PROJ00040

• Contract/PO #: C153446
• Contractor Name: Grand Mesa Water Conservancy District
• Contract Type: Grant
• Water District: 0
• County: Delta
• Bill Number: XB 99-999
• Loan Projects - Doc Type: Feasibility Study

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The consultant quantified water shortages both in magnitude and timing, The
analysis determined that water shortages of some degree of severity affect a
considerable proportion of irrigators in the basin, with the degree of severity
closely related to the rank of an irrigator's water right, In some instances,
especially in dry years, water shortages cause crop yields lower than were
expected. In other instances, the crops harvested may be as large as expected, but
the prospect of limited water caused farmers to cultivate crops with lower water
requirements and less profitability than they would have cultivated if water were
plentiful.

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In the early months of the growing season when stream flows are abundant,
available water exceeds crop irrigation requirements, Unused water flows into the
Gunnison River because crop requirements have been met and existing storage
capacity has been filled, Later in the growing season, water becomes scare in spite
of releases from the Grand Mesa area reservoirs. The combined capacity of the
reserviors is insufficient to meet all of the crop irrigation requirements. Addi-
tional storage capacity could hold surplus water which is unused in the early part of
the growing season. The creeks in the neighboring basins to the east of the Tongue
Creek basin also have some surplus water in the early part of the growing season,
The USBR studies cited in the preceding section, as well as this study, examined
transbasin transfers as a possibility. No water would be transferred until all water
rights within those basins had been fully met,

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Holders of senior-rank rights to divert streamflow in the Tongue Creek basin, as
well as holders of rights to store water in existing small reservoirs in the
headwaters area, are concentrated in the lower basin. A viable plan to make more
water available in the Upper Surface Creek service area, as well as to alleviate the
existing shortages in the Lower Surface Creek service area, would depend upon a
cooperative plan for exchanges of water so that each holder of a right would
receive the water to which he is entitled, but not necessarily from the same source
(especially not from the same storage site) as in the past. In the Upper Basin, the
scarcity of water is greater and many of the water rights have a relatively low
rank. A high degree of cooperation among many of the basin's irrigators already
exists, By agreement among the owners of the headwaters' reservoirs, approxi-
mately 90 of the reservoirs are operated by an agency called the Grand Mesa Water

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