The water resources of Surface Creek Valley and the entire Gunnison River Basin are coveted and being sought after by water interests to the east along the Front Range, and to the west in Nevada, Arizona, and California.

The Grand Mesa Water Conservancy District is initiating efforts on several fronts to develop and protect the area’s available water. Among those efforts is the possible construction of the West Fork Reservoir, on the West Fork of Current Creek.

In one of its current efforts, the GMWCD is applying for a $200,000 grant from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs to study the reservoir idea. The 10,000-acre-foot reservoir would hold water that could be used under the Gunnison River Basin Exchange facility and help provide domestic water supplies from high mountain sources to domestic water providers in the Surface Creek Valley, explained GMWCD board president Austin Keiser.

In support of the district’s efforts, on July 28 the Board of County Commissioners approved a letter supporting the GMWCD grant bid.

Keiser explained that the District has completed a preliminary geologic survey of the West Fork site, which includes some BLM land and parcels under two private ownerships. The West Fork Reservoir initiative is a new direction from the last attempt at developing a plan for the Grand Mesa Project and its previously proposed reservoir at Cactus Park.

“Because of many problems with the Cactus Park Reservoir idea and other difficulties, that reservoir idea has been abandoned. We have decided not to proceed with it,” Keiser explained.

The district has conducted an extensive search for a site to capture lower and intermediate level snow melt from the Grand Mesa and the West Fork location northeast of Cactus Park has been identified as a possibility.

The district is also looking to apply for a grant from the Colorado Water Roundtable (Gunnison Basin) that would pay for core drilling at a possible West Fork dam site.
“Our overall goal is to try and create a structure to impound water that could augment high elevation snow melt for domestic uses,” Keiser explained.

With a West Fork Reservoir as part of the district’s water reserves, water from lower elevation snow melt could be used for irrigation, and/or traded for purer, high mountain water more easily treated by domestic water providers.

In addition, at the request of the BoCC, the district is looking at possible solutions to domestic water infrastructure replacements that are needed in the area north west of Orchard City and west of Cedaredge. Part of a possible solution to providing better water pressure and fire protection to the many new homes in that area involves contracting with Orchard City as a treated water supplier to the area.

Orchard City officials have said one requirement for their participation in any future integrated system would be a supply of adequate, high quality raw water for treatment in their plant. The West Fork Reservoir plan could help provide the raw water a rural system would need and with the high quality that Orchard City wants.