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

.46.

The Land and Woter Fund of Ihe Rockies

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Append ix:
The Saga of the Union Park Project

A. Background

In 1986, the Natural Energy Resources Company (NECO) filed an application
for water rights in Water Division 4 in Montrose to construct and operate the Union
Park Project. '"' This was the opening salvo in a bitter struggle for control of a signifi-
cant share of the waters arising in the Upper Gunnison Basin. The big question:
would they remain in the Basin or be transported to the Front Range? The first act of
this struggle drew to a close in November 2000 with an opinion by the Colorado
Supreme Court upholding Judge Robert Brown's second Union Park opinion in Water
Division 4 dismissing a related application by Arapahoe County.

In August 1988, NECO conveyed all of its interest in the larger Union Park
Project to the Board of County Commissioners of Arapahoe County ('~rapahoe"). In
December 1988, Judge Brown dismissed most of what was then Arapahoe's applica-
tion.

Before the end of 1988, Arapahoe filed a new application (Case No. 88-CW-
178) aimed at preserving the claims lost in the earlier dismissal. In 1989, Arapahoe
filed an amendment to this new application seeking conditional water rights for a
number of new diversions. As described in its amended application in this case, the
Union Park Project consisted of the following facilities:

1. The Union Park Reservoir and Dam, with a capacity of 900,000 AF;

2. The Taylor Park Pumping plant, to lift water from TPR to Union Park
and to generate power when water is released from Union Park to TPR;

3. The Willow Creek Collection System and Bertha Gulch Tunnel;

4. Six diversion structures located in the East River drainage;

5. Five diversion structures in the Taylor River drainage; and

6. The Union-Antero Conduit (capacity 450 c.f.s.), to transport water by
gravity by means of a tunnel through the Collegiate Range into the
Arkansas River drainage and up to Antero Reservoir in South Park, for
ultimate delivery to Arapahoe County.

The ultimate capital cost of this massive project was estimated by Arapahoe's
expert to be as high as $800 million in 1991. In 2002 dollars, that cost is close to $1.1
billion.

West Slope interests saw this application for what it was: an attempt to build
the capacity to transport almost 330,000 AF each year from the Upper Gunnison to
Arapahoe County for additional growth and sprawl on the Front Range. The threat