RiverWare has been used to develop an operations model for the San Luis Valley Irrigation District (SLVID) and the Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) as part of the Rio Grande Cooperative Project. The Project’s primary objectives are to store and regulate decreed water rights to better meet irrigation and augmentation demands, maximize the use of certain CPW water rights and to provide storage space in Rio Grande Reservoir for compact compliance. These objectives can be accomplished through coordination of future operations both within and between Rio Grande Reservoir and Beaver Reservoir.

CPW has an extensive portfolio of in-basin and transmountain water rights that may have been underutilized and non-optimized in previous years. CPW was uncertain if it needed additional storage in order to maximize the use and operations of their water rights. Beaver Reservoir, owned by CPW, required over $10M in repairs to increase storage, but CPW wanted to evaluate whether the additional storage was worth the cost of rehabilitation. In addition, CPW only had a temporary storage agreement in Rio Grande Reservoir. The RiverWare model has been used to illustrate to CWP the benefits of rehabilitating Beaver Reservoir and securing firm storage in Rio Grande Reservoir to better utilize yields and optimize operations. The model was also used to show how reoperations and substitutions could provide in-stream flows without impacting CPW’s yields.

The joint reservoir operations project includes four CPW water user accounts for native and transmountain water, storage accounts and rights in Rio Grande and Beaver reservoirs, CWCB in-stream flow below Beaver Reservoir and ditches with diversions from the Rio Grande River. The model incorporates exchanges and swaps of water between Rio Grande and Beaver reservoirs as well as multiple inflows and outflows. The objective of the model is to optimize the yield and operations of CPW’s native and transmountain water using Beaver Reservoir and Rio Grande Reservoir to meet conservation pool obligations and other annual operations. Through the optimization process, CPW’s target storage account in Rio Grande Reservoir is being evaluated based on goals and operations criteria. Storage accounts and operations will be added for additional Rio Grande Reservoir users.

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