by John Orr
New hydroelectric generation plant online near Creede
Humphreys family member Ruth Brown flipped the switch on the family’s new $1.3 million 310 kilowatt hydroelectric generation station on July 15. The new plant utilizes an existing 90 foot tall concrete arch dam and reservoir that Brown’s great grandfather built in 1923 below the confluence of Goose and Roaring Fork creeks for recreation and power for the ranch. The new plant should generate enough power for over 200 homes.
The existing dam – built with materials hauled in by hand or by livestock and with concrete mixed on site – was key to the economics of the project. Another boost came from a 2006 bill passed by the state legislature that created a renewable energy standard.
Brown – who served as the project manager for the family – told The Pueblo Chieftain that the ranch will connect to the grid through the San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative. The Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association can then claim renewable energy credits after purchasing the power.
She told The Aspen Times in October of 2009 that she expects the project to turn a small profit in as little as one year. Financing came largely from federal government stimulus funds, a $308,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a $600,000 low interest loan.
The plant utilizes a siphon to draw water from the reservoir and send it down a 650 foot penstock. The construction manager, Gary Boring, told The Pueblo Chieftain, “This really hasn’t been done before … That’s been one of the big challenges on the job … keeping that siphon going and keeping air out of the penstock.” A bubbler was installed to keep the intake from icing over during the long winter in the area.
A poor water year is about the only thing that can limit production, according to Boring.
Brown and her family built the project in part to demonstrate the economic feasibility of small hydroelectric projects. By working with State Senator Gail Schwartz of Aspen she hopes to streamline the permit process for small hydropower projects so that more landowners will pursue them.
Brown said of Schwartz, “She stood up against the old way of doing business,” according to The Pueblo Chieftain.
Schwartz added, “We have such an undeveloped resource.”
The Chieftain reports that the Governor’s Energy Office knows of 58 hydroelectric projects around the state while a survey by the Idaho National Laboratory found more than 5,000 places in Colorado with potential for installations smaller than two megawatts.
Runoff and drought
What a contrast this water year. Colorado’s snowpack ranged from near average in the south of the state to record setting in the north, while drought grips many of the counties in the southeast corner of the state and the San Luis Valley.
Late season runoff combined with near capacity west slope deliveries through the Twin Lakes and Boustead tunnels, and the early onset of the North American Monsoon led to high water warnings for the Arkansas River on the Numbers Rapid and Royal Gorge well into the third week of July.
On July 14, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation employee, Eric Knight, told Colorado Central in an e-mail that, “The bottomless well of snowmelt and precipitation continues to hold inflows into Blue Mesa Reservoir above all predictions.” The Bureau was busy trying to balance outflows from the Aspinall Unit into the Black Canyon, Gunnison Gorge and Gunnison Tunnel (a transbasin diversion to the Uncompahgre River) to avoid a spill at Blue Mesa Dam. The power plant at Crystal Dam was going full bore, and as we go to press there is a chance that Crystal will spill if inflows to Blue Mesa stay high.
However, the 2011 drought across the southern U.S. sent fingers of dryness into Colorado affecting 24 counties. The total included all or parts of Chaffee, Custer, Fremont, Alamosa, Gunnison, Lake, Park, Saguache, Teller, Conejos and Costilla counties. In July Governor Hickenlooper asked the federal government to step in with disaster funds.
Ironically, the drought will help with streamflow along the Arkansas’ main stem. Irrigation demand down valley should stay high as farmers finish off this season’s crops. Diversions from the west slope are flush with available runoff – to send down to Lake Pueblo for storage or to the ditch companies that own the Twin Lakes diversion system up on Independence Pass – keeping water in the main stem all the way down to the lower valley.
Final South Platte Basin Upper Mountain Counties needs assessment released
Back in 2005 when water providers were still licking their wounds from the drought Colorado experienced in 2002, Russell George, Governor Owens’ Department of Natural Resources Chief, dreamed up the idea of roundtables for the major river basins in the state. The idea was that if you could get many voices and interests in the same room to discuss Colorado’s projected water supply gap there was a chance of developing consensus-based solutions.
Over the past couple of years the roundtables have been working on needs assessments. They’ve been asked to quantify the amount of water each basin needs in order to meet consumptive and non-consumptive requirements.
The South Platte Roundtable released their final report for the upper mountain counties in May. It’s a great read for numbers junkies. The report includes information such as the population of Park County which is expected to increase from 11,220 to 26,420 by 2050. They even introduce you to the data and methodology behind their numbers.
You can download a copy from the Colorado Water Conservation Board website (http://cwcb.state.co.us/).
Consumptive uses include farming, municipal and industrial uses that fully consume a portion of the water. For example, most cities’ water customers use about 5% of the water delivered to a household, while flood irrigation utilizes around half of the water applied. The rest returns to the river system via the wastewater stream or irrigation return flows.
The non-consumptive category includes recreation, hydroelectric generation, riparian and stream needs. Many mountain economies depend on fisherman, hunters and other recreational business, so water for these uses is not just going downstream uselessly.
The dance for the next couple of decades is going to include striking deals to protect non-consumptive needs from Colorado water law, which favors consumptive needs. For example, transmountain diversions for municipal consumptive use often lead to low flows in some stream reaches, elevated water temperatures and lowered numbers of macroinvertebrates which negatively impact the fishery.
Short takes
• 2012 will mark the 100th anniversary for Rio Grande Reservoir. A celebration is being planned to coincide with the Colorado Foundation for Water Education’s “Water 2012” festivities.
• After being shut down for a number of months, Wellington Lake near Bailey is open again featuring 75 public campsites.
• Colorado’s U.S. Senators, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency in June asking the agency to clarify the EPA’s authority to facilitate “Good Samaritan” cleanups of abandoned hard-rock mines.
• Judge O. John Kuenhold announced his retirement in June. He oversaw Water Court Division Three in Alamosa for the last few years. He told the Valley Courier that he first came to the San Luis Valley in 1969. “I had hair then; I wore it in a ponytail.”
John Orr follows water issues at Coyote Gulch (http://coyotegulch.net/).
