The Arkansas River Compact Administration has agreed to establish a 20,000-acre feet multi-purpose storage account in John Martin Reservoir in southeastern Colorado, with some of the water emanating from a water-sharing agreement by the Colorado Springs Utilities.
The storage account should benefit water users in Colorado and Kansas and “promote commonly-held interests not directly related to the Kansas-Colorado Arkansas River Compact such as water quality improvements,” according to the federal agency that acts as the mediator between Colorado and Kansas for the compact governing the Arkansas River that has been in place since 1948.
Water quality along the Arkansas River east of Pueblo is a long-standing problem. For some residents of the Lower Arkansas, their only water source is from pumping wells, but the water has high levels of salt, selenium and even radioactive materials, with selenium the most difficult to eradicate.
While selenium is safe at low levels — it’s naturally-occurring in food and taken as a dietary supplement — when it’s in water supplies it’s a different story. Excessive selenium intake is linked to hair and nail loss or brittleness, skin lesions, nausea, diarrhea, skin rashes, mottled teeth, fatigue, irritability and nervous system abnormalities, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Almost every water system along the lower Ark – with high levels of radium, uranium and, in a few instances, “gross alpha radiation” – is in violation of the Clean Water Act, according to a 2019 report. Radium levels in some water systems in the eastern Lower Ark are 63 times higher than levels at the Pueblo Reservoir, and the amount of uranium is up to 12 times higher, the report said.
To address the water quality issue, Colorado and the federal government are collaborating on a 130-mile pipeline, known as the Arkansas Conduit, which has been in the works since the Kennedy administration. The pipeline’s first funding, $28 million from the federal government, was announced two years ago and the pipeline broke ground last year.
The account announced Friday will help with some of those water quality issues, along with a laundry list of “Best Management Practices” intended to also work on water quality improvements.
The account at John Martin Reservoir, in Bent County, is a pilot that will terminate on March 31, 2028, unless extended by ARCA.
Jack Goble, the general manager of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District and has been involved in the negotiations for the account for the past five to six years, told Colorado Politics that the water headed to John Martin will come from four sources – all in Colorado.
The four sources of water include three from the Catlin Canal, which runs roughly between Rocky Ford and Swink. It allows a Catlin Canal project on lease-fallowing to operate more efficiently and deliver water to Fountain, Security and Colorado Springs Utilities. Under the ARCA agreement, the water will be stored at John Martin until the river is high enough to exchange it for water at Pueblo that would then head to the municipalities.
The fourth source is water coming from a 2018 water-sharing agreement between Colorado Springs Utilities and the Lower Arkansas Water Management Association, aka LAWMA, for water coming out of the Fort Lyon canal. The utility, which now owns 2,500 shares of LAWMA water, gets that water five out of every 10 years, and it will be stored in John Martin.
For the past 10 to 15 years, he said, Colorado water users – municipalities, well augmentation and surface irrigation improvement replacement groups, water conservancy districts, and other water users – have been interested in additional storage in John Martin. The water users would go to ARCA, one at a time, to discuss the issue, but Kansas would reject it every time.
Both Kansas and Colorado have to agree to any changes or any additional storage accounts in John Martin, Goble said. Once rejected, that was the end of the conversation.
Finally, the Colorado Water Conservation Board said it would come up with grant money for the Lower Arkansas Water Conservancy district to do outreach to find out what Colorado water users in the Lower Arkansas Valley wanted in terms of storage, and then they would go as a group to ARCA.
Negotiating with Kansans to get a new storage account for Colorado users has been an ongoing effort with the state Division of Water Resources, including the state engineer, Goble said.
What they got Kansas to agree to was a pilot project. Goble described it as Kansas wanting to “dip their toe in the water” on these storage accounts.
Goble said the agreement will also help with those water quality issues. Kansas is very concerned about water quality in the lower Ark and interested in finding ways to improve it, he said.
As water quality improves through methods, such as lining ditches or canals, or using sprinklers versus flood irrigation that can result in more water consumption, it would require water to replace what’s being used over and above what’s agreed to. He pointed to research being done on water quality by Colorado State University, which showed these best management practices – lining, sprinklers, or lease fallowing, for example – could improve the quality of water returning to the river from farms.
These types of projects require a place to store the water, Goble explained, and that’s where the new agreement also comes in.
The last sticking point in the negotiations with Kansas was the cost – but in terms of water, not dollars. Kansas asked for a portion of the water being stored in John Martin in order for them to sign off. At one point they asked for 35%. Colorado came back with an offer of 5%. They agreed on 12.5%.
