PUB00004

• Year: 2003
• Title: Gunnison Basin Water: No Panacea for the Front Range
• CWCB Section: Administration
• Author: Land and Water Fund
• Description: Gunnison Basin Water: No Panacea for the Front Range
• Publications - Doc Type: Other

CD

The Gunnison: A Basin In Balance

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Aspinall are not subordinate to domestic and irrigation uses inside Colorado." As a
result of these rulings, the Aspinall Unit can "call out" (forcing a stop of use by) jun-
ior water rights in Colorado to protect its hydropower uses. In times of drought,
when flows are lower, this protection may mean that less water is available for newer
uses, such as proposed diversions to the Front Range.

. 14 .

The land and Water Fund of the Rockies

4. Colorado River Compact Deliveries

Perhaps the most important purpose of the Aspinall Unit is to store water that
can be released to help meet delivery requirements to the Lower Basin without
infringing upon consumptive uses in the Upper Basin.

The southwestern states share the Colorado River. Through the 1922 Colorado
River Compact, the Upper Basin States (Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Utah)
agreed to provide the Lower Basin States (Arizona, Nevada, and California) an annual
average delivery of 7,500,000 AF plus half of the 1.5 MAF owed by treaty to Mexico."'
This requirement exists regardless of flow conditions at Lee Ferry, the dividing point
between the Upper and Lower basins.

A 1948 Compact between the Upper Basin states allocates whatever water is
left over after required deliveries to the Lower Basin for use each year by the Upper
Basin, giving Colorado 51.75%, New Mexico 11.25%, Utah 23%, and Wyoming 14%."

Through storing water in the Aspinall Unit, Colorado is able to put its
Compact entitlement to beneficial use and to make its delivery obligations to down-
stream states. There has not yet been a "compact call" by downstream states.
However, storage for compact deliveries constitutes an existing, albeit "standby," use
of water from the Gunnison that will certainly become even more important as
Colorado approaches full beneficial use of its Compact entitlement in the Gunnison
or elsewhere in the state. The current drought increases the importance of this use,
indeed calls into question whether Colorado has much water remaining un-used from
its apportionment. Chapter 2 contains a more detailed discussion of this issue.

5. Water Quality

Colorado law does not yet recognize the benefit of keeping water in-stream
solely for the purpose of diluting pollutants. Whatever the law, water kept in the
stream is useful for this purpose. The Lower Gunnison Basin is on the state's 303(d)
list for selenium, a toxic pollutant, partly as a result of return flows from irrigation in
the Uncompahgre Valley. Clean water flowing from the Upper Basin is instrumental
in diluting the effects of selenium pollution.

C. Outcome of the Union Park Litigation

A single lawsuit-over the proposed Union Park project-provides much of
the "law of the river" in the Gunnison. In 1986, the Natural Energy Resources
Company (NECQ) filed an application for water rights in Water Division 4 in
Montrose to construct and operate the Union Park Project."" This was the opening