Colorado River could peak well above average

Experts see potential for big flows, floods and a long rafting season

Pete Fowler
Glenwood Springs correspondent
Aspen, CO Colorado
March 28, 2008

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GLENWOOD SPRINGS — Water experts at the Colorado River Water Conser­vation District bet each year to see who can most closely predict peak river flows.

With extra snowpack this year, water resource specialist Mike Eytel’s guessing the Colorado Riv­er’s peak flow near Glenwood Springs could come in at 20,000 cubic feet per second or more. That’s more than two times the nor­mal 6,000 to 9,000 cfs peaks the riv­er sees in the middle or end of June, he said.

“We’re sitting at the best snowpack in easily a decade for this time of year,” he said.

The Upper Colorado River Basin currently has about 119 percent of the normal water content in its snow­pack, compared to a 30-year average. The Bureau of Reclamation has pre­dicted runoff this year will raise Lake Powell by 30 feet or more.

On Thursday, the Colorado River near Glenwood was flowing at around 2,200 cfs, slightly above aver­age. Flows usually increase and get cranking in mid-April, Eytel said. A few consecutive nights without a freeze could lead to a significant increase in runoff, or colder, freezing nights and more precipitation could even continue to build snowpack and cause the peak flow to come later.

“It’s really mother nature depend­ent on how she wants to bring it out,” Eytel said.

Dennis Davidson, a district con­servationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, said that among the many vari­ables in how spring runoff will play out, wind can also cause moisture in snowpack to evapo­rate more quickly and lead to less runoff.

Jim Pokrandt, education specialist for the Colorado River Water Conser­vation District, said a warm March last year started spring runoff a little earlier than normal. An early runoff means the runoff will end sooner, Pokrandt said, which isn’t good for the agricultural community. But that doesn’t appear to be the case this year.

“It looks like the runoff will mimic a more traditional pattern,” Pokrandt said.

The Garfield County Sheriff’s Office issued a mid-March warning about the upcoming potential for flood danger. The office encouraged people to identify potential flooding problems in homes and take precautions, including preparing a three-day disaster kit.

Eytel said there could be some flooding in narrow valleys, but didn’t think there’d be any real flooding in Glenwood Springs. Ken Murphy, general manager of Rock Gardens Rafting, said, “ The biggest bonus out of the whole issue is our season will run longer. Right now we know that we’ll be rafting through September.”

Even if flows come in very high during the early season and shut down the Shoshone rapids, he said, the Rock Gar­dens Rafting business wouldn’t be nega­tively affected because it uses the Roaring Fork River during the early season. Plus, he added, most commercial rafting busi­ness comes between June 15 and Aug. 15, mostly after peak flows have subsided.

Murphy said this year should be better than recent years, when there hasn’t been as much river flow as people would have liked. It should make for some better raft­ing with a little more action farther down­stream from Shoshone rapids than in pre­vious years, he said.

But he agrees the weather will control how things play out.

“Really the next two months set the tone for where the peak flow is going to be,” he said.

pfowler@postindependent.com