BOARD01959

• Board Meeting Date: 5/11/1998
• Description: WSP Section - Colorado River Basin Issues - Aspinall Operations - 1998 Planned Spring Peak
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

May 11-12, 1998 Board Meeting
Agenda Item 26i
Page 2 of3

bypasses during the planned inspection of the penstocks at Blue Mesa. Operations at
Blue Mesa and Morrow Point are designed to allow Blue Mesa to fill by the end of July
as historically is the case provided there is adequate runoff.

.

Reclamation's original "peak" proposal was to start ramping up to the peak on
May 21 and return to base flows on June 2. Ramp up rates would be 500 cfs per day (250
cfs in the morning and another 250 cfs at night). Ramp down would be 400 cfs per day
(200 cfs morning and another 200 cfs at night). The peak of 3,000 cfs through the Black
Canyon would be maintained for 2-days. The peak would result in approximately 22,000
acre-feet bypassing the Crystal powerplant. Thus, water bypassed during the peak would
equal approximately 1,000 cfs plus whatever the Gunnison Tunnel is diverting in order to
make the 3,000 cfs in the Canyon. As noted earlier, bypasses at Crystal may be
necessary anyway, and this "planned peak" would more or less consolidate anticipated
bypasses into one peak. If inflow predictions increase in the next 4-6 weeks, the duration
or the height of the peak could be increased, or possibly both.

This operation raises several questions with respect to the 1956 Colorado River
Storage Project Act:
I. How will this peaking water be accounted for? IS it bypass water, storage water or
what? Should the "peaking" water be accounted for as part of the "Dallas and
Dolores Project Mitigation Water" (Biological Opinions on these two projects call for
making up depletions from these projects from Blue Mesa or other appropriate
sources).
2. Is it appropriate to provide a planned peak for endangered fish purposes before the
FWS has prepared a Biological Opinion on the Aspinall Unit, particularly if the FWS
is not conducting any research on endangered fish in the Gunnison River this year?
3. Is it appropriate to provide a peak to the NPS absent quantification of the Monuments
Reserved Water Right or any contract for Aspinall water for this purpose? The NPS
has also completed research activities and is not planning on doing monitoring in the
Black Canyon this spring or summer.

.

.,.

Specifically, the 1956 Colorado River Storage Project Act reads as follows:

SEe. 1. That, in order to initiate the comprehensive development of the water resources of
the Upper Colorado River Basin, for the purposes, among others, of regulatingflow of the
Colorado River, storing water for beneficial consumptive use, making it possible for the States of
the Upper Basin to utilize, consistently with the provisions of the Colorado River Compact, the
apportionments made to and among them in the Colorado River Compact and the Upper
Colorado River Basin Compact, respectively, providing for the reclamation of arid and semiarid
land, for the control of floods, and for the generation of hydroelectric power, as an incident to the
foregoing purposes, the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized...:

SEe. 7. The hydroelectric powerplants and transmission lines authorized by this Act to be
constructed, operated, and maintained by the Secretary shall be operated in conjunction with
other Federal powerplants, present and potential, so as to produce the greatest practicable
amount of power and energy that can be sold at firm power and energy rates, but in the exercise
of the authority hereby granted he shall not affect or interfere with the operation of the provisions .