Officials in southeastern Colorado are letting John Martin Reservoir fill along with others in the Arkansas Valley, according to the Pueblo Chieftain. From the article, "Valley reservoirs are starting to recover a bit from lower levels caused by five years of drought, but the extent and duration won't be known until spring. As of last week, about 444,000 acre-feet of an estimated 1.4 million acre-feet of storage space in the valley's primary reservoirs was filled, according to Water Division 2 Engineer Steve Witte. Almost three-fourths of the water is stored in large federal reservoirs on the river, and much of the increase in storage comes from the winter water storage program and filling of winter accounts under the Arkansas River Compact. Many of the valley's agricultural reservoirs remain at extremely low levels, despite above-average rainfall that came too late in the growing season to improve the storage picture. Storage levels of large municipal users - Aurora, Colorado Springs and Pueblo - are all near target levels set by water managers. John Martin began filling Nov. 1, as provided by agreement of the Arkansas River Compact Commission, Witte said...
"Lake Pueblo also is filling as the Bureau of Reclamation moves water out of Turquoise Lake into Lake Pueblo in anticipation of next year's supply of Fryingpan-Arkansas imports. Water is moved from the Hunter-Fryingpan basin into Turquoise through the Boustead Tunnel. It will be allocated by the Southeastern district next spring. Transmountain diversions into the basin have been at or above average in the past two years, after suffering from Western Slope drought from 2002-04. Snowpack in the Arkansas River basin is about 144 percent of average, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service. However, it is too early in the season to make projections, since the heaviest snowpack won't come for another four to six months."
Category: Colorado Water
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