7397

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7397
• Author: Resource Consultants, I.
• Title: Draft Supplement to the Final Environmental Statement Colorado-Big Thompson, Windy Gap Projects Water Marketing Program for Green Mountain Reservoir, Colorado.
• USFW Year: 1985.
• USFW - Doc Type: Fort Collins.
• Copyright Material: NO

slope of Colorado that would be required by prior rights along the Colorado
River. In addition, the project included a hydroelectric plant below Green
Mountain Dam to utilize the flow of the Blue River and water stored in the
reservoir for the generation of electrical energy. Senate Document 80 is
included in Appendix D.

The Bureau completed construction of Green Mountain Dam and Power
Plant as a feature of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project in 1943. The use
and disposition of the water stored in Green Mountain Reservoir are under
the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior as set forth in Senate
Document 80 and reaffirmed in the Consolidated Cases (Civil Actions Nos.
2782, 5016, and 5017); United States District Court for the District of
Colorado. This authority has been delegated to the Regional Director,
Lower Missouri Region, to be exercised in consultation with the Regional
Director, Upper Colorado Region. The Consolidated Cases remain under the
continuing jurisdiction of the United States District Court for the
District of Colorado.

On December 22, 1983 the final notice of Operating Policy for Green
Mountain Reservoir was published in the Federal Register (Volume 48, Number
247). The purposes of adopting a policy for the operation of Green Moun-
tain Reservoir were to quantify the presently perfected uses of water
dependent upon the reservoir and to provide an orderly means of disposition
of the remaining water in the reservoir for beneficial consumptive uses in
the geographic area of Colorado west of the Continental Divide. The
operating policy is included in Appendix D.

The operating policy noted that the reservoir has been in operation
since 1943. Since the commencement of operations, in all but above-average
years, release of water has been made to meet irrigation and domestic uses
in western Colorado. Under Senate Document 80, the first obligation of the
reservoir in such a circumstance is to augment irrigation and domestic uses
existing in 1937 and, if stored water is thereafter available for release,
to augment all such subsequent similar needs arising to the extent stored
water therefore is available. The release of approximately 66,000
acre-feet of water from storage to supplement a natural flow shortage in
western Colorado was necessary in 1977.

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