All you have to do is look toward the mountains to know something unusual is happening. It’s pushing June, and Colorado high country remains decidedly white. It’s not unusual to see snow on the mountains any time of year
“„Downstream in the desert, the giant reservoirs called Powell and Mead should have higher water levels. Half of the Colorado River’s water comes from Colorado.
“„It’s a snowpack with dimensions not often seen in recent years. The most frequent comparisons are to big water years in the 1980s.
“„“This year the lateness of the melt out and the size of the snowpack approaches that of 1983,” says Mike Gillespie, snow survey coordinator for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Colorado. Utah and Wyoming also have big snowpacks this year, he added, as do other Western states. “But we have the most critical conditions in terms of snowmelt.”
“„“I think it’s one of those ‘duh’ moments,” says Brian Werner, spokesman for the Northern Colorado Water Conservation District. “Look at all the water that is going downstream, on both sides of the mountain (Continental Divide).”
“„That is, says Werner, water that could legally stay in Colorado – if it had the necessary dams. “We need to put some more buckets out there, and these are good years to illustrate why we need buckets.”
“„The district delivers water to 640,000 irrigated acres of farmland that extends to Nebraska plus cities in one of the West’s fastest-growing areas, between the university towns of Boulder and Fort Collins. To deliver reliable water, Northern proposes a new reservoir at Glade Park, adjacent to the Poudre River, where peak flows of 6,000 cubic feet per second are forecast this year, double the average.