Colorado’s top water board unanimously agreed Tuesday to hear out Front Range water operators’ concerns about a Western Slope plan to purchase historic Colorado River water rights.
The Colorado River Water Conservation District, which represents 15 Western Slope counties, negotiated a $99 million deal to purchase water rights tied to the century-old Shoshone Power Plant, owned by a subsidiary of Xcel Energy.
The River District and the Front Range groups — Aurora Water, Denver Water, Colorado Springs Utilities and Northern Water — all want to maintain the historical flows past Shoshone to provide predictable water supplies long into the future. They mainly disagree about the amount of water involved. Front Range providers say, if the number is too high, it could hamper their ability to provide water to millions of people.
In June, the Front Range water managers asked the Colorado Water Conservation Board to hold a hearing to air concerns. That hearing will be held during the board’s meeting, Sept. 16-18.
“We look forward to the hearing, and we appreciate the effort and the time that you and the staff have put into this effort,” Andy Mueller, the River District’s general manager, said during the board meeting Tuesday. “[We] look forward to finishing this in September.”
The decision Tuesday also opened up a seven-day period, ending July 9, for others to ask to join the September hearing. The board will share updates with the public on its website.
The hearing is part of a larger state process to decide whether Shoshone Power Plant’s water rights can become an environmental water right, called an instream flow right. These rights aim to keep water in rivers to help aquatic ecosystems.
In this case, the environmental water right would focus on a 2.4-mile stretch between Shoshone’s intake dam, which takes water out of the Colorado River, and the end of its penstocks, which return all of Shoshone’s water to the river. The power plant is tucked into Glenwood Canyon along Interstate 70 a few miles east of Glenwood Springs.
At times, the power plant sucks nearly all of the Colorado River’s flow — depending on the amount of water in the river above the dam — through its turbines before returning it to the river channel. When this happens, the 2.4-mile stretch immediately below the dam is reduced to a narrow channel of water.
The environmental flow right would allow water managers to keep more water in that stretch of the river to help fish and other aquatic species. If approved, it would be the largest, most influential instream flow right in the state’s portfolio. The Colorado water board has until Sept. 18 to make its decision.
The Colorado River District wants to purchase the water rights as part of a larger plan to permanently shore up water supplies for Western Slope communities, which have long worried that Shoshone’s flows could change if Xcel decided to shut down the power plant or sell the water rights.
The district has a purchase agreement with Xcel Energy to buy the rights and lease the water back to Xcel to generate electricity. One of the terms of the deal is getting the instream flow use approved by the state.
The Front Range water providers and water managers want to prevent any changes to Shoshone’s water rights from harming their water supplies.
Shoshone’s water rights are like the bottom blocks in a game of Jenga: change to the rights could cause ripple effects statewide, in part, because of their age, location and amount of water.
Shoshone’s oldest water right can impact up to 10,600 other upstream water rights because of the plant’s geographic location, according to the Colorado Division of Water Resources. Those junior water users include Front Range water managers, like Denver Water and Northern Water, that send water to millions of people.
They are also tied to numerous, carefully negotiated agreements that dictate how water flows across both western and eastern Colorado.
The Front Range water operators want to resolve their concerns about the historical flows through Shoshone during the instream flow approval process this summer.
The Colorado River District says their questions can be resolved during the subsequent water court proceedings, where opposing parties will have another opportunity to voice their concerns and make sure their water supplies aren’t negatively impacted.
“We are deeply concerned that the Front Range entities requesting this contested hearing are asking the CWCB to encroach on the jurisdiction of water court,” the district said in a prepared statement Tuesday.
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