FIXING the UPPER COLORADO RIVER Paul Bruchez, Reeder

FIXING THE UPPER COLORADO RIVER Paul Bruchez, Reeder Creek Ranch Mely Whiting, Colorado Counsel, Trout Unlimited Lurline Curran, former Grand County manager Grand County’s most famous tourist was President Dwight Eisenhower, who in the 1950s spent summer vacations snagging trout from the Fraser River. That river even then was significantly depleted by diversion to Denver. Nearby, at Grand Lake, the Colorado-Big Thompson (C-BT) had begun a massive withdrawal of water from the Colorado River. Later, in the 1980s, came another major disruption to the local water-dependent ecosystems, a dam on the Colorado River near Windy Gap, where it is joined by the Fraser. It all adds up to what rancher and fishing guide Paul Bruchez described as death by a thousand cuts. The full extent of the problems became apparent in the 2002 drought and its aftermath. In old days, before all the diversions began, ranchers in the Kremmling area had just relied upon springtime snowmelt flooding by the river to deliver water to their hay fields. Because of the C-BT diversions, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had installed pumps along the river, to ensure ranchers could get water into the fields. As river flows receded in the 21st century, those pumps had become inadequate even as Denver Water and Northern Water (beneficiary of the C-BT) pushed long-standing plans for further diversions. The net result: 80 percent of native flows in the Colorado River would be diverted across the Continental Divide. This could have gotten ugly, but Grand County instead chose a different approach. Officials decided to go along with the added diversions but only after devising a negotiating strategy, said Lurline Curran, then the county manager. “Honey, goodness has nothing to do with this,” she explained, paraphrasing the late actor Mae West. Certainly, less water doesn’t help. “We go from about 3,500 cubic feet per second to about 500—and that is in good times,” she said of original flows versus the post-diversion flows. “That has a huge impact.” But agreements worked out with the two giant Front Range water providers give Grand County resources it didn’t have. Denver is providing 1,000 acre-feet of water, to be used as best needed to accommodate ecosystem needs. Timing of diversions can be juggled, such as if more water is needed to flush sediments. This is being administered in tandem with Denver in a project called “Learning by Doing,” part of the Colorado River Cooperative Agreement. “We monitor stream and aquatic habitat. We identify priority areas and we employ resources to fix them. We fix existing problems and maybe take steps to protect streams from future problems,” explained Mely Whiting, Colorado counsel for Trout Unlimited, one of the parties to the settlements. Meanwhile, the recently completed Fraser Flat project, has produced a stream channel better designed for lower flows while producing habitat for cold-water-loving fish species. “We look forward to counting the bugs,” said Whiting. In the Kremmling area, Bruchez said landowners decided to evaluate their needs together and create solutions with benefits to irrigation, recreation and the environment. There is already evidence of success, including the return of fish, he said, while showing a picture of a sizable trout. A bypass of Windy Gap Dam will be the single biggest project. “The fish and the bugs will be able to migrate back up the streams, as they did years and years ago,” said Curran. “And this is something really dear to my heart. I believe this is one of the most important projects to save the river. How many times have you seen a reservoir taken off channel without litigation, without fighting, without year and years of all kinds of things going on? And to make it happen and somebody wins and somebody loses? This time, both sides win, and both sides get to do what they are supposed to do, and we’re restoring the health of the river.” .

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