Not all of the water in the Roaring Fork Watershed empties into the Colorado River at Glenwood Springs. Transmountain diversions move water under the mountains and the Continental Divide to provide water for front range communities. Two of the five largest transmountain diversion projects in Colorado, the Twin Lakes Transmountain Diversion System and Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, divert water to the Arkansas River Basin on the eastern side of the Continental Divide.

A MUST READ: The Past, Present, and Future of Transmountain Diversion Projects - From the Roaring Fork Watershed Plan Phase II Guidance Document Illuminating the Way Ahead by G. Moss Driscoll, Esq. Read the complete document here.

Below a map of the collection systems in Colorado. The Roaring Fork River diversions include numbers 14-16.

Click on the link to the left for interactive
Rocky Mountain News articles on Colorado water diversions.

Not All Water Flows Downstream
In the West, it is commonly known that water flows downstream unless its flows upstream towards money. We would add “money and people”. This adage is true in the state of Colorado. About 80% of our population lives on the Front Range while about 80% of the state’s water is on the Western Slope. Beginning in the 1930s, transmountain diversions that move water from west to east were built to help meet the demands of the more populous Front Range.

Today, Colorado has 24 major tunnels that move water from western Colorado to eastern Colorado under the Continental Divide. Two of the five largest diversions are located within the Roaring Fork Watershed. The Boustead tunnel moves water from the upper Fryingpan River and Hunter Creek drainages to Turquoise Lake near Leadville. The Twin Lakes tunnel diverts water from the Roaring Fork River headwaters to Twin Lakes on the other side of Independence Pass. This time of year, as tunnels move water and reservoirs fill, as much as 40% of the water in these headwaters areas is not flowing downstream.

As demand for water increases in the future, the Roaring Fork Watershed’s transmountain and in-basin diversions will play a major role in Colorado’s water future. We encourage you to learn more about transmountain diversions at www.roaringfork.org/diversions.