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Website Hosting from $14.99 a month Webslte Development and Design E-Commerce Solutions art of the Rockies ernet Solutions .hea"oftherockies,com 719-539,3816 co Cit':.IDfrAf. HOT SPRINGS rt'lS ~D AQUATIC l'- CENTER r,... "10 W. Rainbow 8"'d. ...., OIIU.S.Hlllhwlr50 I (j') The: Salida Hot Sprinp is a year-round facility CV') which offen aquatic ~ation and relaxation Ln in natural hot mineraI water. I We: have a 2S-meter swimming pool, a soaking pool, m and 6 priYiltc: EUTOpt"An baths. ~ Call us about our aquaaze daun, swim lesson., I'- pool rentals, hours of operation, and group rales. WW'W.salidapool.com . shsac@'amigo.net ;t)4kDtit ~ BISTRO SeRVING fN'ITRNATIONAL & Rt:GlONAL 51STRO fARe -fINt::WINL.S . MICKOf">Rt::WS . FULL f>A.R ~l".5T M~ . r'>r..sT StArCX>D (DAKOTAS c.~ CAAr..s) . r'>r..sT WAJTPt:R5ON (kAT JA.O;.5ClN) .~J~~IDJ'\' "t bIlr Irienl.J J/rt J/trtJ/l.y f..m. 122 North F St. Historic Downtown Salida 5)0-9909 - 20. Colorado C<ntral Magazine.June 2003 - The other diversion from the Gunnison is much big- ger, although one might argue that it's not exactly a di- version from the Gunnison, since it puts water in a tributary of the Gunnison. That's the Gunnison.Uncompahgre Project. Almost a century old, it was one of the first projects of the fledgling U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. It uses a 5.S-mile runnel to convey about 365,000 acre. feet a year from the upper Black Canyon to the Uncompahgre Valley, where it irrigates fanns and orchards. The return flow goes into the Uncompahgre River, which joins the Gunnison at Delta. The argument for it then was that the Uncompahgre was a vaUey with sunshine and good soil, but not enough water - water that wouldn't do anybody much good if it just roared down a dark and narrow canyon. To make sure that there would be enough water for the Uncompahgre project, the Bureau of Reclamation built Taylor Park Reservoir in 1937. The idea was to fill it in the spring, then release the water down the river to the runnel inlet in late summer for the irrigators. That's still a big pan of its operation, though it is more compli. cated now. Then there are the three big dams and reservoirs on the river, Blue Mesa, Morrow Point, and Crystal, which lie between the city of Gunnison and the Black Canyon. Together, they are known as the Aspinall Unit. They all store water and generate electricity. They were built in the 1960s and 70s by the Bureau of Recla- mation as pan of the Colorado River Storage Project. The plan was to sell electricity ro pay for reservoirs thar would store water to insure that Colorado could make good on its obligations to downstream states. ry-o EXPlAIN THAT, we need to go back to 1922 and .1 the Colorado River Compact. Back then, Los An- geles wanted a dam on the Colorado River so it could build an aqueduct to rransport the water across 250 miles of desert. Los Angeles couldn't afford to do this on its O\AlO, though; it needed federal help. But upsrream states were worried. Under the doc- trine of prior appropriation, if California put the Colo- rado River's water to "beneficial use" before the upper states grew enough to start needing water from the river, California could claim the whole flow. As things were, Colorado and Utah and Wyoming and New Mex. ico might never be able ro use water that feU on their soil; therefore their congressional delegations blocked any federal assistance to Los Angeles. But that didn't help thirsty Los Angeles, so an agree. ment was reached among the stares. The river was di- vided at Lee's Ferry. Ariz. (which is about a dozen miles downstream from Glen Canyon Dam), and the river's flow was calculated to be an average 16 million acre-feet a year. (As it rums out, however, that estimate was made during very wet years). Under the agree. ment, Mexico was promised a million acre.feet. Of what was left, upstream states got half, and down- stream states gOt half - each share was 7.5 miUion acre-feet a year. The upper basin was Obligated to de.