Correspondences Concerning City of Denver's Use of Colorado River Water (2002)

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Mr. Neil Stessman 12/24/97 Page 3 of Colorado River usage to yield the quantity of Colorado River water returned through the metropolitan area's wastewater systems. TABLE IV - Successive Use Operations Involving Colorado River Water This table shows monthly totals, in acre -feet, for the 1997 water year for the successive use Denver made of its transmountain return flows. The figures reflect the successive use of a portion of the return flow shown in Column (7) of Table III. Reported in Column (1) of this table is the amount of transmountain effluent exchanged to South Platte Reservoirs attributable to Colorado River water imported through the Roberts Tunnel and Cabin- Meadow Creek water imported through the Moffat Tunnel and used under contract by Denver. Column (2) shows the amount of water stored in Antero, Eleven Mile, and Cheesman Reservoirs equivalent to the evaporation losses from those reservoirs. This amount of water can be stored in those reservoirs pursuant to the April 12, 1989 decree in the "1940 Agreement" litigation (Case No. 81 -CW -405, Water Division 1). On February 25, 1991 the Colorado Supreme Court upheld the trial court's - ruling that Denver's May 1, 1940 agreement with members of Consolidated Ditches precludes Denver from reusing return flows from Colorado River water appropriated prior to May 1, 1940. In lieu of not reusing this water, Denver is not required to make evaporation releases at Antero, Eleven Mile, and Cheesman Reservoirs. Since Denver is effectively replacing these evaporation losses with a portion of return flows from Colorado River water, Denver is claiming successive use credit due to evaporation as shown in Column (2) of Table IV. West Slope Storage In addition to the tables described above, the following information is provided. Authorized storage in Dillon Reservoir on September 30, 1996, was 243,262 acre - feet and on September 30, 1997, it was 254,134 acre -feet, for a net change of +10,872 acre -feet. Similarly, on September 30, 1996, authorized storage in Williams Fork Reservoir was 83,343 acre -feet and on September 30, 1997, it was 90,071 acre -feet, for a net change of +6,728 acre -feet. Successive Use Program As shown in Table IV, Denver continued to make successive uses of its Colorado River water in 1997. During the water year, Denver reclaimed 12,012 acre -feet of transmountain effluent for beneficial use in the Denver Metropolitan area. This volume is lower than the ten previous years due to higher than average supplies available in the South Platte River basin combined with the lack of a downstream South Platte call for most of the year. These conditions precluded opportunities to exchange effluent. The majority of Denver's exchanges occurred in the month of July with 5,600 acre -feet being exchanged out of the yearly total of 6,106 acre-