A wet year and major conservation efforts are paying off in the short term for the Colorado River, with California, Arizona and Nevada on track to conserve a record 1 million acre-feet of water or more by the end of 2023, officials announced last week.
From the backcountry of Campo to the back roads of Ramona, firefighters were ready to roll last fall at even the hint of wildfire.
Two years of below-average rain and high temperatures had left the landscape parched. Something as small as heat from a car muffler could be enough to ignite grass. Firefighters described the region as primed to burn.
As March rolled into April, Ken Beck was keeping his eye on the snowdrifts piled on slopes around Vallecito Reservoir in Colorado’s southwestern mountains. Snow reports showed there was about 300,000 acre-feet of water in that snow waiting to flow into the reservoir, he said.
Residents living along Colorado’s northern Front Range and Northeastern Plains experienced a pretty wet year — the wettest, in fact, in 128 years.
And water experts expect this winter isn’t likely to be much different.
Becky Bolinger, assistant state climatologist at the Colorado Climate Center, said those areas had the wettest year since the state started keeping those records 128 years ago.
Mother Nature is being very generous this year.
Record-setting rain totals this year means landowners and municipalities, alike, are enjoying some serious savings on their water bills.
In a press release Thursday, Denver Water said customers hadn’t used this little water in the month of June since 1969. And many reservoirs are full.
Area canals in the Fresno Irrigation District have run dry but at some point during a wet year, a new recharge basin south of Fresno will be full of water.
“Most of the signs are pointing to another dry year, unfortunately, this year,” says Fresno Irrigation District General Manager Bill Stretch. “It could turn wet and if it does, we’ve got the infrastructure in place to capture those flood flows.”
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
