It’s impossible to predict the outcome of tomorrow’s Colorado Wildlife Commission meeting in Grand Junction, except for one reasonably ensured result.
There, along the overflowing banks of the river formerly known as Grand, the board charged with protecting, preserving and enhancing the state’s wildlife and wildlife habitat is expected to vote on the adequacy of plans to mitigate impacts to those resources from two contentious transmountain water development projects affecting the river now named Colorado.
The only sure bet is that someone will go away displeased.
The vote will complete the commission’s 60-day review of the Fish and Wildlife Mitigation Plans submitted by Denver Water and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District in April. But it’s unlikely to stop either project from occurring or quell the outcry from conservationists and stakeholders. At this point, only Northern and Denver Water can do that.
According to the Colorado Division of Wildlife, Denver Water’s proposed Moffat Collection System Project would firm 18,000 additional acre-feet of water per year from the existing upper Colorado River water rights, primarily by diverting additional water from the Fraser, Williams Fork and Blue rivers for storage in Gross Reservoir in Boulder County. The plan calls for enlarging Gross Reservoir from its current storage capacity of 41,811 acre-feet to approximately 114,000 acre-feet.
Northern’s plan for the Windy Gap Firming Project would firm 30,000 acre-feet each year from the upper Colorado River by storing it in a new reservoir to be constructed west of Carter Lake in Larimer County. The proposed Chimney Hollow Reservoir will have a storage capacity of 90,000 acre-feet.
According to the dozens who lined up in opposition to the proposals at the commission workshop in Salida last month, that’s simply too much water to remove from an already stressed Colorado River, where several key in- dicators of aquatic health are currently suffering.
“The state’s namesake river is dying,” said Bud Isaacs of the Upper Colorado River Alliance. “We’re asking the governor, state wildlife commissioners and the Department of Natural Resources to uphold their responsibility to protect our rivers.”
As required, Northern and Denver Water have submitted plans to ease the impacts of their projects on affected rivers and the fish that depend upon them for survival. Denver has proposed funding a Colorado River cutthroat restoration project and other aquatic habitat restoration work along the Fraser and upper Williams Fork rivers. On the Colorado River, Denver and Northern would monitor water temperatures and potentially release water in late July if high temperatures threatened fish.
Northern also has offered to manage diversions to maintain water levels in Lake Granby. Northern said it would contribute to water-quality projects designed to reduce nutrient loading in Grand Lake, Lake Granby and Shadow Mountain Reservoir.
After hearing the plans, commissioners questioned whether additional protections might be needed to guard against high water temperatures and whether flushing flows contemplated by the plans would be enough to maintain channel health in the river. They also asked for more consideration of mitigation and enhancement funding, and for a clarification of the role the DOW would play in developing and managing restoration projects. Estimating that the combined impact of these projects and existing diversions will remove 75 percent of the annual flows of the Upper Colorado, others asked for more.
“The present mitigation plan doesn’t get the job done,” said Mely Whiting, counsel for Trout Unlimited’s Colorado Water Project. “And unfortunately, Denver Water and Northern are not offering adequate protections.”
Given the amount of water removed, the list of requests is reasonable enough, only adding slightly to the commission’s concerns. The TU-led coalition is asking for a river “bypass” around the silt-laden Windy Gap Reservoir, an ongoing plan to monitor stream conditions and an endowment fund to pay for future restoration projects as necessary.
If history is an indicator, those projects will indeed be necessary.
Scott Willoughby: 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com
