By Bill Jochems
CVEPA Views
The United States Drought Monitor classifies the Crystal Valley in a state of exceptional drought. Even though River Valley Ranch is within this exceptional drought zone, diners on the deck of the Homestead Restaurant can enjoy the magnificent, luscious green view to the south. They will not see the slightest hint of drought and could easily imagine themselves in Scotland, with a distant mirage of Mt. Sopris.
But this comforting illusion would be shattered if the diners could see the stretch of the Crystal River, a few miles away, just upstream from the fish hatchery. The poor Crystal River has been reduced to a paltry trickle, between small pools of very warm water. In the 1970s, the Water Court in Glenwood Springs determined and decreed that the minimum instream flow to protect the health of this stretch of the Crystal River was 100 cubic feet per second (cfs). That flow today appears less than 1 cfs, leaving most of the bed of the river bone dry.
At last week’s meeting of the Crystal Valley Environmental Protection Association (CVEPA) board, we decided to express our grave concern for the river, and our hopes that something can be done about it. That job fell to me, knowing I must make some generalizations and simplifications that limited column space in this newspaper requires.
Obviously less snow and rain and increasingly hot temperatures are a principal cause of the Crystal dry-up, but is “drought” really the correct description? Drought sounds like a temporary situation, something we will get over. Yet scientists see no end in sight. The opinion of many scientists is that our climate will worsen throughout the lives of everybody alive today. Seems better to say: “This is our climate. Get used to it.”
If we can’t do anything about the weather, can something be done about the diversions — about how much water is being taken out of the Crystal River? Waters diverted from the Crystal River have hugely benefited our valley. Diversions (ditches) allow enough hay to be grown to feed the cattle herds through the winter, and support year-round ranches. Without ditches, the Crystal Valley would be good for summer grazing only. Diversions support more wildlife and return flows in the winter. Diversions support the River Valley Ranch golf course and Carbondale’s trees and lawns and gardens and parks. Most of us enjoy the sight of irrigated hayfields. Is there a way for these benefits to continue, without drying up stretches of the Crystal River?
Aspen Journalism has investigated and reported on diversions of water from the Crystal River by the eight major irrigation ditches. These articles, in March 2024, were entitled “Why the Crystal River runs dry” and “Crystal River mapping project.” The major ditches are rated according to their efficiencies. The most efficient was the Sweet Jessup Canal, rated at 30%. In other words, for every 100 gallons this ditch, the largest on the Crystal, diverts from the River, 30 gallons are beneficially used in the hayfields. The least efficient, according to Aspen Journalism, was the Carbondale Ditch, at less than 1%. For every 100 gallons this ditch diverts, less than 1 gallon irrigates the lawns, trees and parks of Carbondale. At some point, does inefficiency become waste?
There is no mystery to these figures. Ditches dug through rocky soils leak like sieves. The Sweet Jessup is the most efficient because miles of it are in pipes and lined ditches. Not all ditch owners are as willing, or able, to make these improvements. Pitkin County Healthy Rivers Fund has helped improve some ditches, perhaps Carbondale can do the same for its ditches. The owners themselves can improve their ditches. Times have changed, and some of the old ways of irrigating must change as well.
Everybody wants and needs the Crystal River to keep flowing. The diverters need it. The riparian areas need it. And the people of Colorado, the constitutionally declared owners of leftover water, need the river flowing, if only to fight off total despair. So, it is the hope of CVEPA that all possibilities — more miles of lined and piped ditches, automatically adjustable headgates, improved efficiency, reduction of waste, voluntary reductions — are considered; that everyone works together to keep the Crystal River flowing.
Finally, our water laws are from the 19th century and our infrastructure from the 20th century. Maybe now, in the 21st century, with way less water and way more people dependent, everything should be reconsidered.
My effort here is to express the concerns and hopes of CVEPA. I am also on the board of the Pitkin County Healthy Rivers Fund, but this is not intended to be that entity’s statement.CVEPA Views is a regular column from the Crystal Valley Environmental Protection Association (CVEPA). To learn more, visit www.cvepa.org or visit its Facebook page.