Upper Colorado River Commission Meetings 2005 Itinery

• Description: Upper Colorado River Commission Meetings June 28, 29 2005 Itinery
• State: CO
• Date: 6/28/2005
• Title: Upper Colorado River Commission Meetings 2005 Itinery
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Agenda

Basin, the depletion of the flow at Lee Ferry is less than the depletion of the flow at the place of use
because a portion of the streamflow used would have been lost to evaporation or evapotranspiration had
the water remained in the stream channels. The savings in river channel loss above Lee Ferry resulting
from putting the water to use in the Upper Basin constitutes salvage by use. In particular, uses of water
in intermittent tributary drainages, such as in the Chaco River drainage in New Mexico, do not result in
an equivalent reduction in flow of the San Juan River. Further, uses of ground water from non - tributary
aquifers, and uses of tributary ground water at locations that are far removed from perennial streams in
the San Juan River Basin, do not deplete stream flow of the San Juan River by the amount of use. The
Upper Colorado River Commission has not made determinations of salvage by use, and has not made
determinations as to methodologies for accounting certain consumptive uses such as irrigation
depletions or ground water uses. No such determinations have been considered because the Upper Basin
States have not approached full development of the Upper Basin apportionment. Nevertheless, the
effects of salvaged channel losses on man -made depletions of the flow at Lee Ferry by Upper Basin
States were presented in the November 29, 1948, Final Report of the Engineering Advisory Committee
to the Upper Colorado River Compact Commission, and Tipton and Kalmbach in 1965 prepared a report
for the Upper Colorado River Commission on water supplies available for use by the Upper Division
States that included the Department of the Interior's July 1965 projections of depletions at Lee Ferry that
were reduced for salvage estimated to be 4 percent of at -site depletions by projects in the Upper Basin.
The Bureau of Reclamation in the preparation of long -range operating criteria for the Colorado
River
pursuant to Section 602 of Public Law 90 -537 in July 1969 also considered salvage by use estimated to
be about 4 percent of at -site depletions in its projections of depletions of the flow at Lee Ferry by uses in
the Upper Basin. Only depletion of the flow at Lee Ferry is chargeable against a state's apportionment
of the yield available to the Upper Basin under Article III of the Colorado River Compact.
E