WSP06745

• File Number: 8126.700
• Description: Arkansas River Coordinating Committee - Committees - Subcommittees
• State: CO
• Basin: Arkansas
• Water Division: 2
• Date: 12/1/1994
• Author: AWRA
• Title: Water Resources Bulletin - Administrative Institutional and Structural Characteristics of an Active Water Market
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

and silage), alfalfa, other cereals, pinto beans and
sugar beets. Vegetable crops account for a small, but
valuable amount of irrigated acreage (4,2 percent).
It is i~stmctive to glance at the current distribu-
tion of C-BT share ownership of the biggest allottees
(Table 1). It appears clearly from this table that own,
ership of C-BT units is rather concentrated: half of
total units are held by 10 organizations. The concen-
tration in C-BT unit ownership is increasing over
time: as will be shown in more detail below, the typi-
cal supplier is an individual or a farm, and the typical
purchaser is a municipality, water district, irrigation
company or industry.

TABLE 1. Ten Large.t CBT Unit Shareholders,

Shareholder
Organization

CBT Units
(Tolal310.000)

Percent
of Total

North Poudre Irrigation Company
City of Boulder
City of Greeley
City of Fort Collins
City of Loveland
Platte Valley Irrigation District
City of Loagmont
Public Service Company
Little Thompson Water District
Riverside Inigation District
Total-

40,000
21,015
18,985
18,699
10,355
10,320
10,148
9,997
6,594
6,000
152.113

12,9
6,8
6,1
6,0
3,3
3,3
3,3
3,2
2,1
1.9
49.1

Source: Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District.
"'Percent total differs from individual sum of percentages
due to rounding.

Figure 3 illustrates historical annual C-BT share
ownership and water deliveries in agricultural and
non-agricultural sectors as a percent of the project
total. From the graph, it can readily be seen that agri.
culture uses more water than it owns, suggesting that
municipalities, after purchasing allotments for future
and drought use, rent their unneeded water to irriga.
tors, reducing the immediate impact of transfers on
agricultural production,
Showing deliveries as a percent of total can be mis-
leading because the pattern of deliveries appears
quite uniform, However, recall that the C-BT project
is intended to provide supplemental water to the east
slope, and as such, annual deliveries of C-BT water
are highly variable depending on both east and west
slope hydrologic conditions, Figure 4 shows the histor-
ical annual quantity of C-BT water in acre-feet deliv-
ered for agricultural and non-agricultural uses
(excluding multipurpose use deliveries), Although ini-
tially constructed to provide supplemental water to

WATER RESOURCES BULLETIN

Michelsen

the South Platte river basin and despite the large
variability in annual deliveries, some municipalities
and irrigators now rely on C-BT water as a primary
rather than just a supplementary source of supply
because of the high reliability of delivery,

ceT Share Ownership (thousands)

% of Total Deliveries
100

300

250 eo
-,'
200 "
,- 50
150 "
< 40
100 "

50

20

o
1962

1967 1972 1977 1982 1987
ClAg Holdings Oather Holdings -Ag '" Total

o
1992

Figure 3. CRT Share Ownership and Percent
of Tolal Deliveries to Agriculture.

Annual deliveries (thousand acre-faet)

300

250

200

150

100

50

o
1962

1967

1972 1977 1982
.M&I Use DAg Us.

1987

1992

Figure 4. CBT Water Deliveries for Agricultural Use
and Municipal and Industrial U!ie.

TRANSFERS OF C,BT ALLOTMENTS

Rights to C,BT water are easily transferable within
the district service area, Not only can allottees sea-
sonally rent and transfer water from one location of
use or class of service to another, but they can also
sell and purchase permanent allotment contracts,
Since C,BT water is imported from another basin,
there was no prior reliance of users in the South Plat-
te River basin on the return flows of project water,
Therefore, transfers of C-BT water are for the full
quantity of the water allotment: that is, in contrast to

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