Early in 2022, the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District (District) began exploring the possibility of applying to a federal WaterSMART grant program to develop a new, comprehensive drought resiliency plan (DRP) for our basin. The district was successful and received just over $140,000 to support the project. Two years ago, I joined the district as a water resources fellow, and have supported the implementation of the project alongside the district and its consultants.
After months of research, connecting with water users, developing strategies and sharing ideas with the community, I’m excited to share that we’ve launched the Upper Gunnison Drought Plan website at uppergunnisondroughtplan.org. The website is now live for you to explore and view current drought conditions broken down by our seven watersheds, each ranked from drought level 0 to 2. It also includes draft mitigation and response actions, water learning sessions and a list of the incredible stakeholders and task force members who provided valuable input along the way.
The comprehensive draft plan will be released on the website July 1 for public comment. The comment period will remain open through July 30. I hope you’ll read the draft and fill out our comment form. Your feedback is key to creating a plan that works for everyone in the Upper Gunnison Basin.
The Upper Gunnison District understands how vital it is that we be forward thinking when it comes to managing our water resources. We must prepare for and provide our community with tools to build short- and long-term resilience to drought. There has been a substantial effort by the district to include input from all water users. It conducted hours of one-on-one interviews with municipalities, industry, educational institutions, agricultural producers, recreationists and environmental groups.
I have seen firsthand the passion and dedication of our water users as they continued to show up, fully ready at each meeting to have the hard discussions and tackle the challenges associated with managing an over-allocated resource. I believe the plan that has been developed is a great start. Now, we want to include the broader community — your input!
For some background, we started with three essential questions in our planning process: (1) How would we recognize drought in its early stages?; (2) What are the potential impacts of drought on the Upper Gunnison Basin?; (3) How can we create resiliency and identify specific actions to help mitigate potential impacts on our community associated with future drought events? I encourage you to keep these questions in mind.
“According to www.drought.gov, it is likely that we will see degradation of drought conditions as we move into late spring and summer,” said District Senior Program Manager Beverly Richards. “This year, water supplies are on the lower side — think 2018 or 2022 — and it’s likely conditions will continue to degrade. We have already met peak stream flow for the runoff season, and current flows are approximately 50% of the historical average for this time of year … Our hope is for a good monsoon season to alleviate some of these drier conditions, but forecasts are not confirming this yet. Water management will remain on the conservative side to help get us through the year and the public — residents and visitors — should carefully manage their water use and take extra care when recreating in the basin as increased risk of wildfire coincides with drought.”
As we see conditions like this more frequently, during the entire planning process, it was emphasized that we needed to be creative to break out of the “hydro-illogical cycle,” which is a pattern of ignoring drought risk during wet years and failing to prepare for inevitable dry periods. A proactive approach, rooted in science and local knowledge, was critical to the plan.
As we foresee future population growth and development in the Gunnison Valley, coupled with even more challenging climate scenarios, we anticipate that the drought resiliency plan will need to be re-evaluated and updated annually. As always, we will continue to seek input from all water users in our basin.
Again, we encourage you to take a look at our drought plan website and check back often for new information. The public comment form is coming soon, as well as the “Drought Tracking Monitor” which will allow anyone to select a site on a water district map and get real-time data on current conditions. We hope you find this helpful as you make decisions about your use of water. If we all get involved and work together on this important issue, we can build a more drought-resistant Upper Gunnison Basin.
(Alana Nichols joined the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District as a water resource fellow in March 2023.)
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