Town manager warns Rangely faces water shortfall after White River drops to historic lows

The Town Manager delivered a detailed briefing to the Rangely Town Council about sharply reduced White River flows and the town's limited ability to sustain current water use.

"We dropped below 50 cubic feet per second," the manager said while showing flow charts that compared current measurements with historical averages. He told the council the system's current stored reserves would last roughly two weeks at winter draw rates if mandatory reductions were implemented, and that staff is assessing options including trucking water and temporary operational changes at upstream hydro facilities.

Council members asked whether the hydroelectric plant upstream was contributing to the decline; the Town Manager said the hydro unit is offline for repairs and that the outage has reduced available releases, but he also noted opportunities to inspect the hydro system while it is disassembled. He described stage-based water-reduction thresholds (voluntary stage 1 and additional mandatory stages) and said the town has not yet triggered mandatory restrictions but is preparing to do so if inflows do not improve.

The manager said the town had pursued several mitigation measures, including two verbal grant commitments (Fish and Wildlife and a traffic grant, each about $30,000) to help related capital projects, and that staff will coordinate with county officials and upstream operators to secure more reliable flows. He asked residents to conserve water and said staff will bring any required policy decisions back to council for action.