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Water Wednesday
Clinton Gulch Reservoir, between Copper Mountain and Fremont Pass, gleams in a summer sunset. The reservoir is a popular spot to fish for cutthroat trout and a hugely important bucket for Summit County ski areas, which use the water indirectly for snowmaking.
SUMMIT COUNTY — It’s water Wednesday, with Summit Voice featuring a series of stories on local and regional water issues, including the impending announcement of an agreement between Denver Water and West Slope stakeholders on divvying up flows in the highest tributaries of the Colorado River. To go along with these stories, we’ve picked out a few of our favorite water images from Summit County streams and reservoirs.
The Snake River flows over polished boulders near Keystone, Colorado. As lovely as it looks, the river is highly polluted by heavy metals from leaky old mines. The pollution has been getting worse in recent years. Click on the image to learn more.
The agreement is being hailed as groundbreaking, but it’s not clear what it will do for fisheries stressed by low flows and streams like the Snake River, so polluted by toxic metals that fish die within just a few days.
Dillon Reservoir and the Continental Divide. Click on the picture to learn what Dillon Reservoir levels are expected to be like this summer.
Straight Creek runs down from the Continental Divide along I-70 and the town of Dillon depends on its water for municipal use. In the 2002 drought, flows were so low that the town started looking for alternate supplies. An expansion of Old Dillon Reservoir should provide a buffer. Click on the picture to learn about the Old Dillon Reservoir project.
Sunset colors reflect in Clinton Gulch Reservoir.
Wetlands in Frisco, Colorado. Big snows this year have added up to a snowpack that's 140 percent of average in the Blue River Basin, but overall, the greater Colorado River Basin has been in an extended drought. Click to learn more.
Dillon Reservoir in the summer.
Rain droplets on a lodgpole pine. Click on the photo to read about how the pine beetle epidemic is affecting runoff.
Filed under: Colorado, Dillon Reservoir, Environment, Morning photo, photography, seasons, Summit County Colorado Tagged: | Colorado, Copper Mountain, Denver Water, Dillon Reservoir, Environment, Fremont Pass, Frisco Colorado, Snake River Colorado, Summit County Colorado, water
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These are truely breathe taking photographs. My favorite post of the day.