7750

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7750
• Author: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
• Title: Study of Alternative Water Supplies for Endangered Fishes in the "15-Mile Reach" of the Colorado River.
• USFW Year: 1992.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

CHAPTER IV
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UTILIZATION OF AGRICULTURAL WATER RIGHTS
Table 4
Water rights senior to GVWUA and greater than 10 cfs
Location
District Structure name
Decreed
Range Township amount (cfs)
72 ARKANSAS DITCH 11 S 96 W S 10.70
70 RESERVOIR DITCH 8 S 97 W S 25.30
70 ROAN CREEK NO 2 DITCH 8 S 97 W S 12.50
45 LARKIN DITCH 8 S 97 W S 25.00
70 CLEAR CREEK DITCH 6 S 98 W S 12.30
70 H V C AND S DITCH 6 S 98 W S 10.30
70 CREEK AND NEWMAN DITCH 7 S 98 W S 11.80
Total 2,858.39
Legal and Institutional Issues
It is important to point out that to prevent injury to other water rights it is likely that only the
consumptive use portion of these rights could be transferred to the Reach. A CU of over 60
percent of diverted water was presented in the study Reformulation of the West Divide
Project.' Some of the factors which effect the percentage of CU versus the diversion
amount are: canal and lateral seepage rates, the distance the water must travel before
reaching the intended use, cropping patterns, elevation, type of on-farm irrigation system,
and whether moving the right will cause injury to other water right holders.
The total irrigated acreage within Division 5 has averaged 338,300 acres over the last 5
years. The total consumptive has averaged about 455,000 AF/year over the last 5 years.'
Figure 1 shows the distribution of the CU in Division 5.
The use of Green Mountain Reservoir water for irrigation requirements is clear, but it may
be interpreted that the reservoir was not constructed to meet instream flow requirements.
Without Green Mountain Reservoir some of the rights listed in table 4 may not have an
adequate supply of water. Even if GMR was historically used to provide water for some of
the consumptive use for a particular water right, it is not clear that GMR could release an
equivalent amount of water to an instream flow.
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' HYDRO-TRIAD, LTD., Reformulation of the West Divide Project, July 1986.
?. 2 U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Colorado River Basin Consumptive Use and Losses Report, 1991.
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