WSP03609

• File Number: 8407
• Description: Platte River Basin - River Basin General Publications
• State: CO
• Basin: South Platte
• Water Division: 1
• Date: 7/11/1984
• Author: Joe Tom Wood
• Title: Tunnel Vision - An Analysis of River Call Data in the South Platte River Basin
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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system.

The same holds true for a transmountain diversion of 500

acre-feet into a municipal system. Some 200 or 300 acre-feet

would be e~pected to return to the stream system. One should

realistically expect a little over half of the amount of

Metropolitan Denver area transmountain diversions to reappear in!

the South Platte River system as a return flow of one sort or

another. For instance, in 1978 transmountain diversions and

exercise o~ South park transfer brought some 235,000 acre-feet

into the Metropolitan Denver area. If half of this amount

expressed itself as return flow over the course of a year, the

effect would be to increase streamflow by an average of over 160

cfs. Under the same assumption for 1978, the almost 289,000

acre-feet of imported water by the Grand River Ditch, the Eureka

Ditch, an~ the Alva B. Adams Tunnel would increase South Platte

River system flows by almost 200 cfs.

Reviewing Table 4 and Figure 4, how do these importations

and introductions of water relate to changes in call patterns as,

against metropolitan users of tributary water rights? Do the

"newer" importations and introductions of waters, by the Roberts

Tunnel, by the Aurora-Homestake pipeline, and by the South park

Transfers, really result in changes in call patterns?

Figure 5 displays these importations by use of plots of

cumulative curves representing the total amounts of imported

waters through various sources, beginning with the year 1941.

Certain trends become apparent from inspection of Figure 5.

First, Figure 5 shows a rather rapid increase, beginning around

1950, in the downstream importations under the Grand River Ditch,:

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