New information obtained through two recently completed studies may help with reclamation efforts at the Standard Mine and allow the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to treat less contaminated water from the mine, officials told the Standard Mine Advisory Group (SMAG) at a meeting in December.

A proposed final decree in the Kansas v. Colorado lawsuit over the Arkansas River Compact is expected by the end of the year. It would set up a system to allow the two states to work out differences through arbitration rather than through a contentious battle in the U.S. Supreme Court that has flared since Kansas filed a lawsuit in 1985.

Ranchers and farmers in the Upper Gunnison River Basin should be protected as the Colorado water court weighs the water right for a national park...The federal government has reached more than 100 stipulations with basin landowners aimed at protecting their uses as the water right for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park is quantified.

The State Attorney General's Office filed a motion in Montrose Water Court that  restates objections to stipulations benefiting Gunnison Basin water users by giving their water priority over those of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

Water managers worried about dismal spring runoff this year have cut back the amount of water released into the Gunnison River through Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park...The lack of snowpack on the Western Slope alarmed the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation so much that it cut water releases from the Aspinall Unit into the Gunnison River nearly in half.

[EDITORIAL]...Near the top of Sherman's to-do list will be the enormously complex challenge of resolving that not-so-niggling matter of finally quantifying a federal water right for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park that everyone can live with.

[EDITORIAL] State water officials and Western Slope lawmakers are looking at a water appropriations bill that could lead to a study examining the possible availability of water in Blue Mesa Reservoir for transmountain diversion to the Front Range...Any such study would be a complete waste of tax dollars until another important issue regarding the Gunnison River--the quantification of water rights

A possible $500,000 feasibility study for a Blue Mesa Reservoir pumpback proposal sparked the ire of the Gunnison Basin Roundtable members. Generally unhappy about the the possibility of water being pumped to the Front Range from Mesa Reservoir, roundtable members disagreed about the possibility without knowing whether there's enough water available to send over the Continential Divide.