Editor:
As reported by the Pueblo Chieftain’s Aug. 15, 2010, article, Colorado’s Arkansas and Gunnison Basin Roundtables are working on a joint proposal to use the Bureau of Reclamation’s Blue Mesa Reservoir for potential Colorado River Compact calls by Arizona, California and Nevada.
Such a plan would seriously conflict with the 1957 Congressional purposes for Blue Mesa and the other Aspinall Project reservoirs. It would also violate Colorado’s vital right to develop its unused Colorado River Compact entitlements, including the Bureau’s Aspinall Marketable Pool for statewide consumptive needs. Colorado’s current and future generations should be concerned.
Unfortunately, Colorado has never developed the Bureau’s 300,000 acre-feet Aspinall Pool in Blue Mesa Reservoir, as intended by Congress. This major oversight is the direct result of the Gunnison Basin’s improper, but effective “not one drop for the Gunnison” policy. The Gunnison Branch of the Colorado River is by far Colorado’s largest untapped water source.
There was, however, a short three-year period during the late 1980s when Gunnison leaders cooperated with a major Colorado - Bureau Upper Gunnison/Uncompahgre Basin Study of 19 transmountain alternatives for South Platte and Arkansas Basin users. Unfortunately, this major study’s final Phase 2 results were not completed, because of rising opposition from the basin of origin. However, the Bureau’s draft study cost comparisons clearly confirmed the 19 Gunnison transmountain alternatives are cost-competitive and/or superior to other alternatives, currently being considered for Colorado’s drier urban and rural growth areas.
Since these late 1980s studies, an innovative Blue Mesa-Aspinall high altitude storage alternative was conceived and evaluated between 2004 and 2007. It is called the Central Colorado Project. CCP is designed to pump and store several years of the Bureau’s unused Aspinall Pool rights in the Gunnison National Forest’s off-river Union Park Reservoir site, near the Continental Divide. Advanced modeling can quickly confirm CCP’s unprecedented capabilities throughout multiple river basins. CCP’s 1.2 million acre-feet of storage at 10,200 feet altitude can integrate and selectively multiply the productivity of limited water and energy resources, throughout five southwestern river basins – Gunnison, Colorado, Platte, Arkansas and Rio Grande – and the western power grid.
The National Environmental Policy Act requires objective economic and environmental comparisons of all reasonable water and energy development options within regions. Unfortunately, the Bureau’s viable Gunnison-Aspinall alternatives have been improperly omitted from all recent and ongoing EIS evaluations by local, state and federal entities.
All federal and state water and energy planning entities, including Colorado’s unique Basin Roundtables, must fully consider the Bureau’s overlooked Gunnison-Aspinall-headwater storage alternatives to assure NEPA compliance and optimal solutions for human and environmental needs.
Dave Miller
Palmer Lake
centralcoloradoproject@comcast.net
