A Western Slope coalition is making a play to purchase the water rights of a small hydropower plant with an enormous position in how water strikes throughout Colorado. If the group succeeds, farmers, water suppliers, anglers and rafters say they may sleep extra simply for years into the longer term.
“Any type of an settlement that will take the unknown out of the state of affairs is a aid and permits me to sleep at evening,” stated Ken Murphy, who owns the rafting firm Glenwood Journey Firm. “Recreation is just one facet to this, and we’re only a small facet of this, however an important facet in our area people.”
The Shoshone Energy Plant, owned by Xcel Power, is small in contrast with a number of the firm’s different energy crops, however its proper to water on the Colorado River is without doubt one of the oldest and largest inside state strains. Native economies and communities from Glenwood Springs to Grand Junction are depending on constant flows out of the plant and have been frightened for many years about one other entity snapping up the Shoshone water rights and siphoning off their water provide.
The coalition, led by the Colorado River Water Conservation District, desires to purchase the water rights for $98.5 million and lease them again to Xcel, a transfer it believes would defend the water and maintain it within the river eternally. The negotiations are within the early phases, and state officers are weighing some basic questions concerning the settlement. However the decadeslong effort to buy the rights appears to be experiencing a second of “convergence” that has Western Slope water customers feeling hopeful.
“In the present day, we actually are at a historic second in our pursuit of Shoshone permanency,” stated Peter Fleming, basic counsel for the Colorado River District. His feedback got here Wednesday at a gathering of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, or CWCB. The coalition has requested the water company for a $20 million grant to assist fund the acquisition.
The companions have a keen vendor in Xcel, help from 17 municipalities and water suppliers throughout Western Colorado and entry to “unimaginable” federal and state funding alternatives, he stated.
“It is a massive convergence that, in my very long time on the river district, we’ve by no means come near,” Fleming stated.
Some board members requested how they may present help with out tying up $20 million throughout a good finances yr. Others stated they understood simply how vital Shoshone was to water on the Western Slope.
Whenever you stay alongside the principle stem of the Colorado River, Shoshone is central to how the entire river system is managed.
“It’s how all of us stay,” stated Paul Bruchez, a board member and rancher close to Kremmling.
Colorado Legal professional Basic Phil Weiser questioned how the settlement would work, particularly the portion associated to instream water rights. State legislation says the CWCB is the one entity in Colorado that may personal that sort of water proper. However as proposed, the river district would maintain the title to the best, whereas assigning its administration to CWCB in perpetuity. That’s not how issues are ordinarily accomplished, Weiser stated.
“An alternate construction may simply be: Xcel doesn’t promote the best, which might then be held by the state as an instream move proper, till it’s accomplished with it,” Weiser stated throughout the assembly. “That may obtain the identical outcome.”
“If we may persuade the vendor,” Fleming responded.
The board didn’t vote on the deal or focus on whether or not it might assist fund the hassle Wednesday. The deal remains to be in draft kind, however the river district employees hopes it is going to be capable of finalize the acquisition and sale settlement in January.
It may take one or two years to wrap up the entire course of. After the acquisition settlement comes session with the Colorado Public Utilities Fee and a water courtroom case to legally replace the water proper — to not point out pulling collectively hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.
Why battle for Shoshone
Western Slope water customers are hopeful that the deal will undergo. They’ll help something that retains water flowing west, many stated.
“It might assure there’s going to be water accessible for Western Slope agriculture within the mainstream of the Colorado Basin,” stated Steve Little one, a rancher and Pitkin County commissioner. “To me, it’s as shut as you may come to a assure that we may maintain irrigated agriculture going on this a part of Western Colorado.”
The Shoshone Energy Plant, about 8 miles east of Glenwood Springs, has been sitting on the Colorado River for the reason that early 1900s, though the producing station and its two generators are simply ignored by drivers dashing down Interstate 70.
The facility plant helps convey constant flows to a whole lot of downstream customers. There are roughly 140 water diversions which have over 600 mixed water rights on the Colorado River predominant stem under the Shoshone Energy Plant and above the Cameo Diversion the place the Grand Valley Canal and Grand Valley Venture water rights are taken, in line with the state Division of Pure Assets.
Glenwood Journey’s Murphy stated his enterprise will depend on the river. He runs rafting journeys on the Colorado River downstream from Shoshone. The flows are constant sufficient for him to have the ability to e book journeys a yr or two upfront, which is essential for his enterprise.
The rafting season can also be lengthy, typically lasting from late March to the top of October. That’s useful for his workers, a lot of whom work the ski slopes within the winter and wish to work within the recreation business year-round.
“Mom Nature is our boss, and there’s nothing constant today with Mom Nature,” Murphy stated. “Any conversations or agreements that may come out to offer us constant flows, then we will handle our operations somewhat bit simpler.”
For water suppliers, extra water within the river equals higher water high quality, which makes it simpler to deal with for consuming water or to adjust to wastewater therapy requirements.
The Ute Water Conservancy District pulls from the river as a backup water supply for 88,000 folks within the Grand Junction space. The district, which drew water from the river for the primary time in 50 years in 2021, joined the coalition to buy the Shoshone water rights to maintain the established order and to protect water flows for the Western Slope.
“It’s vital as a result of it offers the move of water via all of Western Colorado,” stated Larry Intelligent, the district’s basic supervisor. “The large benefit to us is, it helps the irrigators down right here with water high quality and quantity.”

Downstream, regular flows are very important for the Higher Colorado River Endangered Fish Restoration Program, which runs alongside a 15-mile stretch of the river close to Palisade.
The Colorado River District estimated that, in dry years, Shoshone sends 41,000 acre-feet to 86,000 acre-feet of water via the attain that wouldn’t in any other case be there. That equates to about 17% to 50% of the particular move on that stretch of the river, Mueller stated.
One acre-foot can present a yearlong provide of water for 2 to 3 households.
Colorado water customers are required to adjust to the Endangered Species Act, and Andy Mueller, basic supervisor of the river district, stated Shoshone’s water rights can assist Colorado fulfill that obligation.
“Holding these fish thriving and being profitable with that program as we’ve got been over the past 40 years actually rests on the again of the Shoshone Energy Plant,” he stated.
Ryan Davis, proprietor of Hookers Fly Store, books journeys on the Colorado River from Glenwood Canyon to Rifle.
When water is low and heat, the corporate can’t use the Colorado River in any respect as a result of it’s closed to guard fish populations, Davis stated. Throughout closures, all the outfitters head to the Roaring Fork River, which ends up in strains of boats ready to launch and overfishing on the river, he stated.
He and his staff find yourself telling prospects concerning the river situations and depart it as much as them to substantiate the reserving. Generally prospects select to not, he stated.
“Plenty of our prospects solely wish to fish on the Colorado, so we e book them to take them on the Colorado. If it’s too low or too heat, we will’t take them there,” Davis stated. “It does reduce into our enterprise fairly a bit.”