SPRING RUNOFF
Colorado Springs’ annual paycheck is about ready to come in, and it looks like baby may be getting new shoes this year. The annual paycheck is spring runoff, which supplies essentially all of the city’s water.
“We all love runoff, because that’s payday for us,” said Kevin Lusk, Colorado Springs Utilities’ principal engineer. “That’s when we get that big deposit, and we know what we can do. In the last few years, the paychecks have really been low so we had to go on a budget. Now, we have a bigger bank account and can relax our budget a little bit.”
Lusk said spring runoff of snowmelt typically begins in mid-May and culminates in the latter part of June.
This year, though, runoff has been early.
Lusk said that as of last week, twice as much water as last year was flowing into Twin Lakes, at the eastern foot of Independence Pass.
The utility would like to see a slower, more controlled melt, because if the water rushes out of the mountains all at once, the utility’s system of reservoirs and pipelines can’t capture it all.
“Right now, we haven’t been spilling anything,” he said. “But it’s like going shopping at a supermarket; you can buy everything you want, but your pickup is only so big.”
The Twin Lakes system, which captures water east of Independence Pass, is the city’s “bread-and-butter” water collection point, Lusk said. But the city also captures substantial runoff from its Homestake system, south of Vail, and from the Blue River system, south of Breckenridge. The water is stored in a chain of reservoirs and then shipped via pipelines to a pumping station in Divide. From there, the water can be sent to Rampart Range Reservoir and the North Slope reservoirs at the foot of Pikes Peak and then on to the Mesa water treatment plant.
The high-mountain diversion system supplies about 50 percent of the city’s water. Pikes Peak snowmelt accounts for an additional 20 percent, and the remainder comes from the Arkansas River and water exchanges.
Lusk said the utility will know by the end of June or early July how much water it has collected and must then make that quantity last all year, with reserves set aside in case of emergency.
As of last week, snowpack in the local Pikes Peak collection system was 60 percent of normal, reflecting the dry conditions along the Front Range. Snowpack in the high-mountain diversion systems was at or above the historical average.
But because the snow is melting faster and sooner than normal, Lusk expects the utility will capture perhaps a bit less than last year.
The utility recently lowered its forecast of water yield this spring from 137,000 acre-feet to 124,000 acre-feet, about what the mountains gave the city last year. One acre-foot is 325,851 gallons.
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0197 or bill.mckeown@gazette.com
