Aspen Journalism (https://aspenjournalism.org/)
More demands, and less water, leave water managers searching for certainty.
A pilot program that pays ranchers to fallow fields and let their water run downstream toward Lake Powell proves popular, but raises some tricky issues yet to be resolved.
The first prospectors up Lincoln Creek in the early 1880s faced avalanches, unstable explosives, cave-ins, and odyssey-like distances to marginal medical care.
The issues raised include whether the city can get a permit for the dams, if it can build the dams in reasonable time, if it has a specific plan to build them, and if it needs the water.
Wilderness Workshop, Western Resource Advocates, and city of Aspen to seek state funds to study using irrigation water to meet demands.
New guidelines say ‘people of the state have a right to divert water and apply it to beneficial use but do not have a right to divert water and waste it.’
The city tells opposing parties it is willing to move the water rights tied to the Maroon Creek Reservoir to locations in the Roaring Fork valley under certain conditions.
Reducing irrigation on the golf course may be a good option, but city staff and advisors are still calling for some level of storage to meet future needs.
The city of Aspen puts 63 acres of land in Woody Creek under contract for possible water storage, also looks at gravel pit site for reservoir
City official says ‘a completely different discussion’ will be underway after city announces proposal