The Blue River is a tributary of the

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...

, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
, accessed March 18, 2011 in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

. It rises in southern Summit County, on the western side of the continental divide in the Ten Mile Range, near Quandary Peak. It flows northwards past Blue River and Breckenridge, then through the Dillon Reservoir near Dillon. The west portal for the "Roberts Tunnel" is at the base of Dillon Reservoir. The Roberts Tunnel is a trans-basin diversion, built by Denver Water in 1962, that diverts water under the Continental Divide from the Colorado River basin into the South Platte River Basin. The east portal is approximately one mile upstream of

Grant, Colorado Grant is an unincorporated community and a U.S. Post Office in Park County, Colorado, United States. Description The community is located in foothills of the Front Range in the upper valley of the North Fork South Platte River, approximately ...

.Park County Local History Archives. Roberts Tunnel

Photo 1439, accessed June 13, 2018. North of Dillon, the river flows north-northwest along the eastern slope of the

Gore Range The Gore Range (elevation approximately 12,000 ft) is a mountain range in the Rocky Mountains of north central Colorado in the United States. Geography The range runs for approximately 60 miles (100 km) northwest-to-southeast, through ...

and joins the Colorado River at Kremmling. The Green Mountain Dam, upstream from Kremmling, forms the

Green Mountain Reservoir Green Mountain Reservoir lies at the northern end of Summit County, Colorado along the Blue River. The Green Mountain Dam was built between 1938 and 1942 by the United States Bureau of Reclamation. The reservoir and its dam store water to benefi ...

, providing

hydroelectric power Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...

and diversionary water for

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...

, as part of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project. The dam is a project of the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

References

External links

* of the town of Blue River Rivers of Colorado Rivers of Summit County, Colorado Tributaries of the Colorado River in Colorado {{Colorado-river-stub

See also

References

External links