedi Contracts-Estimates of projected depletions for water contracts from Ruedi Reservoir
were taken from the Ruedi Biological Opinion. Estimates were 9,000 acre-feet in 1990 but would
reach the ultimate contractible yield from Round II sales of 44,700 acre-feet by 2020. Depletions
were computed assuming 100-percent consumption of industrial water and 40-percent consumption
of water delivered to municipal and domestic users.

Blue Mesa Contracts-Retlamation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have determined that,'
at the current time, up to 10,000 acre-feet of water can be contracted for industrial purposes from
Blue Mesa Reservoir. It has been assumed that this water will be supplied by the' year 2000 and
that it will be consumed 100 percent.

Oil Shale-Projections of water depletions for oil shale development contain a high degree of
uncertainty. Values shown in table 3 were provided by the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
For the present, Reclamation has chosen to assume that development will be deferred by one
decade, so all depletion values have been postponed 10 years. These values do not include water
contracted out of Ruedi Reservoir for the oil shale industry.

Wolford Mountain, Bluestone, and Green Mountain Sales-These projects and depletion values
have been added to table 3 at the suggestion of the Colorado River Water Conservation District.
Wolford Mountain is located on Muddy Creek, a tributary of the upper Colorado River near
Ktemmling. It is operated to provide trans mountain exchange water for municipal and industrial
uses, a variety of West slope uses, and recreational purposes. Bluestone is located near DeBeque
and used for industrial and oil shale purposes. Sales of water from Green Mountain Reservoir will
be used for irrigation, snowmaking, and other purposes through direct delivery, augmentation, and
exchange.

Craig-Hayden Powerplants-By 1987, two units at Hayden and three units at Craig were online.
The ultimate depletion of 19,000 acre-feet consists of 13,000 acre-feet at Craig with zero discharge
and 6,000 acre-feet at Hayden with no significant return flow.

Colorado Ute-Southwest Project-Colorado-Ute Electric Association planned construction of two
400-megawatt units in western Colorado. Plans to go forward have been delayed indefinitely. For
purposes of this table, it was assumed that one unit will be constructed and online by 2000, and
the other unit will be online in 2020.

Utah

Depletion Projections-The Utah Division of Water Resources (DWR) provided these values and
the projections. DWR has moved from a project-based water use summary to a basin-needs
approach. Water use projections are based on projected needs for each major sector of use. These
needs are summarized in table 3 and input into the Colorado River Simulation System (CRSS)
model according to the location of the use.

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