Every day about 19,000 vehicles zip past the Shoshone Power Plant, tucked into Glenwood Canyon by Interstate 70. But few of those travelers have any idea of the history-changing deal being crafted here, where Colorado River water churns through electricity-producing turbines before returning to its channel about 2½ miles downstream.
This year Western Slope leaders, led by the Colorado River District, struck a $99 million deal to buy the tiny hydro plant’s water rights from Xcel Energy and lease the water back to Xcel to generate electricity. As part of the deal, Shoshone’s rights would become the largest, most influential environmental water right in state history.
The change would protect fish and habitat, but it would also beef up water security on the Western Slope by protecting reliable westward flows for farmers and tourist economies. Many western Coloradans are thrilled to see this important water right protected from any future sell-off by Xcel, the state’s largest electricity provider.
Kirk Klancke is one of them. For years, Klancke managed the Winter Park Ranch Water and Sanitation District and was periodically ordered to release some of the district’s water to make sure that the Shoshone Plant received its legal share.
He didn’t mind complying with the order: The releases meant water kept flowing west in the Colorado River, said Klancke, an avid conservationist who has worked for years to keep water in rivers.
“It would flow all the way to the Glenwood Canyon for that Shoshone call, which was fantastic,” Klancke said. “I loved making those releases.”
The westward flow of water is also key for a state and federal effort to recover endangered fish populations on the Colorado River, which is why the program’s managers are closely watching the Shoshone negotiations.
“Downstream of Shoshone we have over 250 miles of critical habitat … so really having all of that water in the river is beneficial throughout the whole system downstream of (Shoshone),” said Julie Stahli, director of the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program.
The Colorado River District’s plan has drawn hawk-eyed attention from water players around the state who are keen on protecting their supplies.
Like the bottom blocks in a game of Jenga, Shoshone’s oldest water right can impact up to 10,600 other upstream water rights because of the plant’s geographic location, according to the Colorado Division of Water Resources.
Those junior water users include Front Range providers, like Denver Water and Northern Water, that send water to millions of people. Any changes to the hydro plant’s rights can have broad ripple effects statewide, from farmers in Greeley to water districts in Grand County and homeowners in Denver.
This Fresh Water News story is a collaboration between The Colorado Sun and Water Education Colorado. It also appears at wateredco.org/fresh-water-news.
In Pitkin County, officials worry that the proposed deal could diminish the upper Roaring Fork River.
Klancke, putting on his old hat as district manager, said the Winter Park district and other upstream water users could be affected if the new environmental water right means releasing more water than usual for Shoshone. Whether that would occur isn’t clear yet.
Denver Water said it supports permanently protecting Shoshone’s flows, but also sees a need to protect the water supplies of existing users.
“Any change that might upset the current operating protocols needs careful consideration to avoid harm to the millions of people across the state who rely on the Colorado River,” Todd Hartman, a Denver Water spokesperson, said in a written statement. “We are hopeful that continued discussions with all stakeholders can lead to a scenario that is positive for all of Colorado.”
Colorado River District officials insist that their goal is to maintain the status quo flows, permanently.
Western Slope water users have long worried that those flows could change if Xcel decided to shut down the power plant or sell the water rights. Making the historical flows permanent is vital to the communities, economies and environments that depend on Shoshone’s flows, the district says.
“This has been a goal of the West Slope for literally decades. Questioning if, how and when to do this has long been an issue,” said Peter Fleming, general counsel for the Colorado River Water Conservation District. “The timing is right. The opportunity is here. What better time? That’s, in my mind, what makes it a big deal.”
A mega-environmental water right
Colorado was among the first states in the West to create an environmental water right, and Shoshone’s water rights have the potential to be the biggest, baddest environmental rights in the state.
Established in the 1970s, Colorado’s instream flow program was novel at the time. Since the California gold rush of the 1840s, Western water rights have been determined based on two main factors: diverting the water and putting it to a legally acceptable use, like agriculture, drinking water, wastewater and industrial uses.
Colorado’s program expanded that list of uses to include flows for the environment and designated the Colorado Water Conservation Board, a state water policy agency, as the sole entity that can own and operate instream flow rights.
Since 1973, the agency has appropriated instream flow rights on nearly 1,700 stream segments covering more than 9,700 miles. In some cases, farmers, ranchers or other water users lease some of their water as an instream flow right for a certain period of time, like late summer, to keep a section of stream from drying up. In other cases, the state buys a water right and changes it into an instream flow right.
