Thursday, 01 September 2011 05:42

The Pitkin County Commissioners hold weekly work sessions on Tuesdays and bi-monthly public hearings on Wednesdays in the Plaza One building (next to the Courthouse) in Aspen.  Both meetings are televised live and repeated on locater CG12 TV.  They are also streamed live and available on the County website. Agendas are posted in the Aspen/Glenwood newspapers and on-line at www.aspenpitkin.com.   In this column, your District 5 Commissioner, George Newman offers his take on current matters.   You can reach him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .   


BOCC opposes Crystal River Project

Pitkin County has filed a statement of opposition to the Crystal River Project as proposed by the Colorado River Water Conservation District and the West Divide Water Conservancy District in their renewal application to water court.

The history of this Project goes back to the 1950’s for conditional water rights to export water from the Crystal River to the Divide and Mamm Creek drainages in Garfield County.  The intent was to use this water for agricultural needs and municipal and industrial purposes primarily associated with the development of oil shale.  This project  known as the West Divide Project included the construction of five reservoirs and many miles of ditches, canals and siphons to store and transport the water.  This included the Redstone Reservoir of approximately 129,000 acre feet, the Placita Reservoir at 62,000 acre feet and the Yank Creek Reservoir at about 14,000 acre feet.  By comparison, Reudi Reservoir is 100,000 acre feet and Paonia Reservoir is 15,000 acre feet. The federal government withdrew its support for the project in 1982 determining that the potential cost and benefit of the Project did not justify its completion as part of the Colorado River Storage Project Act.  

Faced with the absurdity of a reservoir drowning the historic center of Redstone, and the need to demonstrate some semblance of due diligence to water court every 6 years to maintain conditional water rights, the Districts have revised their current application.  They have given up their rights to build the Redstone Reservoir, reduced the size of the Placita reservoir to 4,000 acre feet (and propose moving this to an alternate site upstream near Bogan Flats) and reduced the Yank Creek Reservoir to 5,000 acre feet.  In addition, the proposed Avalanche Canal has been reduced to a flow of 250cfs from 500cfs and the diversion of water to Divide Creek and Mamm Creek has been eliminated.

The newly stated purpose for the Project is for hydroelectric power generation and stream management on the lower Crystal River.  Given the reduced size of the Placita and Yank Creek Dams, it is difficult to imagine their viability for hydroelectric power generation.  It is also hard to imagine how stream flow management of low flows on the Crystal can be accomplished with reservoirs of the new size given the fact that current diversions for agricultural use that deplete the river are not satisfied to their decreed amounts.  At best, the management of these reservoirs (if they could be filled) for this purpose would see wildly fluctuating water levels similar to Paonia Reservoir.   

Since the drought of 2002, the growing reality of climate change and increasing demand for water on the Eastern slope, the value of water storage sites in Western Colorado has increased.  Although the West Divide and Colorado River Districts presently have neither the ability nor the inclination to develop this Project, these rights could be sold to an entity that might actually construct these or other facilities.  Although this revised proposal has been scaled down, we do not feel it is appropriate in size, location, scope, feasibility, need or likelihood of actual completion.  Therefore, the BOCC is committed to the allocation of resources to oppose the continued renewal of this Project in water court.

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