Shoshone Hydroelectric Generating Station

The Shoshone plant was constructed in the early 1900s, with its turbines installed in 1906 and power generation beginning in 1909.

[3] Shoshone is owned and operated by Xcel Energy, and while its power output is comparatively small against most of the utility's generating stations, it is used to balance regional electricity needs.

[1] This predates rights owned by entities on Colorado's Front Range, which draw water from where most of the state's precipitation falls on the Western Slope across the Continental Divide to major population centers east of the Rocky Mountains.

[4] Otherwise, the original 1902 rights remained in effect, and were strengthened in 2016 when the Shoshone Outage Protocol was signed by a number of Colorado River stakeholders.

[5] The plan, an update to an addendum in a broader 2012 agreement, maintains the power plant's water rights even when electricity is not being generated—previously, when the plant was offline it yielded its water rights to claims that would otherwise hold lower priority.