PROJ00515

• Contract/PO #: FS0019X
• Contractor Name: Turkey Creek Snowball Creek Project CWRPDA 1985
• Contract Type: Loan
• Water District: 0
• County: Archuleta
• Loan Projects - Doc Type: Feasibility Study

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In its proj ections of water development in the State' of Colorado to the year
2040, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation does not include any specific depletion for
the Southern Utes. (A copy of their proj ections is included in Appendix E.)
Both the Bureau and the State have assumed that construction of the Animas-La
Plata project would satisfy the Indian claims. If the Animas-La Plata project
should not be constructed, however, it is conceivable that water for irrigation
of perhaps 5,000 additional acres of reservation land plus some minimum flows
for domestic and stock watering use might be reserved. The maximum summer month
requirement for such demands should not exceed 9,015 acre-feet. The probable
limit of claims for water outside the irrigation season under the "Winters
Doctrine" would be for an amount in the stream sufficient for stock water' and
domestic purposes.

Commitments to the State of New Mexico are defined in Article XIV of the
Upper Colorado Basin Compact, (see Appendix E). The compact recognizes a prior
right for all water in use at the time it was signed. Therefore, to the extent
that the Pagosa Springs pipeline right was in use in 1948, it should be exempt
from any call by New Mexico. Beyond that, Colorado is required only to deliver
a quantity of water sufficient to enable New Mexico to make full use of its
compact apportionment among the upper basin states. The U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation's figures for projected water supplies and depletions for the State
of New Mexico show a total compact allocation of 647,000 acre-feet. It should
be noted that this figure is based on an assumed upper basin average
availability of 5.8 million acre-feet, an assumption with which the upper basin
states do not necessarily agree. These figures also suggest that New Mexico's
needs will exceed that amount by the year 2000. Most of the 647,000 acre-feet
will be delivered from Navajo Reservoir which, with its holdover storage
capability, permits Colorado to deliver long-term average flows rather than meet
annual diversion demands.

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