Missouri Basin and Arkansas-Rio Grande-Texas Gulf – Eastern Colorado Area Office

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Eastern Colorado Area Office Overview

The Eastern Colorado Area Office manages two large diversion projects, the Colorado-Big Thompson (C-BT) and the Fryingpan-Arkansas (Fry-Ark) as well as the Leadville Mine Drainage Tunnel and Treatment Plan which removes heavy metals resulting from mining activity before they can enter into the Arkansas River.

C-BT at a Glance:

• First delivered Colorado River water to the Big Thompson in 1947
• Contains 20 dams and dikes, 22 tunnels and canals: over 130 miles
• Its 6 hydroelectric power plants produce 759,000,000 kilowatt hours a year
• 10 major reservoirs:
• Lake Granby: 539,758 acre feet
• Horsetooth Reservoir: 156,735 acre feet
• Green Mountain: 153,639 acre feet
• Carter Lake: 112,230 acre feet
• On average, we divert 230,000 acre feet a year.
• One acre-foot of water is 326,000 gallons, the amount of water used by two average families of four per year
• The majority of the water is consumed in the late summer
• Provides supplementary water to the east slope for:
• 30 cities and towns or roughly 925,000 people
• 640,000 irrigated acres

Fry-Ark at a Glance:

• Finished in 1982 and enjoys Colorado's second largest hydroelectric power plant at Mt. Elbert
• Contains 5 large reservoirs, 5 major dams, and 22 tunnels and other conduits covering 87 miles:
• Lake Pueblo: 338,374 acre feet
• Twin Lakes: 140,357 acre feet
• Turquoise Lake: 129,398 acre feet
• Ruedi Reservoir: 102,369 acre feet
• Mt. Elbert operates as a pumped-storage power plant, meaning water is brought down to produce electricity during peak daytime demand and pumped up late at night when demand is at its lowest, using water like a battery
• Mt. Elbert generates over 280,000,000 kilowatt hours a year on average
• On average, we divert 56,000 acre feet a year
• One acre-foot of water is 326,000 gallons, the amount of water used by two average families of four per year
• Provides supplementary water to the east slope for:
• 12 Colorado counties, a population of over 650,000
• Over 200,000 irrigated acre

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Other Water Links

• Water Ops: Reclamation water levels in Colorado.
• USGS WaterWatch: real time stream flow data around Colorado
• Colorado Division of Water Resources: Colorado's Surface Water Conditions
• Mountain Buzz: A quick link to Colorado stream flows courtesy of American Whitewater