It goes without saying that snow – and the water it contains – is a cornerstone of life in Southwest Colorado. Agriculture, recreation and municipal development all rely on the water provided by the snow that accumulates in the water throughout the winter.
On Wednesday, that reliance on snowpack was front and center in Washington as Colorado Rep. Jeff Hurd’s Snowpack Water Supply Forecasting Reauthorization Act cleared the House of Representatives.
If the bill clears both chambers of Congress and the president’s desk, it would allow water managers in Colorado to incorporate modern technologies in quantifying the amount of water held in Colorado mountain snowpacks and update aging Snotel sites.
“The bill provides the funding and authority needed for these technologies to be integrated into operational forecasting,” Hurd said in an emailed statement to The Durango Herald. “This is about bringing modern science into Western water management and making sure Colorado’s rural communities are not left behind because Washington has been slow to update its tools.”
The first Snotel site was installed in 1977, according to Water Education Colorado, and the technology proved revolutionary in how snowpack was measured. The National Resource Conservation Service said Snotel sites record hourly data on snow depth, snow water equivalent, precipitation, air temperature, soil moisture and soil temperature. That data is then used by water managers.
Hurd said the bill authorizes federal agencies to deploy more cutting-edge tools to give water managers a big-picture view of mountain snowpack.
These technologies – including LIDAR and satellite imagery – would provide real-time, three-dimensional modeling across a wide area that is more precise than SNOTEL data alone. That data would then be used to create more accurate forecasting to plan for drought, manage reservoirs and support agriculture.
“That means water managers in Dolores County, farmers along the Uncompahgre, and municipal systems across the San Juan Basin will have information they can trust when making decisions that affect entire communities,” Hurd said.
Hurd’s office said that after bipartisan approval in the House, the bill must clear the Senate and receive President Donald Trump’s signature to be signed into law. Hurd said the bill should be a no-brainer for Washington lawmakers to support because of how critical a resource water is in Colorado and the broader West.
“Snowpack is the lifeblood of the West,” he said. “When the data is wrong, everything downstream suffers. Ranchers misjudge irrigation, towns struggle with storage decisions and wildfire risk becomes harder to manage.”
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
