Water war culminates in an unfettered Gunnison

BLACK CANYON OF THE GUNNISON NATIONAL PARK - The largest waterfall in Colorado was here Wednesday, a gushing torrent that plunged 227 feet, surpassing Niagara Falls, swelling the Gunnison River to levels unprecedented in the age of dams and diversions.

The misty, rainbowed spectacle, with spray felt two football fields away, was seen by few in the gated recesses of Crystal Dam in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. It took 30 years to make. It will be gone in a few days.

But the significance is lasting: After decades of legal wrangling, water is being allowed to flow from a reservoir, not for power, recreation or drinking water, but to mimic the spring flows of a once-great river withered by water development. Wednesday's flow peaked at 7,000 cubic feet per second.

Such a thing would have once been unimaginable in a state where, so goes the saying, whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.

"It is overwhelming," said Michael Dale, natural resources manager for Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. "What's being done is what the whole basin and the whole federal government and the whole state agreed on."

It took one of the longest water wars in state history to get here.

The Gunnison was once one of Colorado's most untamed rivers. Its forces carved out the Black Canyon, a 2,000-foot-deep chasm that thwarted explorer John W. Gunnison's effort to cross it and Colorado Springs founder William Jackson Palmer's efforts to build a railroad through it.

A century ago, its spring flow peaked at 13,000 cubic feet per second, draining snowfall from Colorado's mountains.

Construction of three dams and reservoirs from 1937 to 1978, including Crystal and Blue Mesa reservoirs, changed that.

The peak spring flow in 2007 was just 1,710 cubic feet per second.

The effect on the river, fish and the canyon have long been a concern of the National Park Service and environmental groups. Vegetation, debris and rocks that would normally wash away in the spring had accumulated, choking the channel and water quality for fish.

Federal courts in 1978 recognized a water right for the park, but the issue of how much water it should get was never resolved among the competing interests of drinking water, hydroelectric power and conservation.

Environmental groups sued in 2003 over a Bush administration deal that set flows from the reservoirs into the canyon, saying it was not enough. A settlement in that suit reached earlier this year guarantees a minimum flow from Crystal Dam, immediately upriver from the park, and a spring release to mimic heavy runoff.

Water ran over the dam last year, but only because the state's massive snowpack swelled the reservoirs to capacity.

"This is kind of rebalancing the Gunnison River system, from the past 40 years when it's been focused on hydropower generation, storage of water at all costs and really a minimum of addressing the needs of the canyon itself and the ecology down there," said Bart Miller, attorney and water program director for Western Resource Advocates, one of the groups that sued.

The spring release began a week ago. Water began flowing over the top of the dam Tuesday, peaking Wednesday. It will be drawn down gradually by Saturday.

For tourists on the canyon's rim Wednesday, there was a gentle roar not normally discernable.

Below, in the canyon, a steady stream of interested visitors tried to get close enough to feel the spray, only to be denied by a locked gate. The public is expected to be allowed closer to the dam starting today.

Frank Kugel, manager of the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District, who was in the canyon Wednesday, said he was thrilled to see the water flowing over the dam.

"It's a good thing WAPA (the Western Area Power Administration) isn't here. They'd be in tears over this," Kugel said.

"It is definitely a good idea. You would think there would be some way to do it more often," said visitor Annie Christie, of Idaho, who was surprised to learn the waterfall was only a temporary sight.

After the flow ceases this weekend, Dale plans to scout the river, gauge the effectiveness of the water purge, see how much debris and vegetation washed away. The agreement calls for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the dam and hydro plant, to release water each spring, in proportion to the availability from snowpack.

It will be a long time before the river recovers, and it may never look like it did when Gunnison tried to cross it, but for a few days, at least, it looks more like the mighty river that thwarted Gunnison.

"The impacts of the dams were just that, 40 years, and it will be 40 of these flows before it can reverse itself," Dale said.