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make an arcing turn to the south, causing it to run almost even with its banks to the west and making it possible to divert water directly into a man-made channel for use on lands paralleling the river to the north. Not surprisingly, the oldest major ditch in the valley- owned by the Grand Valley .lrrigation Company - has its headgates at this point. As the river turns once again to the west, it immediately moves back into a deeply cut channel. through which it continues to its junction with the Gunnison River and beyond. Efforts were made to use water wheels and hydraulic pumps to lift water up to the bench lands, but the real opportunity, local developers believed, was in diverting water from the river upstream, in DeBeque Canyon, and building a cana1 that would bring the water to the considerable land areas not irrigable from the Grand Valley Irrigation Company Canal. This was an undertaking that exceeded the financial means of valley interests but was exactly the sort of effort that the Reclamation Service had been created to provide. The feasibility of the project was studied in 1908, and the President approved the project in 1911. The significant, early commitment of the water of the upper Colorado River to irrigation in the Grand Valley remains the primary factor determining management of the river during the irrigation season. Irrigation diversions from the Colorado River for use in the Grand Valley average about 630,000 acre-feet annually.2 While the drainage area of the Colorado River above the Grand Valley yields an average of more than 3 million acre-feet per year, diversion demands for irrigation in the Iatesummer often equal or exceed flows in the river. [-get data] Known as the "Cameo Call" because of its location below the Cameo measuring gauge in DeBeque Canyon, divertible senior irrigation and power water rights for the Grand Valley collectively require the availability of 2,260 cubic feet per second of water to be in the river during the irrigation season. This "call" (the demand by downstream "seniors" for their full entitlement of water that requires upstream "juniors" to reduce or cease their diversions) typically begins in _ and can stay iri effect through _' Water development for irrigation in the Grand Valley has had a number of unintended consequences, including increased salinity, impacts on endangered species, and limitation of .... 2 Bishop-Brogden Associates, Inc., An Analysis of Potentiallnigation Water Savings in the Orand Valley of Colorado, February 1994 at 3 (hereafter "Bishop-Brogden"). An additional 250,000 acre-feet of water is diverted during the irrigation season (April to October) for power purposes. 2