Colorado Springs has agreed to give up water rights tied to reservoirs in the Blue River basin in exchange for the ability to expand Montgomery Reservoir on the east side of the Continental Divide without opposition from Western Slope entities.
Colorado Springs Utilities had been fighting in water court since 2015 to hang on to conditional water rights originally decreed in 1952 and tied to three proposed reservoirs: Lower Blue Reservoir, on Monte Cristo Creek; Spruce Lake Reservoir, on Spruce Creek; and Mayflower Reservoir, which would also have been built on Spruce Creek. Lower Blue Reservoir was decreed for a 50-foot-tall dam and 1,006 acre-feet of water; Spruce Lake Reservoir was decreed for an 80- to 90-foot-tall dam and 1,542 acre-feet; and Mayflower Reservoir, was decreed for a 75- to 85-foot-tall dam and 618 acre-feet.
After negotiations with eight opposers, including the Colorado River Water Conservation District, Summit County and the town of Breckenridge, the parties are set to approve an agreement that would cancel the conditional water rights for Spruce Lake and Mayflower reservoirs. A third potential reservoir, Lower Blue, would keep its 70-year-old rights, but Colorado Springs would transfer the majority of the water stored to Breckenridge and Summit County, and would share the costs of building that reservoir, which would be owned and operated by Breckenridge and Summit County.
In exchange, the Western Slope parties will not oppose Colorado Springs’ plan to enlarge Montgomery Reservoir to hold an additional 8,100 acre-feet of water for a total capacity of about 13,800 acre-feet. That project is expected to enter the permitting phase in 2025. After the permitting and construction of the Montgomery Reservoir expansion, the conditional water rights for Spruce Lake and Mayflower reservoirs would be officially abandoned and the water rights for Lower Blue Reservoir transferred to Summit County and Breckenridge.
“These conditional rights we’re relinquishing in the agreement are for future reservoirs that would be difficult to permit and build for us,” Jennifer Jordan, senior public affairs specialist at Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU), said in an interview with Aspen Journalism. “And we can gain in average years that same yield and perhaps a little bit more by getting the Montgomery Dam enlargement completed.”
A 2015 evaluation of the conditional water rights and proposed reservoirs by Wilson Water Group found several potential environmental and permitting stumbling blocks, including the presence of endangered species and challenging high-Alpine road construction.
CSU also agreed to a volumetric limit of the amount it will be allowed to take through the Hoosier Tunnel after the Montgomery Reservoir expansion: 13,000 acre-feet per year over a 15-year rolling average. CSU currently takes about 8,500 acre-feet per year through the tunnel.
Montgomery Reservoir is part of CSU’s Continental Hoosier System, which takes water from the headwaters of the Blue River between Breckenridge and Alma to Colorado Springs via the Hoosier Tunnel, Montgomery Reservoir and Blue River Pipeline. It is the city’s oldest transmountain diversion project.
Each year, transmountain diversions take about 500,000 acre-feet from the Colorado River basin to the Front Range. Colorado Springs is a large water user that draws from this vast network of tunnels and conveyance systems that move water from the mountainous headwaters on the west side of the Continental Divide to the east side, where the state’s biggest cities are located. Colorado Springs’ largest source of Western Slope water is its Twin Lakes system, which draws from the headwaters of the Roaring Fork River above Aspen.
CSU to support Shoshone
The Glenwood Springs-based River District was created in 1937 to combat these types of diversions and keep water on the Western Slope. It was one of the entities that opposed CSU’s conditional water rights in its nearly nine-year water court battle, which kicked off when the water provider filed a diligence application. That is the process in which a conditional water-right holder must demonstrate to the water court that it can and will eventually develop the water right, and that in the previous six years, it has done its diligence in seeing a project through.
On Jan. 16, the River District board approved the settlement agreement, which includes a commitment from Colorado Springs that the utility will support the River District’s efforts at securing the Shoshone water right.
The River District is working to purchase water rights from Xcel Energy associated with the Shoshone hydropower plant in Glenwood Canyon. The water rights date to 1902 and are nonconsumptive, meaning the water would stay in the river and flow downstream to the benefit of the environment, endangered fish and other water users on the Western Slope. The Colorado Water Conservation Board approved $20 million toward the $98.5 million purchase last week.
“The settlement provides additional local water supplies to the Blue River Valley and a commitment of support from Colorado Springs Utilities for the Shoshone Water Right Preservation effort, which provides substantial benefits to the health of the entire Colorado River, including important water security, economic and environmental benefits to the West Slope,” River District General Manager Andy Mueller said in a prepared statement. “In addition, the West Slope will benefit from clearly specified limits on the total amount of water Colorado Springs can divert through its Continental-Hoosier transmountain diversion tunnel.”
The agreement was also good news for Breckenridge, which will split the 600 acre-feet of water from Colorado Springs in a future Lower Blue Reservoir equally with Summit County. The reservoir was originally decreed for 1,006 acre-feet, but the agreement now limits the reservoir capacity to 600 acre-feet. Colorado Springs will retain the remaining amount, about 400 acre-feet, which can be stored in Montgomery Reservoir.
Breckenridge Mayor Pro Tem Kelly Owens said Breckenridge will be able to use the stored water in late summer, when flows in the Blue River are at their lowest.
“The way we see it is that we’ve now protected those waters, the snowmelt, and keeping it in the Blue River basin,” Owens said.
According to the agreement, Colorado Springs would pay 50% of the construction costs of a future Lower Blue Reservoir, and Breckenridge and Summit County would each pay 25%.
Colorado Springs City Council is expected to approve the agreement at its Feb. 13 meeting.
This story ran in the Feb. 5 edition of the Summit Daily and the Feb. 11 edition of The Aspen Times.