Backers Pull Plug On Hydro Project

By Tom Krol

The news part of this story is easy. It’s how we got here that takes time in the telling.

Earlier this year, Trout Unlimited won one of its most significant resource victories in Colorado, when the financial backers of a proposed hydropower project that would have drained the Gunnison River and drowned the Uncompahgre decided they’d spent enough.

“I’m extraordinarily proud of CTU and the Colorado Water Project’s efforts to stop this project. Without a long and concerted effort this project may well have gone through.” Those are the words of Rich Domingue, former CTU activist and professional hydrologist who now lives in Oregon. Rich kicked off TU’s opposition to the AB Lateral hydropower project fifteen years ago.

Drew Peternell, Boulder-based staff attorney for TU’s Colorado Water Project, stood watch at the end. “This victory was good at two levels. On the ground for both the Uncompahgre and the Gunnison rivers - and that’s significant - but it also goes to show that a conservation group with relatively limited resources can use the water court system to defeat projects that will damage our coldwater fisheries.”

It’s a basic tenet of Colorado water law that you can’t beat them unless you join them. If you don’t have the qualifications and expertise to participate in water court proceedings, you can’t affect the outcome. That’s why National TU decided to hire Melinda Kassen and establish the Colorado Water Project several years ago.

So what did we win, exactly? Well, we stopped a plan to divert year round flows from the Gunnison River through an existing pipeline, known as the Gunnison Tunnel, to the Uncompahgre Valley near Montrose, where it would be used to generate hydropower before it was returned to the Uncompahgre River. TU, CTU and other organizations such as the High Country Citizens Alliance, opposed it because of the potential for habitat and spawning ground loss to the Gunnison from very low winter flows, and because of certain flooding and erosion on the Uncompahgre.

The AB Lateral hydropower controversy has roots that go back before electricity, when the United States Bureau of Reclamation first focused its talent for engineering and concrete-pouring on the West’s water resources.

One of BuRec’s first projects involved drilling the six-mile Gunnison Tunnel through solid rock, making it possible to draw water from the Gunnison – just above the Black Canyon – to irrigate the Uncompahgre Valley near Montrose. The AB Lateral is a ditch that delivers irrigation water from the outlet of the tunnel to areas A and B of the Uncompahgre Valley Reclamation Project.

The United States was granted a 1901 water right to divert more than thirteen hundred cubic feet of Gunnison water per second during the irrigation season - April through October – for delivery to the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users’ Association.  There’s no doubt that the water provided a major boost to the west slope’s ag-based economy.

One significant hurdle stood in the way. The project wasn’t economically feasible unless there was enough water to drive turbines all year long. So, in the early 1980s, the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users’ Association applied for, and eventually won, conditional water rights to divert the full capacity of the tunnel, more than thirteen hundred cubic feet of water per second, for twelve months of the year.

A thousand cubic feet of water per second, even from a river as large as the Gunnison, is a heck of a lot of water. As reporter Jerd Smith pointed out in a Rocky Mountain News article, the 800 thousand acre feet that could potentially be sent through the tunnel represented “more than two and a half times what Denver Water consumes every year.”

Besides knocking winter stream flows in the Gunnison down to the required minimum 300 feet per second (the subject of yet another controversy), the project would have dumped a huge amount of “new” water into the much smaller Uncompahgre.

Low winter flows on the Gunnison were a cause for alarm. A dramatically diminished winter flow offers the potential long-term effects of increased sedimentation as well as diminished spawning areas and habitat. And there was equal, if not greater concern for the Uncompahgre, which was certain to experience pronounced flooding and erosion.

TU’s efforts to make the public aware of the potential harm of this project were helped along at times by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.  According to Domingue, “The Sentinel was terrific. They did top-drawer journalism for a small newspaper.”

Years passed and nothing was built. Rich Domingue moved on, but along came the Colorado Water Project, and finally, an opportunity.

Since the water district hadn’t exercised its water rights, it was bound to return to water court every six years to retain them. That’s when Drew Peternell filed to oppose the water rights in court.

The fact that a conservation organization would appear in water court to oppose the project not only surprised the water providers, it also began to give them second thoughts.

After two years of legal wrangling, in January, a key financial patron of the project, faced with mounting legal costs and the prospect of a battle that might continue on to the Colorado Supreme Court, finally threw in the towel, requiring the Water Users’ Association to dismiss its claims and relinquish the conditional rights to year round flows.

Persistence and partnership had paid off again. By taking the next step and bolstering our volunteer strength with professional legal expertise, TU and CTU continue to demonstrate their effectiveness as resource advocates.

“I feel vindicated,” said Rich Domingue. “This is great news for us, and for the people of Colorado. The TU Staff and volunteers have a right to feel proud.”

About The Author

Tom Krol is a former President of Colorado Trout Unlimited.