Willoughby: Important issues sometimes span decades

Aspen experienced a 40-year battle over transmountain water diversion. The following highlights help you realize changing perspectives and how community engagement influenced the outcomes.

The first project — the Twin Lakes diversion by the Bureau of Reclamation — needs the context of its time for full understanding. There was a significant drought in the early 1930s, especially on the eastern side of the Rockies. Diverting Colorado Western Slope tributary streams was the obvious solution, and the headwaters of the Roaring Fork River was targeted.

Prior to then, locals of the time knew why the Roaring Fork was aptly named. Hunter Creek was also louder then. Flooding was more common.  While Western Slope agriculture was not happy with the diversion, there was no resistance in Aspen because the nearly four-mile-long tunnel project employed around 300 workers who headed to Aspen every weekend. It was funded though the Depression Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The tunnel was completed in 1935.

The Bureau of Reclamation, known for grandiose projects (like the Hoover Dam), came up with more transmountain diversion projects. Unveiling began in 1949 and immediately garnered opposition from Western Slope cities and the agriculture industry. The first proposal was to target the Fryingpan headwaters and Hunter Creek. The bureau delayed its plans in 1950, but they were resurrected in 1954.

Aspen formed the Pitkin County Water Protection Association to fight the plans. In addition to the diversions, a reservoir was planned for the long and relatively flat area — now called the North Star Nature Preserve, a major dam a short distance from Aspen!

Members of my family engaged in the discussions. What is most memorable (within our family) was my elder sister, after hearing hours of discussion, complaints, and likely some unsavory language, used a phrase they began to repeat (don’t know if she had heard it from others or that she came up with it herself). She called the bureau “the Bureau of Wreck The Nation.” As an adult, she spent many years fighting the Animas-La Plata Bureau of Reclamation dam.

That year, the funding bill was voted down in the House,: 196 to 188. The bill was resurrected again in 1955 but went nowhere. The process started again in 1961 and was authorized in 1962 with a proposal for Ruedi Dam and partial diversion of the upper end of Hunter Creek. (Fryingpan/Arkansas). Work began in 1965.

It took a long time to build Ruedi Dam, so the diversion tunnel was started years later. In 1976, the Hunter Creek diversion tunnel, a 5.4-mile-long project, was in only 7,000 feet.

Once again, Aspen roared (like the river) into action. This time there were two main issues: one was that the bureau’s amount of projected water diversion was raised from 6,500-acre feet/year to 12,200; the second, they began constructing roads to access the project. The tunnel was expanded, so that construction equipment could move through the tunnel, thereby expanding its diversion capacity.

A bill to establish the area where the tunnel was located as a Wilderness Area was introduced. Locals, including the city of Aspen, filed a suit for EPA action to stop the road construction and to protect the area within the proposed wilderness boundaries. 

The tunnel was nearing completion in 1978. That year, the Interior Department ruled in favor of reducing the amount of water to be diverted, saying the bureau “had no authority to enlarge the scope of the diversion.”  A compromise was reached later that year. Two of the stalwart elected leaders of the Hunter Creek fight we can thank were John Edwards and Micheal Kinsley.

Tim Willoughby’s family story parallels Aspen’s. He began sharing folklore while teaching at Aspen Country Day School and Colorado Mountain College. Now a tourist in his native town, he views it with historical perspective. Reach him at redmtn2@comcast.net.