Support broadens for water rights purchase

By DENNIS WEBB

Dennis.Webb@gjsentinel.com

Western Colorado financial support for purchasing major Colorado River water rights is broadening beyond local governments and water entities thanks to commitments made in recent days by the boards of Colorado Mesa University and Grand Valley Power.

CMU’s board on Friday unanimously agreed to commit up to $500,000 toward the effort to purchase the water rights for the Shoshone hydroelectric power plant in Glenwood Canyon for $99 million, and Grand Valley Power’s board recently pledged $100,000.

The Colorado River District has an agreement to buy the rights from Xcel Energy. Xcel would be able to use the water associated with the rights as long as the plant continues operating, but the goal is for the river district to reach an instream flow agreement with the state to ensure that the rights and flows associated with them are permanent, regardless of what happens to the plant.

The rights include a 1902 right to flows of 1,250 cubic feet per second, and a 1929 right to flows of 158 cfs. Due to their size and seniority, and the fact that the use is nonconsumptive and the water diverted by the plant returns to the river, the rights help assure sizable flows downstream of Glenwood Canyon by prioritizing those flows at times when there isn’t enough water in the river to also allow diversions upstream by entities with junior water rights. That results in benefits for downstream water users, river recreationists and the environment, including river habitat for imperiled fish.

This week Summit County committed $1 million to the purchase, bringing to $8 million the total commitments from the five counties along the mainstem of the river, including Mesa County. Other contributions have come from municipal governments, such as Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction, and from water entities such as the Ute Water Conservancy District.

“We’ve been of course following like everyone else the importance of the Shoshone right and this regional community effort to try and protect western Colorado,” CMU President John Marshall said Friday in an interview. “It just seemed like the obvious thing for the regional comprehensive university here to be in that conversation.”

He said he’s pleased to see the CMU board take the initiative to contribute to the purchase.

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Thanks to state and CMU funds, the college this summer began a threeyear project to upgrade its geothermal-geoexchange plant that it uses for heating and cooling on campus. Already the system saves CMU about $1.6 million a year, and the latest upgrade will result in an additional $260,000 a year in forgone energy costs, Marshall said. He said CMU’s intention is to contribute a total of up to $500,000 over two years resulting from those forgone energy costs to the water rights purchase.

Marshall said he thinks every entity that is committing funds to the effort is doing it for the same reason, which is the longterm health of the river.

“CMU doesn’t exist but for a healthy western Colorado and that doesn’t exist without the Colorado River, so it’s a fairly straight line for us in terms of trying to support our community and our region on arguably the single most important thing for our future,” he said.

He said the region has been a tremendous supporter of CMU, and that support needs to be reciprocal. He sees the water-rights commitment as a chance for the university to show up for the region in a tangible way when it needs the help.

Marshall also noted that CMU has the Ruth Powell Hutchins Water Center, and a number of majors with connections to water and watersheds.

“There’s a curricular connection, a policy connection and just frankly an economic development and regional health connection,” to the Colorado River, he said.

The river district also sits on CMU’s water advisory board, he noted.

“We’re excited to see their work continue to move forward such an important issue for western Colorado,” Marshall said.

River district General Manager Andy Mueller, who visited with the CMU board Friday before its decision, said the district appreciates CMU’s leadership and community ethic in protecting Western Slope water.

“Their commitment to the Western Slope extends beyond education to other fundamental building blocks such as the protection of our water resources, and we are very appreciative,” he said.

Grand Valley Power is a not-for-profit electric cooperative serving 19,000 meters in and around Mesa County.

Reached for comment Friday afternoon on its $100,000 commitment, Grand Valley Power CEO Tom Walch said in a prepared statement, “Grand Valley Power serves a rural consumer base, a large segment of which relies on agriculture. GVP’s contribution will come from unclaimed patronage capital and won’t affect the electric cooperative’s rates. What the contribution will affect is the rights of our members to feel secure about the future of sustainable water on the Western Slope. Our board recognizes the immense value these water rights hold for our region.”

Mueller said it’s heartening to see growing regional support for the effort that now goes beyond local governments and water entities.

“It is a broader circle and I think what we’re seeing is ... institutions within the Western Slope community that recognize the overlap in our values and our concerns about the Western Slope’s future and they’re stepping up to help and protect it. It’s pretty amazing, really.”

The river district has committed $20 million itself to the purchase, and the state has committed another $20 million. With local commitments, the river district has more than $55 million in total pledged toward the purchase already, and it is looking to cover much of the remaining funding gap by pursuing funds to be made available by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation through the Inflation Reduction Act.