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

6. Abstract

Senate Document 80 (Act of August 9, 1937) outlined the construction and
operating conditions for the Colorado-Big Thompson Project. Construction
requirements included water storage on the Blue River at Green Mountain
Reservoir, located 13 miles southeast of Kremmlinq, Colorado. The
reservoir was to be used to replace water diverted to the eastern slope
of Colorado that would be required by prior water rights along the
Colorado River.

The Bureau completed construction of Green Mountain Dam 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, 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. The purposes
of adopting a revised policy for the operation of Green Mountain
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.

This supplement analyzes three scenarios of water delivery in addition to
the no-action alternative. The no-action alternative is current operating
procedure in which no permanent water sales would be made. However,
interim water sales may be available and would be addressed on a year-by-
year, case-by-case basis.

The second alternative analyzes the impacts of full sales or exchange to
meet all of the currently identified requests for water (approximately
22,800 acre-feet). Under this alternative, the physical (hydrologic)
constraints of the system to deliver requested water sales will be assessed.

The third alternative considers the same level of sales (22,800 acre-feet)
as alternative 2. However, currently appropriated or recom~ended instream
flow values by the Colorado ~Jater Conservation Board are assumed to
represent an added constraint on the diversion or depletion of streamflow.

The fourth alternative assumes approximately a 25 percent increase in
water demand over alternatives 2 and 3 to a level of 28,800 acre-feet
annually. Under this alternative, the physical (hydrologic) constraints
of Green Mountain Reservoir and the downstream river system to deliver
water at maximum capacity will be assessed. The additional sales would
all be downstream of Green Mountain Reservoir.

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