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Imported Water and Reservoir Releases <br />The natural flow of the Animas River is supplemented by the following return <br />flows from transbasin sources and reservoir releases: <br />1) The Florida Mesa is irrigated by diversions from the Florida Farmers Ditch and <br />Florida Canal (Florida River). A portion of the Florida Mesa return flows accrues <br />to the Animas River downstream of the Boating Park location. <br />2) A portion of Pine Ridge Ditch diversions (La Plata River) is delivered to lands in <br />the Lightner Creek and Basin Creek basins, which are tributaries of the Animas <br />' River. The Pine Ridge Ditch return flows to Basin Creek impact the Animas <br />River streamflow downstream of the Boating Park. Only the Pine Ridge Ditch <br />return flows from Lightner Creek accrue to the Animas River above the Boating <br />Park. <br />3) Electra Lake, located on Elbert Creek about 16 miles north of Durango, is the <br />' only large reservoir upstream of the Boating Park. The lake has a capacity of <br />approximately 23,100 acre -feet and is used primarily for hydroelectric power <br />generation. <br />To estimate the available unregulated or natural streamflow at the <br />Boating Park, we considered the contribution of storage releases at Electra Lake. <br />Electra Lake releases were determined from monthly storage records, which were <br />obtained from the State Engineer's Office for the period of 1928 through 2004. The <br />Electra Lake releases are summarized in Table 6. The monthly unregulated streamflow <br />was calculated by subtracting the Electra Lake releases from the total observed <br />streamflow at the Boating Park location. Table 7 presents the unregulated streamflow <br />estimates during the 1928 through 2004 period, which average 568,000 acre -feet per <br />year. <br />By comparing the available unregulated streamflow with the total streamflow <br />amounts claimed by the RICD (Table 2), the amount of RICD flows satisfied by <br />unregulated sources was calculated. The unregulated streamflow contributions to the <br />RICD claims are summarized in Table 8. The remaining streamflow commanded by the <br />RICD would be satisfied by Electra Lake releases, as shown in Table 9. <br />15 <br />