After a wet water year, can Colorado hope for a repeat? Not quite.
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. … Beck, superintendent of the Pine River Irrigation District, which manages the reservoir located northeast of Durango … was in good company: Reservoir managers around the state saw water levels rise this year, a boon to downstream users who depend on stored water for drinking, growing crops, supporting industries and managing ecosystems. And as the year progressed, precipitation just kept coming in the form of rain, hail and severe storms.
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