{"id":16486,"date":"2025-09-19T18:40:58","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T00:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/competing-interests-proposals-debated-during-marathon-colorado-river-hearing\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:58:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:58:36","slug":"competing-interests-proposals-debated-during-marathon-colorado-river-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/competing-interests-proposals-debated-during-marathon-colorado-river-hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Competing interests, proposals debated during marathon Colorado River hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Board
Board member Nathan Coombs, who represents the Upper Rio Grande Basin, listens to presentations during a Colorado Water Conservation board meeting Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025, in Durango. The presentations focused on two powerful Colorado River water rights tied to Shoshone Power Plant. (Shannon Mullane\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

State water officials debated a controversial proposal to use two powerful Colorado River water rights to help the environment, weighing competing interests from Front Range and Western Slope water managers.<\/p>\n

Almost 100 water professionals gathered in Durango this week for a 14-hour hearing focused on the water rights tied to the Shoshone Power Plant, owned by a subsidiary of Xcel Energy. Members of the Colorado Water Conservation Board were originally set to make a decision on the proposal this week, but an eleventh-hour extension pushed the deadline to November.<\/p>\n

Board members peppered presenters with questions during the hearing, weighing thorny issues like who has final authority to manage the environmental water right and how much water is involved.<\/p>\n

Their decision could make a historic contribution to the state\u2019s environmental water rights program and impact how Colorado River water flows around the state for decades to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty hard to anticipate all of the ways that \u2018in perpetuity\u2019 may play out,\u201d said Greg Felt, who represents the Arkansas River on the board. \u201cBuilding in representation for flexibility \u2026 is not a bad idea for an acquisition like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Shoshone Power Plant, next to Interstate 70 east of Glenwood Springs, has used Colorado River water to generate electricity for over a century.<\/p>\n

In May, the Colorado River District, representing 15 counties on the Western Slope, shared a proposal to add another use to the water rights: keeping water in the Colorado River channel to help the aquatic environment.<\/p>\n

The change requires approval from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which runs the state\u2019s environmental water rights program, and other entities like Water Court and the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.<\/p>\n

The Colorado River District wants to add the environmental use as part of a larger plan to maintain the status quo flow of water past the power plant, regardless of how long the plant remains in operation.<\/p>\n

Western Slope communities, farms, ranches, endangered species programs and recreational industries have become dependent on those flows over the decades.<\/p>\n

\"Andy
Andy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River District, listens to presentations from Front Range water providers during the Shoshone water right hearings in Durango on Thursday. (Shannon Mullane\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWhat we\u2019re presenting here today is an offer of a historic partnership,\u201d Mueller said. \u201cWe believe that this sets the state up for a truly collaborative future on the Colorado River.\u201d<\/p>\n

But any change to Shoshone\u2019s water rights could have ripple effects that impact over 10,000 upstream water rights, including those held by Front Range water groups like Denver Water, Northern Water, Colorado Springs Utilities and Aurora Water.<\/p>\n

These water managers and providers are responsible for delivering reliable water to millions of people, businesses, farms and ranches across the Front Range.<\/p>\n

They raised concerns during the hearings about how their water supply could be impacted by the Western Slope\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n

For board member John McClow, who represents the Gunnison-Uncompahgre River, one key question came down to authority.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to make sure we have adequate legal justification for doing what you suggest we should do,\u201d McClow told CWCB staff during the hearing.<\/p>\n

When the Colorado River is too low to meet Shoshone\u2019s needs, its owner, Public Service of Colorado, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, can call on upstream water users with lower-priority water rights to cut back so Shoshone has enough.<\/p>\n

Whoever manages this \u201ccall\u201d impacts thousands of upstream users, including Front Range providers.<\/p>\n

Under the proposal, the Colorado River District will own the water rights. The district has an agreement with Xcel to buy the rights for about $99 million.<\/p>\n

Generally, the Colorado Water Conservation Board is supposed to be the sole manager of environmental water rights under state law.<\/p>\n

The Colorado River District says it should have a say, giving examples of other agreements with similar arrangements between the water board and water rights owners.<\/p>\n

\"Kyle
Kyle Whitaker, water rights manager at Northern Water, speaks to the Colorado Water Conservation Board during a marathon hearing about the future of two water rights tied to Shoshone Power Plant on Thursday at Fort Lewis College in Durango. (Shannon Mullane, The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Northern Water said the state should have exclusive authority. That\u2019s the key issue for the conservation district, Whitaker said.<\/p>\n

If the state agency hands over any amount of control, then the district would push for Water Court to approve a smaller amount of water available to Shoshone. That would send less water to Western Slope communities.<\/p>\n

If the River District controlled the environmental right, they could conceivably max out the amount of water passing by the power plant year-round, which would impact upstream water rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to protect our systems under all future potentialities,\u201d Whitaker said. \u201cThis will have a chilling effect on collaboration and cooperation among all involved and is likely to result in an outcome that is not only less desirable but also less beneficial to the Colorado River.\u201d<\/p>\n

The River District has said it plans to maintain these flows without changing how other water users are impacted.<\/p>\n

For board members, this question of authority is just one of many sticky legal and management issues they have to weigh as they make a decision about the Shoshone water rights while tasked with representing the interests of the entire state.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as I\u2019ve been able to understand it, I agree with you about what the statute and the rules say we may do,\u201d Felt told CWCB staff. \u201cI believe we\u2019re here to determine what we should do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Western Slope wants to use Shoshone Power Plant\u2019s water rights to help the river\u2019s ecosystem. Colorado water officials now have until November to make their final decision<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16486"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20229,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16486\/revisions\/20229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16486"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}