Mancos Valley Smart Metering Project

Mancos Conservation District has partnered with four local ditches for the Mancos Valley Smart Metering Project. The Bolen, Sheek, Beaver and Root and Ratliff ditches have all installed equipment that sends water flow data to a local server. Solar panels with battery arrays provide power for the equipment at each river diversion site.

Being able to read and record the flows at many or all of the diversions along the river will generate much of the needed information to better manage this complex system, including valuable pre-compact water rights. Innovative solutions that provide strategies to better manage the river may also help decrease streamflow fluctuations and improve instream flows for aquatic organisms, allowing the community to better protect this vital resource.

By using smart metering, water priorities could be set appropriately to account for short term events like massive summer rain events. Water use could be more effectively documented. Lake diversions and releases could be better timed to demand and to better work with nature rather than against it. Every water diversion structure would ideally be hooked into a shared network to better manage the entire system. Having more data can allow for more effective change in producing a drought resilient system.

Promoting proactive steps that support a more efficient, drought resilient water delivery system in order to protect agricultural, municipal, environmental and recreational uses of Colorado’s water is imperative to maintaining river health and a viable agricultural industry in the face of these changes.