Blue Mesa may fill again, according to early forecasts

Matt Hildner

Daily Press Writer

MONTROSE — Blue Mesa Reservoir could come close to filling again this year if forecasts hold, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

The agency hosted one of the three operation meetings that are held every year for the Wayne Aspinall Unit at the Montrose Pavilion Thursday, giving local water users its tentative forecast for spring runoff and reviewing the fall operation of the three dams that line the Gunnison River.

The bureau’s forecasts predicted that Blue Mesa will come within a few feet of its July target elevation of 7,517 feet. As of Wednesday, its water level sat at an elevation of 7,486 feet.

“These forecasts can and do and will change. January is just kind of a starting point,” said Dan Crabtree, the bureau’s water management group chief for the western colorado area office.

Should Blue Mesa fill this summer, it would mark the second consecutive year the state’s largest reservoir has reached its capacity. Before last summer, it had gone seven years without filling.

Blue Mesa, Morrow Point and Crystal reservoirs combine to make up the Aspinall Unit and are managed by the Bureau of Reclamation to provide irrigation, hydropower, recreation and habitat for fish and wildlife.

All of the local water managers, along with the Bureau, hope the wet October that saw the Gunnison Basin receive over 150 percent of its 30-year average for that month will help the spring runoff.

The added soil moisture content in the basin could increase the amount of snowpack runoff that makes it down into reservoirs, although Coll Stanton, a hydraulic engineer with the bureau, warned that high temperatures and windy conditions during runoff could eat away at that advantage.

Later this spring the bureau hopes to start gathering data for a hydrology model that could be used for an environmental impact statement for the Colorado pikeminnow and the razorback sucker. The two have been listed by the federal government as endangered species and occupy the lower stretch of the Gunnison below Delta.

But the EIS has been stalled by the legal battle to secure a water right for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

John McClow, attorney for the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District, said the U.S. Department of Justice was attempting to narrow down the more than 380 parties who opposed the park’s 2001 filing to quantify a water right.

“The effort is being made to condense that to a more reasonable group,” McClow said, adding that the first target would likely be to reduce the opposition to the 43 parties actually represented by attorneys.

A status conference for the case is scheduled on March 1.

Contact Matt Hildner via e-mail at matth@montrosepress.com