The Daily Sentinel (October 22, 2024)—The Colorado River is sometimes described as a lifeline for western Colorado and the Southwest.
In Glenwood Canyon, Xcel Energy’s Shoshone hydroelectric power plant could easily be described as a lifeline for the river and everything that depends on it.
On Tuesday, media representatives and others who were provided a tour of the Xcel Energy facility experienced the roaring sound of diverted river water charging down two penstocks and through twin spinning turbines. Those turbines turned generators that combined can create 15 megawatts of power, enough to provide power to about 15,000 homes.
To many observers, though, the plant’s real power lies in its historic, nonconsumptive water rights. They include a 1902 right of 1,250 cubic feet per second and a second, 1929 right of 158 cfs. Those rights help assure flows into Glenwood Canyon of as much as 1,408 cfs even at times of lower river flows when diversions by upstream water rights holders otherwise could further lower the river. And the water used by the plant then returns to the river, making it available for downstream agricultural and municipal uses and also providing recreational and environmental benefits.
Now the Colorado River District is leading an effort to buy the plant’s rights for $99 million and help that assure the flows associated with them continue whatever might become of the 115-year-old plant. And on Tuesday water officials, river advocates and state Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, visited the plant with media to point to that fundraising effort as an example of the important role that state and federal funding can play in funding water projects that are becoming all the more important at a time of warming temperatures, increased drought and ever-growing demand on Colorado River water.
For Roberts, Tuesday’s event also was an opportunity to promote a state ballot measure that would increase the state funding available for water projects.
“The public funding that we are able to allocate at the state level has been very crucial to many projects on the Western Slope over the last few years, including what we’re trying to do right here with the Shoshone water rights,” Roberts said.
CONTRIBUTIONS SOAR
So far about $56 million has been raised toward meeting the purchase price, including $16 million from local sources, $20 million from the river district and $20 million from the state.
Roberts said the state funding came through an annual water projects bill, and available funding through that bill has increased significantly because of sports betting revenue. In 2019, state voters approved a measure legalizing sports betting in the state and letting the state collect up to $29 million a year in sports betting tax revenue, with proceeds to be used for water projects in the state.
“Without sports betting revenue we would have seen many projects not be funded over the last few years, and we can hope for many, many projects to be funded moving forward because of that revenue,” he said.
Now, a measure placed on this fall’s ballot by the state Legislature asks that the state be allowed to keep sports betting revenue exceeding $29 million a year for water projects. Roberts said the state’s water plan sets forth funding recommendations that are much higher than the funding available at the state or federal level, and there’s no reason not to allocate the remainder over the $29 million cap to water projects.
The Shoshone plant visit was part of a tour Tuesday arranged by the Water for Colorado Coalition that highlighted projects designed to use state and federal funds to improve climate resilience and water security. A second stop was at the Vinelands Power Plant in the Grand Valley. It highlighted an effort involving entities such as the Colorado Water Trust, Grand Valley Water Users Association, Orchard Mesa Irrigation District, Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program. Under the initiative, the water trust secures water from upstream sources and delivers it to the power plant to produced hydropower, and the water is then released to support imperiled fish immediately downstream.
A third stop on the tour was at a site in the Fruita area where research involving Colorado State University and other partners is testing forage crops that might serve as alternatives to the thirsty grass and alfalfa hay that account for much of the water use in the Upper Colorado River Basin.
Tuesday’s tour also highlighted new federal funding sources for water projects resulting from passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, which authorize billions of dollars to mitigate risks of drought and a changing climate. The Colorado River District is hoping to obtain $40 million in Upper Colorado River Basin Environmental Drought Mitigation program funding, made available through the Inflation Reduction Act, for the Shoshone water rights purchase.
WORKING OUT DETAILS
Under the deal with Xcel, if the river district acquires the water rights, the power plant could continue making use of those rights as long as it operates. But the river district also is working with the state to try to have the flows decreed in court as an instream flow right to assure that flows continue whatever the future holds for the plant.
Those rights would be important not only if the plant eventually closes for good, but also in situations where it temporarily shuts down. In 2007, for example, one of the plant’s two penstocks ruptured, flooding the plant and temporarily shutting it down. A plaque above a doorway in the plant marks just how high floodwater rose in the plant.
In the case of outages at the plant, a current agreement attempts to mimic the river flows that would be occurring if the power plant were operating. But Amy Moyer, the river district’s director of strategic partnerships, said that agreement includes limitations and exceptions depending on drought conditions and also is a 40-year agreement. That falls short of the permanency that’s the goal of acquiring the water rights, and Moyer said it doesn’t provide the same stability as a water court instream flow decree.
Beyond the challenges Xcel can face operating a plant built in 1909, Glenwood Canyon’s history of natural disasters such as wildfire, mudslides and rockfall pose additional concerns when it comes to the power plant’s future. Moyer said while the river district sometimes gets asked about the possibility of another entity buying the water rights, “it’s not necessarily who would buy those, it’s the risk of abandonment of these water rights.
“So if the power plant were to experience a rockfall that took the power plant off line or it was irreparable and those water rights were not permanently protected with this additional beneficial use, the opportunity to maintain this historical flow regime would be lost,” she said.
The Daily Sentinel
Dennis Webb
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