Long dry winter finally gave way to lots of snow

BERTHOUD – With planting season in full swing and summer nearly here, officials with the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District are breathing easier.

The winter of 2009-10 was a long, dry ride fraught with worry about the low condition of high mountain snowpack. That growing concern extended right through March, normally one of Colorado’s snowiest months.

And then the snows came to the high country.

“It was slow all the way into March and that’s when the alarm bells started to go off,” recalled Karen Rademacher, NCWCD’s senior water resource engineer. “But April and May were like blockbusters, and now we’re within spitting distance of normal.”

The water district felt confident enough in early April to increase a 50 percent initial quota set in October to 80 percent for Colorado-Big Thompson water share owners. A quota of 80 percent means each unit of C-BT water will yield eight-tenths of an acre-foot. An acre-foot equals 325,851 gallons of water, or enough to supply the needs of a family of four for one year.

The 80 percent quota will make available a total of 248,000 acre-feet of C-BT water this year to its owners, which include 33 cities and towns, about 120 ditch and reservoir companies and around 1,800 individual allottees, according to Brian Werner, water district spokesman.

Werner and Rademacher said additional Western Slope snowfall after the 80 percent quota vote by the water district’s board of directors on April 9 has painted a much rosier picture than was foreseen mid-winter.

“The numbers are definitely trending up,” Werner said. “We’re going into the (summer) with the highest storage in 10 years, and the soil moisture is way up.”

One example of this year’s heavy late season snow can be seen near Gould just across the Continental Divide in Jackson County. On May 24 the Colorado State Parks department reported that the Ranger Lakes, Bockman and North Michigan Reservoir campgrounds would remain closed through the Memorial Day weekend because of snowy conditions and the Crags Campground will be closed until July 1 because of still-deep snow.

All the way to Julesburg

Western Slope mountain snowpack becomes C-BT water when it flows into Lake Granby southwest of Rocky Mountain National Park. That water is then channeled to the Front Range through the Adams Tunnel and stored in Horsetooth Reservoir and Carter Lake.

Werner said C-BT water provides between one-quarter and one-third of all the water used in northeastern Colorado, with users stretching all the way to Julesburg.

About two-thirds of C-BT water is consumed by agriculture and the remaining third goes to municipal and industrial users. When it comes to ownership, Werner said those ratios are flipped, with cities owning two-thirds of the total 310,000 C-BT units and ag users owning about one-third.

Rademacher said another reason for the region’s water users to celebrate is the fact that most of April and the first part of May were cooler than normal.

“It was cold,” she said. “The weather turned cold through much of April and stayed cold through mid-May, so that slowed the runoff.”

Runoff above what can be stored in mountain and plains reservoirs eventually flows on out of the state.

Rademacher said the water district is now less worried about a quick warmup and fast spring runoff than a hot, dry summer. “The snow in the mountains is in the bank,” she said. “What we watch now is how much rain we get. The more rain, the less (water) we need to release.”

Werner said full local reservoirs mean Colorado water is rushing out of state, with the Poudre River nearing 2,000 cubic-feet-per-second in late May. He said that highlights the need for the district’s Northern Integrated Supply Project, which would create a new reservoir at the mouth of Poudre Canyon and another east of Ault to collect water from the South Platte River.

Due to opposition from groups who say the project would harm the Poudre River, a projected release date for a supplemental draft environmental impact statement has been moved from this year to 2011.

“Hopefully in 2011 there will be a decision (by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers),” Werner said. “We don’t know anything that makes us believe we won’t get a permit, but sometimes the process goes excruciatingly slow. And we can’t speed it up.”

Steve Porter covers agribusiness for the Northern Colorado Business Report. He can be reached at 970-323-3147 or at sporter@ncbr.com.

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