In Like a Lion, Out Like a Fish?: Ark Valley Considers Promise of a Wet Spring for First Time in Years

By Chris Woodka, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.

Mar. 18–With the official start of spring less than a week away, reservoir levels are better than they’ve been in years, winter water storage is back to 1990s levels and crews are already working to open Western Slope collection systems in case there’s an early snowmelt.

Tom Musgrove, head of the Pueblo office of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said crews already are plowing out roads in the Fryingpan collection system to prepare for the possibility of an early runoff.

Ice has to be removed from the gates that allow water to flow through the Boustead Tunnel into Twin Lakes, Musgrove explained.

“They’re running into four feet of snow on the roads in the lowest part of the collection system . . . up to 10 feet in some places,” Musgrove said at a meeting last week of the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District.

Usually, the bureau doesn’t begin work on the collection system until May, but if there is an early runoff, the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project could begin importing water sooner than usual.

Last year, an ample snowpack early in the year disappeared at lower elevations by mid-May, resulting in an average yield.

This year, snowpack is average in both the Colorado and Arkansas river basins, although most snow typically accumulates in March and April. If runoff is earlier on the Western Slope, the Arkansas Valley could benefit and begin importing water by the end of April, Musgrove said.

The forecast for deliveries of Fry-Ark water as of March 1 was 55,000 acre-feet, Musgrove said. That would be slightly above average and comparable to imports for the past two years. However, the actual deliveries could vary widely from the forecast.

The bureau has been making room for spring runoff deliveries by drawing down Turquoise and Twin Lakes all winter with transfers to Lake Pueblo. Musgrove said those transfers will continue through the end of the month.

Pueblo also has been filling with winter water storage, a court-decreed program that allows ditch companies to store water after the growing season for use later in the year. Winter water also is stored at Lake Meredith, Adobe Lake and John Martin. Winter water storage begins Nov. 15 and ends March 15.

Water Division 2 Engineer Steve Witte estimated approximately 150,000 acre-feet was stored during the program, which ended Thursday.

“It’s similar to what we saw in the early 1990s,” Witte said.

The last time winter water storage reached that level was 2000-01, when 158,000 acre-feet were stored. The number was cut in half during the 2002-03 and 2003-04 winter storage programs.

“There was some interest in extending the winter storage program this year,” Witte said. “But I could find no basis in the decree to extend it.”

Many farmers were not able to get into fields as early as usual because of wet conditions in the lower valley from snowmelt, and so had asked to extend the program.

Most ditches will be using flows initially to clear out weeds, a legitimate reason to return a call to the river, Witte said.

John Martin Reservoir, which balances accounts under the Arkansas River Compact with Kansas, will continue storage of river flows until April 1.

The effects of the end of winter storage were dramatic in Pueblo.

Flows on the Arkansas River below Pueblo Dam more than doubled Thursday when the winter water program ended.

Meanwhile the big snowpack in the Lower Arkansas Valley apparently mostly soaked into the ground.

Flows in the lower portion of the Arkansas River watershed were expected to intensify when several feet of snow deposited by storms in December and January began to melt.

“There was quite a bit of snow on the plains and we were expecting more of a runoff,” said Pat Edelmann of the Pueblo U.S. Geological Survey.

Arkansas River flows in the lower reaches were only about 25 percent above normal, Edelmann reported Thursday.

RESERVOIR LEVELS

Here are selected reservoir levels in the Arkansas Valley as of March 15:

Source: Division of Water Resources.

All figures in acre-feet. An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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