The Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District Board of Directors approved lowering the Oct. 31 reservoir level at Taylor Reservoir from 50,000 acre-feet to 48,000 acre-feet at its Sept. 28 meeting.
The targeted Oct. 31 water level helps guide releases from the reservoir into the Taylor River downstream, since the level determines how much water is available for release. It also affects how much the reservoir refills over the winter and how much water is available for release the following year.
Decisions on reservoir levels and releases are guided by the Taylor Local Users Group, which includes representatives for a variety of recreation interests on the river, irrigators on the Taylor and Gunnison rivers and property owners in the area.
Taylor Local Users Group recommendations on releases and reservoir levels must then be approved by the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District, the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and the Colorado River Water Conservation District, all of which are signatories to the 1975 agreement that established rules governing the reservoir’s operations.
At the Sept. 28 Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District meeting, Don Sabrowski, district president and Taylor Local Users Group chair, explained that, since 2026 is a dry year, the target for the Taylor Reservoir was not to go below 50,000 acre-feet by Oct. 31.
According to Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District General Manager Sonja Chavez, the district usually aims to keep the reservoir from dropping below 70,000 acre-feet in normal or wet years.
Sabrowski said that the Taylor Local Users Group planned to release 75 cubic feet per second of water from the reservoir through the end of September and then reduce flows to 50 cubic feet per second on Oct. 1.
However, he said the Bureau of Reclamation notified the group that if it continued its planned release schedule, the reservoir would drop below 50,000 acre-feet by Oct. 31.
The Bureau had recommended reducing flows from 75 cubic feet per second to 50 cubic feet per second in the “first part of September” Sabrowski said.
“At that time, temperatures were still high,” he said, “so kind of fair and detrimental to the fishing environment of the river as well as downstream.”
He said the Taylor Local Users Group recommended keeping the flows as planned to address temperature issues in the river, which the Bureau indicated would likely lower the reservoir to around 48,500 acre-feet.
Sabrowski said that doing so would also require approval from the four parties responsible for managing the reservoir.
“I’m hoping, with the rains that we’ve had, we’re not going to be, you know, we’re going to have a bit of a cushion on this 48,000 acre-feet,” he said.
Chavez said that the reservoir has gone from about 50,460 acre-feet to about 50,811 acre-feet due to recent rains, adding that the reservoir is “on the upside.”
“So that’s the first good news we’ve had all season,” Sabrowski said.
He said that, in his understanding, the other parties had already agreed to the reduction in Oct. 31 water level but that the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District needed to approve the change.
The board then unanimously voted to approve changing the minimum Oct. 31 water level from 50,000 acre-feet to 48,000 acre-feet.
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