An updated look at the conditional water rights associated with the West Divide Project was provided at a meeting on Wednesday, March 16, 2011.

The meeting was held by the Colorado River District water supply subcommittee and was attended by the board of the West Divide Water Conservancy District. On the agenda was the May 2011 diligence filing required by state water court on the West Divide Project water rights.

The map and chart, below, lists the water rights and shows the reservoir and diversion facilities required to move the water from the Crystal River to the dry mesas south of Silt and Rifle. It was prepared by Grand River Consulting of Glenwood Springs.

The chart from Grand River Consulting also lists the water rights in alphabetical order. The list immediately below has the water rights listed by size and function.

To put the acre-feet numbers into context, consider that Ruedi Reservoir holds about 102,000 acre-feet.

West Divide Project conditional water rights

Storage Facilities

Osgood Reservoir: 128,728.7 acre-feet

Placita Reservoir: 62,009 af

Dry Hollow Reservoir: 45,000 af

Lower Kendig Reservoir: 15,450 af

Yank Creek Reservoir: 13,695 af

West Mamm Creek Reservoir: 6,500 af

Kendig Reservoir 1st Enlargement: 2,610 af

Diversion facilities

Avalanche Canal and Siphon: 1,000 cubic feet per second

Osgood Power Plant: 1,000 cfs

Placita Power Plant: 1,000 cfs

Fourmile Canal & Siphon: 830 cfs

Horsethief Canal – W. Divide Creek & Canal & Kendig Reservoir: 550 cfs

Dry Hollow Feeder Canal: 250 cfs

West Divide Canal – East Divide Creek: 200 cfs

Avalanche Power Plant: 170 cfs

Fourmile Canal: 85 cfs

West Divide Canal – Garfield Creek & Tunnel: 50 cfs

West Divide Canal – Baldy Creek: 50 cfs

Horsethief Canal – East Mamm Creek: 50 cfs

Horsethief Canal – Beaver Creek: 50 cfs

Horsethief Canal – Cache Creek: 50 cfs

Horsethief Canal – Battlement Creek: 50 cfs

[documentcloud id=”74859-west-divide-project-water-rights”]

>Map and chart from Grand River Consulting of Glenwood Springs for Colorado River District. Used as a reference at a River District water supply committee meeting on March 16, 2011.

Brent Gardner-Smith, the founder of Aspen Journalism, and who served as AJ’s executive director until August 2021 and as editor from 2011-2020, is the news director at Aspen Public Radio. He's also been...