{"id":55770,"date":"2013-05-21T20:57:13","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T02:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/drought-halts-water-storage-33-full-at-jackson-lake-mwcd-irrigators-will-get-17-of-share\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T18:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T18:39:08","slug":"drought-halts-water-storage-33-full-at-jackson-lake-mwcd-irrigators-will-get-17-of-share","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/drought-halts-water-storage-33-full-at-jackson-lake-mwcd-irrigators-will-get-17-of-share\/","title":{"rendered":"Drought halts water storage 33% full at Jackson Lake MWCD irrigators will get 17% of share"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The concrete ends before the water starts at the Jackson Lake boat ramp. Ronnie Knipstein, Krissy and Paityn Harrison kayak on the very low lake. The lake normally would be nearly full at this time of year.<\/span>Sam Green\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A water-right call on the Mancos River has ended storage diversions into the reservoir locals call Jackson Lake. The 3,349 acre feet the reservoir now holds, which is 33.5 percent of its capacity, is all that will be available this summer for irrigators and municipal users.<\/p>\n

The reservoir has priority 36 on the river, which means that 35 other users have a higher water right.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lake is on the priority system,\u201d said Mancos Water Conservancy District superintendent Gary Kennedy. \u201cIf you have a No. 1 priority, it\u2019s the best. If you have a No. 36, it\u2019s basically considered floodwater, which is the spring runoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us to store any water, they (the Colorado Division of Water Resources) would have to lift the call on the river or go above priority 36.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a year as dry as this one, no one expects that to happen. The weekend\u2019s snow, while notable, didn\u2019t contribute much to the water supply, and substantial rainfall isn\u2019t likely before the monsoons come in late July or August.<\/p>\n

DRIBBLES FOR IRRIGATION<\/p>\n

At a meeting on May 14, the board of directors decided on a 2013 water allocation of just 17 percent of the full allotment for irrigators in the Mancos Valley.<\/p>\n

Based on physical restrictions of the district\u2019s equipment, irrigators may not get even that much.<\/p>\n

\u201cChances are there won\u2019t be a lot of water use because of the low percentage,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cWe have a minimum that we can release without injuring the valves and equipment in the dam, and that\u2019s 10 cubic feet per second. Once we get to that point, we have to shut down.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as there\u2019s enough water to deliver, we\u2019ll deliver it, until it runs out or until we get to that 10 cfs.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year the district isn\u2019t delivering water until June 7. Irrigators can call the district office on Mondays to order water for Tuesdays, and on Thursdays for delivery on Fridays.<\/p>\n

A CALL TO CONSERVE<\/p>\n

MWCD provides water to the town of Mancos, Mesa Verde National Park and the Mancos Rural Water Company when they are not drawing directly from the Mancos River.<\/p>\n

Those users will have the water they need, but the board asked them to hold their water usage to no more than last year\u2019s. The town and the rural water company have the option of instituting water-use restrictions \u2013 for example, limiting or prohibiting lawn watering. In March, the town board passed an ordinance allowing the Mancos public works director to initiate such restrictions, said town administrator Andrea Phillips.<\/p>\n

Mesa Verde can take what it wants, Kennedy said, but he anticipates careful conservation measures there as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a federal agency and this is a federal project,\u201d he said. \u201cAll we can do is ask them to hold back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he said, he doubts the park will use more than it has in the past.<\/p>\n

The district has a website, www.jacksongulchrehab.info, which providers water users and other interested parties with information about the availability of water. Kennedy said he is trying to keep that site updated daily during this season of concern for water availability.<\/p>\n

\n

Public meeting<\/h4>\n

The Mancos Water Conservancy District will hold a public meeting for water users on Wednesday, May 29, at 7 p.m. at the Mancos Community Center.
\n Both agricultural and municipal users are invited to attend.
\n For more information, log onto www.jacksongulchrehab.info.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

concrete ends before the water starts at the Jackson Lake boat ramp. Ronnie Knipstein, Krissy and Paityn Harrison kayak on the very low lake. The lake normally would be nearly full at this time of year.Sam Green\/Cortez Journal A water-right call on the Mancos River has ended storage diversions into the reservoir locals call […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1518,295],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-55770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-rivers","tag-water"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55770","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=55770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55873,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55770\/revisions\/55873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55770"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=55770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}