These instream flow rights help boost a river’s flows, creating more depth, swift currents and healthier ecosystems.
This is critical to fish and aquatic life, said Klancke, who worked for years to add an instream flow right to a stretch of the Fraser River. The slower flow of water does not have the velocity to move sediment, allowing it to fill in areas between rocks where macroinvertebrates live. That impacted fish, which were already suffering in warmer water with less oxygen.
“The trout actually suffocate,” Klancke said. “They don’t boil; they just don’t have enough oxygen in the water to sustain life.”
If the Colorado River District is successful in changing the Shoshone water rights, the rights could become the crown jewel of the state’s program.
Xcel has two water rights at Shoshone: one for 1,250 cubic feet per second that dates back to 1905, and a right to 158 cubic feet per second that dates back to 1940.
Shoshone’s 1905 water right is one of the oldest on the Colorado River in Colorado. It dates back to when the Colorado River was still known as the Grand River. In Colorado, older rights get water before more recent, junior rights.
Of the 12,160 water rights upstream from Shoshone in its region, 87% are junior to Shoshone’s senior water right and 68% are junior to Shoshone’s 1940 water right, according to the Division of Water Resources. That means the rights could protect environmental flows even in the driest of years.
Shoshone’s rights also equal a good chunk of water. Over 24 hours, they would pull about 2,793 acre-feet of water westward. An acre-foot of water covers a football field in one foot of water and roughly equals the annual use of two to three households. That’s a lot of water to boost flows in the Colorado River.
What is an acre-foot?
An acre-foot is a unit of volume. It equals the amount of water it takes to cover one acre, about the size of a football field, in one foot of water. One acre-foot of water equals about 326,000 gallons. >> MORE
Unlike some water rights that are bound to certain time periods, like the summer irrigation season, Shoshone can divert water year-round. And finally, all of the water Shoshone pulls out of the river shoots right back in after flowing through the power plant — in contrast to other uses such as agriculture, in which some water is sucked up by plants and soils.
“If the full amount of both Shoshone water rights were changed in water court, this would be the largest (instream flow) right in the state,” said Rob Viehl, chief of the stream and lake protection section at Colorado Water Conservation Board.
Most details still need to be worked out. Biological analyses must be completed to assess the actual environmental benefit. The Colorado Water Conservation Board and the river district must determine how much water would be tied to the water right and agree on the stretch of the river — likely the 2 ½ miles between the power plant’s dam and turbines — that would be involved.
Members of the public can also challenge the proposed deal during the board’s public meetings. Then it would need approval from the water court, when other water users can state their opposition.
“None of that stuff has really taken place yet,” Viehl said.
Vying for Shoshone permanency
The Colorado River District and its partners believe permanently maintaining the Colorado River flows attached to Shoshone’s water rights will improve water security on the Western Slope. And creating an environmental water right is a key part of their plan.
The river district, whose founding mission includes keeping water on the Western Slope, plans to own the title to Shoshone’s water rights and lease the water back to Xcel Energy to generate electricity.
But because of the quirks of water rights, that alone won’t accomplish the district’s overarching goal of permanently maintaining the status quo.
Right now these rights are legally bound to certain beneficial uses, mainly hydropower production. If production were to stop for more than a decade — say Xcel shuts down the aging plant — then the water rights would likely be “abandoned,” per state water law, and junior water users could claim the water and potentially siphon it to other areas of the state.
If the district succeeds, then Shoshone’s rights could still be used for the environment when the power plant is not churning out electricity — and ensure water flows west in perpetuity.
Over the past century, Western Slope economies, ecosystems and communities like Glenwood Springs, Rifle and Grand Junction have grown up relying on those flows. Rafting, fishing and tourism industries have boomed. In 2022, rafting brought nearly 34,000 people to the Upper Colorado River region with $4.9 million in direct expenditures and a $12.6 million economic impact, according to the Colorado River Outfitters Association.
Thomas Carter, owner of Whitewater Rafting in Glenwood Springs, has built his business and plans rafting excursions around the flow of water through Shoshone.
“Our bread-and-butter run, pretty much most of the summer, is just Shoshone down to our headquarters,” Carter said.
The district is taking steps toward “Shoshone permanency,” but there are still years of work to do, details to finalize and approvals to secure to actually change the water right to permanently include environmental benefits.
