There’s a saying in the West that “water flows uphill towards money.” Here in Colorado, that saying is rooted in hard fact that includes tunnels, pipelines and pump stations all pushing and pumping water uphill, from the western side of the state, over and through the Continental Divide, to the eastern side of the state where the vast majority of the people live.
In Grand County, which is where the Colorado River begins at the Continental Divide, 70% of the river is already diverted out before it reaches the boundary with Eagle County downstream. Much of that water is pumped uphill through the Continental Divide to the Front Range.
Never satisfied, the “growth machine” along the Front Range always wants more water to fuel its profits, and the source of that water always has been, and will continue to be, Colorado’s rivers. The latest instate squabble involves a small and very old hydroelectricity plant on the Colorado River downstream near Glenwood Springs.
Called the Shoshone Hydroelectric Facility and owned by Xcel Energy, its small size belies its importance for the Colorado River because it holds a legal right to a massive amount of water, and that water right goes back for over a hundred years. Because the water right is so old, it is very “senior” in the state water court system, most of it even older than the 1922 Colorado River Compact itself.
In November, the powerful Colorado Water Conservation Board voted to transfer the Shoshone water for environmental flows in the Colorado River, which was great news and a big victory that my organization, Save The Colorado, publicly supported. Now, the question of “how much” water is forced to go downstream for environmental flows is the big issue that a water court battle will answer as it plays out over the next year or longer.
Save The Colorado is the only environmental group in the water court battle advocating for the largest amount of water to flow downstream all the way to Glenwood Springs. The historical water right for the power plant is for over 1 million acre-feet, although it rarely uses that much. Conversely, the powerful Front Range water diverters — Denver Water, Aurora Water, Northern Water, and Colorado Springs Water — have argued that only about 550,000 acre-feet should flow downstream.
The difference between those numbers — 450,000 acre-feet of water — is worth billions of dollars on the Front Range and would slake the thirst of over a million new homes. The outcome of this water court battle will be a huge turning point for the future of the Colorado River on the Western Slope.
Even though we are the only environmental organization advocating for the full 1 million acre-feet of environmental flows, we are happy to see a few West Slope counties and agricultural water districts making the same claim in water court. Sometimes, odd bedfellows — an aggressive environmental group like ours and Western Slope counties and farmers — need to unite to keep the river flowing downstream.
And if that battle is not big enough, this instate squabble also sits squarely amid the broader interstate chaos on the Colorado River where all seven southwestern U.S. states and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation are deadlocked in a heated battle over how to manage the big downstream reservoirs, Powell and Mead. Drought and overuse have plagued the Colorado River and its reservoirs for over 20 years, and climate scientists predict more warm and dry weather for the future.
The big-city Front Range diverters — who up to half of their water from the Colorado River on the Western Slope — could be looking at forced water cuts if the Bureau of Reclamation’s decision favors the downstream states including California.
If that were to happen, it would not only set off a massive legal battle that could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, it would likely set off a fevered rush by the big Front Range cities to buy even more water on the Western Slope to replace what the federal government cuts off.
In this interstate battle, my organization is also advocating for more Colorado River water to flow over the Colorado state line and downstream through Utah and Arizona, and through the Grand Canyon. In fact, we have called for a “Grand Canyon Restoration Alternative” in the Bureau of Reclamation’s decision process.
The next six to 12 months might be the most litigious and fascinating in the history of the Colorado River both inside the state of Colorado and across the Southwest. Will more of the river flow downstream in its natural water course, or will it flow uphill toward money?
Gary Wockner, of Boulder County, directs Save The Colorado, a program of Save The World’s Rivers.
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