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I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I Chapter IV: WATER A. Water Rights, Mountain Home Reservoir is filled by an appropriation of water from Trinchera Creek and its tributaries. Table IV-l summarizes the water rights and decrees for The Trinchera Irrigation Company including those for Mountain Home Reservoir, The Trinchera Watershed has three intermittent and well defined water courses - Ute Creek, Sangre de Cristo Creek, and Trinchera Creek. The creeks are fed by snow me It from their headwaters which reach elevations over 13,000 feet above sea level in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Water is diverted from Ute Creek and Sangre de Cristo Creek into the system on a supply and demand basis. Flows exceeding the diversion demand follow the natural channels through the watershed and enter Smith Reservoir. These flows contribute to the groundwater recharge for the watershed area and to the storage in Smith Reservoir. Flows in these. two creeks are utilized to the extent of demand. The fOllowing information highlighted in brackets concerning the quantity of water availabie in the Trinchera Irrigation District was derived from the Watershed PIan by the U.S. Soil Conservation Service in 1975. ( Ute Creek has a yearly flow of approximately 10,000 acre-feet on a 70 percent yield basis. Sangre de Cristo Creek has a yearly flow of approximateiy 7,000 acre-feet on a 70 percent probability basis, During the late season, all of the available stream flow is frequently diverted leaving a dry creek. During years of low snowfall, the creeks will not flow into the watershed for extended periods of time, Mountain Home Reservoir Is located on Trinchera Creek and stores the runoff Into Trinchera and its tributaries. Water is released from the reservoir on an as need basis and can be delivered to nearly all of the irrigated lands in the District through their system of canals and laterals. The yield on Mountain Home Reservoir is approximately 2.400 acre-feet per year on a 70 percent probability basis. A considerable amount of the water produced in the Trinchera Creek basin goes into the groundwater by seepage from the reservoir. Surface water outflow from the watershed is through Smith Reservoir into Trinchera Creek, Based on ten years of company records (1961 to 1970), 14,200 acre-feet of water is diverted from the three water sources into the irrigation system per year on a 70 percent probability basis. There are about 160 irrigation wells in the watershed, These wells supplement the diverted water supply, 'I'he~y_eraK!L_yearly volume of water pumped is estimated to be 21,10Q acre-fee~ Studies of the area show the groundwater has norbeen lowered -by the pumping and has remained relatively constant. ] PAGE IV-I Chapter IV - Ibmtain lboe Reservoir