“In water, folks like to achieve the highest degree of certainty available,” Fleming said. “Anything less than a permanent level of protection doesn’t achieve the level of certainty and protection — for not only the West Slope, frankly, it’s all of Colorado — that the Shoshone permanency effort will achieve.”
From Denver to Grand Junction — who has a stake in Shoshone?
No one has outright opposed the district’s plans, but big players in Colorado water are keeping a close eye on the process — and have a growing list of questions.
Shoshone’s water rights have the ability to command how water flows through the Colorado River. Any change could cause cascading impacts to millions of water users.
Over 200 miles northeast of the power plant, Greeley residents depend, in part, on water from the Upper Colorado River delivered to them through the Adams Tunnel and the Colorado-Big Thompson Project. Northern Water, which manages the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, declined to comment on the Shoshone proposal or impacts to the water provider.
Upper Colorado River water is tremendously valuable to Greeley and the South Platte Basin, said Sean Chambers, chair of the South Platte River Basin roundtable and director of water and sewer utilities in Greeley.
He wants to know how the instream flow agreement would work and how a 15-mile stretch of federally protected fish habitat on the Colorado River would be impacted.
“If the status quo were generally upheld, we wouldn’t have any significant concerns,” Chambers said. “Overall, we would like to continue to see flexibility in how water users and the state make sure we utilize our rights to Colorado River water for the benefit of our communities.”
Thousands of water users upstream of the power plant have to change their operations to comply when Shoshone calls for water — which has happened nearly every year since 1995 at least. Over the past decade, Shoshone’s calls have occurred 150 days or more each year, according to the Division of Water Resources.
Those lower-priority upstream water users include big, expensive infrastructure, like Dillon Reservoir near Frisco, the largest reservoir for Denver Water, which provides water to 1.5 million people in Denver and nearby suburbs. These water users have developed water supplies that include alternative water sources to replace the water released for Shoshone.
Downstream, water users have benefited from the increased flows that have come down from Shoshone for more than a century.
The potential purchase is a big deal to local business owners, said Carter of Whitewater Rafting.
“I’ve talked to people in the community, and myself included, are very excited for this deal, and we have high hopes that it will go through,” Carter said.
Changes to Shoshone’s historic flows could also impact critical aquatic habitats along a 15-mile stretch of the Colorado River between Palisade and Grand Junction, which is part of the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program.
The reach is important for three endangered fish species — bonytail, pikeminnow and razorback sucker — and one threatened species, the humpback chub, which have lived for millions of years in what is now Colorado.
But like the Fraser River, the stretch of the Colorado River struggles with low flows when snow isn’t melting and when human demands on the river are high. Invasive fish species, which eat the native, endangered fish and compete with them for habitat, flourish in the warmer, shallower river.
Program director Stahli is watching the district’s Shoshone negotiations closely.
“All of the water that comes down through that (river) system is really helpful and beneficial for us and gives us more opportunities to do recovery work,” Stahli said.
Joe Bernal ranches near the Utah-Colorado border. In his kitchen, Bernal planned ahead for a day of clearing out ditches and checking on irrigation systems. It was early April, and the canals that deliver Colorado River water to his farm were starting to fill.
Shoshone is 100 miles upstream, but his family has benefited from its consistent flows for his entire life. Bernal, who is also president of the Grand Valley Water Users Association, is all in for the district’s plan.
“I hope the Colorado River District gets the job done,” Bernal said.
So far, Western partners have pledged more than $44 million of the $99 million price tag, including $20 million from the Colorado River District, $1 million from the city of Grand Junction, and $2 million from the Ute Water Conservancy District in Grand Junction. Another $20 million could come from the Colorado Water Conservation Board if state lawmakers approve the expense in a proposed bill that funds the board’s projects.
The coalition hopes that if it can cover half the cost, federal coffers can match Colorado’s contribution to fully fund the purchase.
For Bernal, permanently protecting the Shoshone rights offers the chance to secure his family’s future and that of others in the Western Slope.
“We love our home here in Loma, and we take pride in our farms. … It’s an emotional attachment to what we do and what we have,” Bernal said. “The pressures of people wanting to take our water to the place where they live so they can gain economic value and gain wealth in their areas is just as important to us. The idea of maintaining that water here in the Grand Valley is super important to us.”