The Colorado Water Conservation Board unanimously approved a proposal on Wednesday to protect two major water rights on the Colorado River, inching a decades-long dream of Western Slope water users closer to reality.
The two rights — currently owned by Xcel Energy — can now eventually be used to support the health of the Colorado River, especially on a small stretch near Xcel’s Shoshone Hydroelectric facility, nestled in Glenwood Canyon.
The rights are currently used by Xcel to generate electricity at the facility. Water then flows downstream from the plant and supports recreation and fish habitats.
But Xcel’s facility is aging and has suffered frequent outages. Western Slope advocates fear that the economy and environmental health of the river will suffer when the power plant shuts down for good, or if the rights are auctioned off to someone else.
In December 2023, the Colorado River District, which advocates for Western Slope water users, entered into a $99 million agreement to buy the rights from Xcel.
As part of the process, the River District asked state regulators to add permanent environmental uses to the Shoshone water rights — known as an “instream flow" protection. That way, a certain amount of water flows into the Colorado River permanently, even when Xcel’s plant is offline.
After hours of testimony during their November board meeting, the CWCB voted to add those instream flow protections to the rights. The board also said the rights would be jointly managed by the state and the River District.
“The importance of today’s vote cannot be overstated as a legacy decision for Colorado water and the western slope,” said Andy Mueller, general manager of River District, in a statement. “It secures an essential foundation for the health of the Colorado River and the communities it sustains.”
Dan Gibbs, the executive director of Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources, said in a statement that the agreement presented a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to protect the River.
The entire deal, though, has generated plenty of hand-wringing from Front Range water utilities, who worry about having too much water siphoned off. One of the Shoshone water rights is among the most senior rights of its type on the Colorado River, which means it has priority to use water when there are shortfalls.
The CWCB was supposed to vote on the protections in September, but Xcel and the River District allowed the board more time to review the proposal.
Since then, the board and the district revised the agreement to attempt to better address the concerns of Front Range groups.
Actually securing the rights for the Western Slope will still take years to complete. The instream flow protection must now be formally approved in Colorado’s water court, where Front Range providers may raise objections. Eventually, the state’s Public Utilities Commission must also sign off on the deal.
The River district was also counting on up to $40 million in federal funds to buy the rights. But the Trump administration has frozen the funding.
