Water rights are about as nuanced as the glistening streams that shimmer through the rocks. This year, unsurprisingly, has tested the limits of water’s reach within the Colorado River Basin.
Two calls generally affect Colorado Division of Water Resources (DWR) Division 5, which includes all of the tributaries from Grand Lake to Grand Junction, with the exception of the Gunnison River: the Cameo call and the Shoshone Power Plant call. The Shoshone call, as Carbondale Public Works Director Kevin Schorzman pointed out, does not directly affect the town because the confluence of the Roaring Fork and Colorado rivers is downstream of the power plant.
Typically, the Cameo call, which is reserved for a group of senior irrigators in Grand Valley, does have an effect on junior water rights holders in the Roaring Fork Watershed. Most years, up-river water users are insulated from the Cameo call due to releases from the Historic User Pool (HUP) in the Green Mountain Reservoir, which has a capacity of 66,000 acre feet. This year the HUP only filled to 44,000 acre feet.
“For the first time, this account in Green Mountain Reservoir did not fill completely due to extreme drought conditions in 2026,” DWR Division 5 Engineer Tyler Benton told The Sopris Sun.
By the time the Shoshone Call was made on June 29, the storage at Green Mountain had not filled due to declining flows.
“Beginning August 16, releases from the reduced HUP account were inadequate to replace demand from all HUP beneficiaries,” Benton said.
What makes up the Green Mountain HUP reserves this year is being administered to its most senior beneficiaries experiencing depletion, Benton noted. All water rights along ditches junior to Cameo are being curtailed.
Because of an emergency Substitute Water Supply Plan, introduced by the Colorado River Water Conservation District and the Colorado Water Conservation Board and approved by the state engineer on June 1, some lower priority Division 5 HUP beneficiaries can still divert water for municipal and domestic use from other sources, including Ruedi, Grandy and Wolford Mountain reservoirs.
“Irrigation water users with a junior priority to the Cameo call are affected by the DWR’s administration if they do not have an alternative state engineer approved replacement plan,” Benton explained.
“The town’s junior water rights are typically protected by the HUP when the Cameo call is being administered,” Schorzman added. “However, since the HUP has essentially been exhausted this year, the Cameo call has had some minor impacts to our ditch flows.” He clarified that ditches in town and up the Crystal include a mix of junior and senior water rights to Cameo, and only junior rights were affected.
“While the HUP is typically the first protection from curtailment, the town has other protections in place to avoid curtailment even when the HUP has been exhausted,” Schorzman continued. “We have the ability to divert for our municipal system based on senior water rights. We also have contracted Ruedi [Reservoir] water that could be used in an emergency situation.”
Despite the record drought that has made for an “exceedingly challenging” year, Benton said that “cooperative efforts by many water users in Division 5 — including, but not limited to Grand Valley Irrigators, Northern Water Conservation District, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Denver Water, Colorado River Water Conservation District, Xcel Energy, Grand County, Ute Water, Colorado Water Trust and the Colorado Water Conservation Board — have helped manage demand and leverage carryover storage from last year.”
“These collective actions have allowed Colorado River water users to operate within the State’s prior appropriation system and delayed the onset of curtailments significantly longer than expected otherwise,” he said.