Filling The Gap: Front Range (2011)
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Filling The Gap: Arkansas Basin
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Water and the Environment
Filling the Gap Report
Sustaining Colorado's lifestyle and economy demands that we preserve the state's waterways. Healthy rivers and streams support a diversity of fish, wildlife, and ecosystems, and draw residents and visitors to the state's world-famous natural areas. Colorado's rivers provide gold-medal trout fisheries and whitewater recreation, and are focal points for urban greenways in communities from Fort Collins to Durango and from Steamboat Springs to Pueblo. Healthy waterways are key to Colorado's outdoor tourism industry, which injects billions of dollars into the economy each year, and to attracting new businesses to the state. All of this is at risk, however, unless decision-makers in Colorado shift to more innovative, balanced approaches for supplying water to a growing population while sustaining Colorado's rivers and streams.
Instream non-consumptive water needs must become wholly integrated into water planning efforts. No longer can rivers and streams be an afterthought, bearing the adverse impacts of water development projects. Water planning must quantify and meet instream flow needs with the same level of energy, enthusiasm, and financial resources applied to developing new supplies.
Healthy, flowing rivers are among Colorado's most vital natural resources—nurturing the environment, supporting communities, powering the economy, and drawing residents and visitors alike to this state's world-famous natural areas. Maintaining a high quality of life in Colorado demands that we preserve the state's waterways.
The Upper Colorado River is significantly impacted by transbasin diversions.
“We're seeing what Windy Gap (diversions) have done to us in last 25 years. There's less fish, there's less bugs, there's less water, there's less everything — and now they're wanting more. We better stop and look at this and make sure we don't have a huge disaster.”
The Upper Colorado River system is famous for its gold-medal trout waters and recreation opportunities, but our state’s namesake river system is in trouble. The Colorado-Big Thompson Project, the Windy Gap Project, and the Moffat Collection System Project divert water out of the Upper Colorado River across the Continental Divide for use on the Front Range. At present, an annual average of about 65% of the native flows of the Upper Colorado River Basin are diverted to the Front Range. Impacts on the ecological health of the river system are profound and include:
- Stream reaches that at times are almost completely dry.
- A loss of biological diversity, most notably a dramatic decrease in stoneflies, sculpin, and other healthy habitat indicator species, as well as dramatic decreases in trout biomass. A recent Colorado Division of Wildlife report warned that “increased future water diversions may exacerbate these trends.”
- A spike in water temperatures in late summer, which violate state temperature standards and cause severe stress upon coldwater trout populations.
- The absence of high-water spring flushing flows and a corresponding increase in silt, weeds, and algae blooms.
- A marked decline in water quality and clarity in Grand Lake due to degraded Windy Gap water pumped through the lake.
Plans to expand transmountain diversions through the Windy Gap Firming Project and the Moffat Collection System Project could increase the portion of native Upper Colorado water diverted to the Front Range to an annual average of 85%, pushing the Colorado and Fraser Rivers and many of their tributaries to the brink of ecological collapse.
Front Range water providers must take steps to protect this priceless resource. Designing measures to protect these resources is becoming more and more difficult as streams become so dewatered that biological responses become non-linear and difficult to predict. Monitoring and adaptive management that keep project proponents accountable, and require them to adjust their operations to respond to unpredicted negative responses, is essential if these projects are to move forward—even if it means less certainty about the project’s future yield. Any future water diversions from the Upper Colorado must not endanger the health of the Colorado and Fraser Rivers and their tributaries. Diversion projects must be designed and operated to leave adequate flow in the rivers under all circumstances, even if water supplies in the Upper Colorado Basin diminish in the future as a result of climate change, as many scientists project. Moreover, state leaders must work to quantify and meet the instream flow needs of all of our state’s rivers and streams.
For more information, watch this Trout Unlimited video “Tapped out: The Upper Colorado on the Brink.”