The Perils of Designer Tailwaters

The stocked water in the lower Arkansas below Pueblo Dam is as artificed as it gets, but arguments over water management there are just as loud as those surrounding any other tailwater. Ed Dentry writes about recent efforts to assuage the anger of fly fishers who saw the river almost dry up in 2005. The promise: 50 cubic-feet- per-second minimum flows. “Thanks to some creative water finagling by the Colorado Division of Wildlife and State Parks, trout pampered by $7.5 million in recent stream improvements through the City of Pueblo will have minimum flows for swimming and breathing.” In the Rocky Mountain News.