Fryingpan-Arkansas Project
The Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, or "Fry-Ark," is a water diversion, storage and delivery project serving southeastern Colorado. The multi-purpose project was authorized in 1962 by President Kennedy to serve municipal, industrial, and hydroelectric power generation, and to enhance recreation, fish and wildlife interests. Construction began in 1964 and was completed in 1981. The project includes five dams and reservoirs, one federal hydroelectric power plant (two private, FERC regulated plants), and 22 tunnels and conduits totaling 87 miles (140 km) in length. The Bureau of Reclamation, under the Department of the Interior built and manages the project.
Like its sister-project, the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, the Fry-Ark brings available water from Colorado's West Slope to the more arid, and more heavily populated, East Slope, providing supplemental water to over 720,000 people and 280,600 acres (113,600 ha) of irrigable land in Colorado Springs, Pueblo, La Junta, Lamar, and other southeastern Colorado municipalities each year.
The project diverts and delivers an average of 52,000 acre·ft (64,000,000 m3) of water a year. However, the water right on the Fry-Ark allows for a diversion of 2,352,800 acre·ft (2.9021×109 m3) over the course of 34 consecutive years, but not to exceed a diversion of 120,000 acre·ft (150,000,000 m3) in any one single year. In 2011, when Colorado had an abundance of snow, the Fry-Ark imported about 98,000 acre·ft (121,000,000 m3) from the West Slope, the second highest diversion amount in the project's 50-year operating history. The following year, 2012, snowpack was scarce and drought returned to the state. As a result, the project was only able to import roughly 14,000 acre·ft (17,000,000 m3) of water.
Before the Fry-Ark Project could be built in its entirety, a compromise had to be struck between East and West Slope water politics. The result was the construction of Ruedi Reservoir, 15 miles (24 km) upstream on the Fryingpan River from Basalt, Colorado. Ruedi provides water to Colorado's West Slope, in part to compensate for what is diverted further upstream.
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