BOARD00363

• Board Meeting Date: 5/24/2004
• Description: Artificial Recharge of Ground Water in Colorado - A Statewide Assessment
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

Artificial Recharge of Ground Water in Colorado
A Statewide Assessment

individual sites have not been documented in the literature outside of individual court decrees
and substitute supply plans.

Warner and others (1994) described 54 individual sites, identified in Figure VI -2, operated by
17 organizations and individual farmers. The organizations cited by Warner that operate
recharge sites include
. Central Colorado Water Conservancy District,
. Hemy Lyn Irrigation Company,
. Ground-Water Appropriators of the South Platte (GASP),
. Bijou Irrigation Company,
. Fort Morgan Reservoir and Irrigation Company,
. Pioneer Water and Irrigation Company,
. Upper Platte and Beaver Canal Company,
. Lower Platte and Beaver Canal Company, and
. Riverside Irrigation Company.

Artificial recharge as augmentation along the LSPRB is being implemented in Water Districts I,
2 and 64, all within Division 1. Records from DWR Division I indicate that, as of September
2003, there are 27 ditches along which AR is being implemented (shown in Figure VI -2), and
that there are 79 designated recharge locations (Jim Hall, ora] commun. and unpublished data,
2003). The water rights database lists 118 water rights for Water Districts 1,2, and 64 that
include AR as a beneficial use. Since 1992, annual recharge totals along the LSPRB have ranged
between 58,900 to 150,700 ac-ft per year and over 1.0 million ac-ft have been recharged as part
of augmentation to the tributary system.

The Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) owns and operates the Tamarack Ranch State
Wildlife Area on the south side of the South Platte River in Logan County (CTM-l in Figure V1-
2). In cooperation with the Colorado Water Conservation Board and a coalition of water users,
AR is being implemented at Tamarack Ranch as part of an augmentation plan that allowsthe
DOW to divert water to maintain wildlife habitat (Watt, 2003a). The Tamarack AR project is
also a main component of the State of Colorado proposal for a recovery program for endangered
species in Nebraska. Recharge ponds are filled by discharge from wells completed near the
South Platte River. This site is listed as a separate site in the inventory since wildlife habitat
maintenance is the primary objective of the ranch, although the operation of AR at the ranch for
augmentation is similar to AR operations throughout the LSPRB. It is also significant that the
recharge basins utilized at Tamarack are located in the sand hills formed on eolian deposits that
overlie the alluvium south of the valley.

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