08/24/2026
There is a good conversation in the comments. Worth the read!
5 Million Gallons
Grand Junction’s 1911 paramount right on Kannah Creek provides a little over 5 million gallons of water every day from the top of the Grand Mesa. Coincidentally, that’s roughly the amount of treated water City customers use on an average day.
Between our Kannah Creek source and our water treatment facility are 19 reservoirs with a combined storage capacity of about 4.5 billion gallons. At the end of July, the City had a little over 80% of that capacity in storage. Staff says that amount alone is equal to roughly two years of the City’s current annual demand.
At a water meeting earlier this month, Colorado River District General Manager Andy Mueller reported that Ute Water’s two terminal reservoirs were still approximately 84% full, and credited that to what he called “wise water management.” Ute Water is particularly important to Grand Junction because it supplies domestic water to more than half of the people who live within the city.
Both the City and Ute get their primary water supplies from the Grand Mesa. Although that water is ultimately part of the Colorado River Basin, our drinking water begins as snowpack above us and is captured before ever reaching the Colorado River. That distinction is easy to overlook when so much of the current water conversation is focused on conditions in the river itself.
The graphic is obviously a simplified version of a much larger system. Kannah Creek is the foundation of the City’s water supply, but it’s far from our only water right or source. The City has additional water rights and sources that provide more options than this graphic can show.
I’ve spent the last several months trying to understand how all of these pieces fit together and what they actually mean for Grand Junction during a water year like 2026.
That’s the subject of the newest section of Haunted by Waters, Why Grand Junction’s Water Story Is Different.
https://codyforgj.com/blogs/f/haunted-by-waters---section-2
Colorado River Basin
Colorado Watershed Assembly
RiversEdge West
One Riverfront
