Letter from Kathleen Curry
water – November 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Ed,
Just wanted to let you know that some of the figures in your article on water in the October edition of Colorado Central should be adjusted. On Page 13 you state that there are 309,000 acres of irrigated land in the “Gunnison Country.” If you are referring to the higher elevation area above Blue Mesa Reservoir, the total irrigated acreage is about 63,000 acres. If you add in the areas tributary to Morrow Point Reservoir and Crystal Reservoir, the total is about 78,000. The farmland in the Uncompahgre Valley under the Uncompahgre Project is in the range of 80,000 acres.
Also on that page you state that around two million acre-feet is diverted for flood irrigation purposes. While I certainly agree with you that much of the diverted water returns in a flood irrigation environment, the amount diverted on average above Blue Mesa is around 560,000 acre-feet, with consumptive use at 72,500 acre-feet. As you move down the basin efficiencies improve because the irrigation practices are more diverse, with a significant portion of the land being under furrow irrigation. I am not familiar with the diversion amounts downstream of the Aspinall Unit, but if you were looking at diversions upstream of Crystal Dam, the average is around 620,000 acre-feet.
Kathleen Curry
Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District
Kathleen:
The numbers in that piece came from page 26 of the 2001 edition of Colorado Water, published by the League of Women Voters, which states that in the Gunnison Basin, “approximately 2,000,000 acre-feet are diverted for agriculture and there are 309,000 acres under irrigation.” These disparate numbers illustrate some of the perils of water journalism in Colorado.