BEET FIELDS TO BALL FIELDS - ADAPTATION OF THE COLORADO-BIG THOMPSON PROJECT TO CHANGING WATER NEEDS

摘要

The Colorado-Big Thompson Project (C-BT) delivers approximately 213,000 acre-feet of water annually to Northern Colorado. Water is diverted from the Colorado River Basin to the South Platte Basin through a system of 12 reservoirs with a total storage capacity of nearly 1 million acre-feet, 35 miles of tunnels, 95 miles of canals, three pumping plants and six hydroelectric power plants with an installed capacity of 216 megawatts. The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (District) was created in 1937 to contract with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) for construction and repayment of project facilities and jointly operates and maintains C-BT with Reclamation. The District is responsible for allocation, administration and delivery of C-BT water to allottees. C-BT initially provided supplemental water to approximately 720,000 irrigated acres within District boundaries. However, as the population within the District has grown from 200,000 in 1950 to 750,000 today, C-BT has transitioned to a system that provides both agricultural and municipal supplemental water needs. The allocation system employed by the District to distribute the water provides a reliable, consistent and flexible method to transfer water between water users within the District. Short-term rentals and long-term purchases and transfers of water allotment contracts are performed as free-market transactions, so long as the transfer occurs within District boundaries, meets District requirements and is approved by the District's Board of Directors. In addition, the District has implemented numerous rules and programs that provide additional flexibility and maximize benefits to all District constituents, including the Annual Carryover Program, the Carryover Capacity Transferability Program, and the Regional Pool Program. These programs allow allottees to manage their annual allocations for year-round water demands while promoting temporary leases of municipal water to agricultural users. The administration of these programs, along with the transitional nature of C-BT operations and deliveries from agricultural to municipal uses, presents unique challenges to Reclamation and the District as they attempt to maximize benefits of the resource.