Challenges remain

ALAMOSA — After a reasonably wet year with good snowpack, the Valley Courier reached out to Craig Cotten for a current read on the status of the rivers and their impact on water in the San Luis Valley. Cotten is the division engineer with the Colorado Division of Water Resources for Division Three. 

His responses were positive and encouraging but, not surprisingly, tempered by the larger challenges that remain. 

“Both the Rio Grande and Conejos rivers have peaked,” he said, “but we still have relatively high water on both rivers. Right now, water is flowing at about 4,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) on the Rio Grande. It peaked at about 5,600 cfs on May 21. The average peak is about 4,000 cfs, so it’s quite a bit lower than where it was before but it’s higher than where it’s normally peaking.”  

When asked about the Conejos River, Cotten said, “We peaked at about 2,100 cfs on May 17 and right now we’re at about 1,400 cfs, so that’s a fair amount down. Interestingly enough, the decrease is a lot slower than what we’ve seen recently and is back to an average kind of decrease instead of something more drastic.”  

In general terms, “average” refers to conditions prior to the past 20 years when the Valley has been suffering from a severe, persistent drought. 

Cotten then shared some interesting information gathered by colleague, Pat McDermott, staff engineer with the Colorado Division of Water Resources Division Three. 

“On the Rio Grande, we had the highest total flow for the month of May in the last 55 years. On the Conejos, it was the second highest in 55 years. But our peak flows were not drastically higher and not anywhere close to what we had in 2019,” Cotten said. 

When asked to what he attributed high flows but without the corresponding high peak flows, Cotten spoke about the weather. 

“We got a lot of water in May, but the weather has been fairly cool and cloudy,” Cotton said. “We didn’t have those warm, sunny days that just melt everything all at once. So, we had a whole lot of water in the river, but it just came out very slowly. That was really good. That’s really good news for the farmers and good news in terms of flooding.” 

At this year’s Southern Rocky Mountain Ag Conference, McDermott shared information about warm temperatures causing spring runoff to occur earlier than normal, resulting in farmers often getting water but not when it is most needed to support crops.  

When asked if that was the case this year, as well, Cotten said, “The peak was a little bit earlier than average, which is usually around the first of June. But we were still high on June 1, and it was relatively steady. This year has been a more normal type of year than we’ve seen in recent years.”  

Another concern identified is the impact of dry ground in the watershed, resulting in water being absorbed into the ground before it can make it to the river.  

When asked if current conditions in the rivers speak of things improving in the watershed that feeds those rivers, Cotten said, “It’s a little too early to tell the final results of this year but this spring runoff is encouraging. The fact that we’ve had this nice, even flow and not a big peak and a long period of relatively high flows has really wetted up the system and allowed the ground to really soak up that water. We have a lot of areas that are inundated. We don’t have a lot of flooding issues, but we have a lot of standing water, everywhere, and I think that’s going to be really a good situation in the future.” 

Cotten then spoke on a larger scale related to the Valley. 

“We’ve also gotten a lot of water into the closed basin area, as well, and that’s one of the main areas where we needed it, too, to bring up that aquifer. I haven’t seen any results of the aquifer levels, but I suspect that we’re going to see a fairly good increase of the aquifers,” Cotten said. 

With so much emphasis for so long on declining aquifers, Cotten was asked what his take is on the long-term forecast for water in the San Luis Valley. 

“This was an above-average year, but it’s not a huge year,” he said. “We’re going to see some increase in the aquifer levels but one year is not going to solve our problem. It’s going to take many years to build the aquifers back up again. So, overall, we’re still in a not great situation.  

“I’m fairly certain that most farmers are aware that it’s going to take multiple years to change the situation. But this is a good omen and a good sign that we’re at least going in the right direction to recover our aquifers instead of continuing to decline,” he said.