Water Education Foundation
This is just one post in the Colorado River & the Southwest Category
Click here to view all posts

Water war culminates in an unfettered Gunnison

Posted by: Maven on May 14, 2009 at 6:27 am

From the Colorado Springs Gazette:

BLACK CANYON OF THE GUNNISON NATIONAL PARK – The largest waterfall in Colorado was here Wednesday, a gushing torrent that plunged 227 feet, surpassing Niagra Falls, swelling the Gunnison River to levels unprecedented in the age of dams and diversions. The misty, rainbowed spectacle, with spray felt two football fields away, was seen by few in the gated recesses of Crystal Dam in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. It took 30 years to make. It will be gone in a few days.

But the significance is lasting: After decades of legal wrangling, water is being allowed to flow from a reservoir, not for power, recreation or drinking water, but to mimic the spring flows of a once-great river withered by water development. Wednesday’s flow peaked at 7,000 cubic feet per second.

Such a thing would have once been unimaginable in a state where, so goes the saying, whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.

“It is overwhelming,” said Michael Dale, natural resources manager for Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. “What’s being done is what the whole basin and the whole federal government and the whole state agreed on.”

It took one of the longest water wars in state history to get here.

Read more from the Colorado Springs Gazette by clicking here.

May 14, 2009 · Filed Under Colorado River & the Southwest

Comments

Leave a Reply