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Lower Savage Lake in the Upper Fryingpan River basin remained covered with snow on Saturday. A significant amount of the snowpack in the basin hadn’t melted yet.
Scott Condon/The Aspen Times
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Boats explore Ruedi Reservoir before a storm rolls in on Saturday. The reservoir was 86 percent full on Thursday. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation expects it to fill sometime after July 4.
Scott Condon/The Aspen Times
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation reduced releases from Ruedi Reservoir earlier this week but hydrologist Tim Miller acknowledged it’s a crapshoot right now whether adjustments will be required as the ample high-elevation snowpack melts out.
Ruedi was releasing in excess of 600 cubic feet per second as part of the Coordinated Reservoirs Operations program for the benefit of four endangered fish. The flows boosted the level of the Colorado River in habitat for humpback chub, razorback sucker, bonytail club and the Colorado pikeminnow upstream of Grand Junction.
Miller said about 5,000 acre-feet of water from Ruedi was released for the endangered fish program. Once the program was over, he dialed the releases back to about 350 cfs to try to ensure the reservoir fills.
The inflow to Ruedi from the upper Fryingpan River dipped to 600 cfs on Tuesday and was at 591 cfs on Thursday. That was about half of the June 22 peak of 1,300 cfs.
The federal River Forecast Center envisioned inflow rising again to 800 cfs and then gradually receding.
“If inflow is at 800 cfs and below, we will have to really work to get the reservoir full,” Miller said. Ruedi was 86% full Thursday.
The big unknown is how much snowpack remains at high elevations and how it will melt out. Miller said snow telemetry sites in the Upper Fryingpan Valley have melted out. However, those automated sites are at lower elevations. There is still significant snow in higher basins. The warm weather this week is eating into the snowpack. If the inflow to the reservoir spikes again, releases also will increase.
“I may be going right back up with my flows,” Miller said.
He said he is confident of Ruedi Reservoir filling, but maybe not in the first few days of July. In two comparable years for snowpack, Ruedi filled on July 11 in 1995 and July 10 in 2011.