Last week I introduced drought in the Mancos Valley. I didnt, however, write anything about priorities that regulate who gets water and who doesnt as the amount of water in the various ditches decreases. And under that system Tom Weaver and Glen Humiston will still have water when the town goes dry.
George Bauer, the father of Mancos, had a lot of good plans for Mancos but may have failed to understand the need to plan early on for the towns need for water. But even as early as 1881, he may have been a little late. A. L. Root and James Ratliff came to the valley in 1876 and not long after that had a ditch coming from the river to irrigate their properties the acreage where Weaver and Humiston now own properties. Still, Bauer and others must have thought that when Mancos filed for water that priority #3 would serve the town well.
In 2002, Mancos found itself out of water because it had priority #3 water. The town bought some 2002 priority #2 water from Tom Weaver and survived the impending calamity. Will the good graces of Tom Weaver and Glen Humiston be able to save the town if it runs out of priority #3 water, say, during a Mancos Days that lies somewhere ahead?
Droughts are bad but floods can be even more devastating. The Mancos River has gone for enough years without a flood that debris has accumulated and some banks have become rather shallow. Due to laws put in effect by downstream users (California and Arizona, for instance), it is against the law to change anything that would affect the flow of water in the Mancos River. The town administrators are well aware that they cannot make preparations for a flood. Some of the hindrances date back to 1923.
We generally would think of a flood on the Mancos as occurring in the spring but the most devastating floods occurred in late October. In 1912, raging fall flood waters did considerable damage in the Mancos Valley, taking out bridges and crippling train tracks. The Rio Grande Southern was hit especially hard between Trout Lake and Telluride and considerable damage was also caused between Dolores and Rico. What if El Nino and La Nina conspire once again? A Halloween could see children going trick or treating in a downpour that had already lasted for a couple of days.
I have witnessed more than a few devastating spring floods. I saw the Robbins bridge become useless until repairs could be made. The Webber Ditch inlet was wiped away and Cats and men with shovels put themselves at risk as they tried to resurrect what the river was continuing to wash away. When I was in the first grade (1941) I became entranced with the peeling away of the riverbank near the school until a teacher grabbed me and carried me away from the river. I guess you could say that for a few minutes I was a witness to a fall flood.
