S2754-119

What This Bill Does

The available introduced text of S.2754, the Crystal Reservoir Conveyance Act, directs the Secretary of Agriculture, through the Forest Service, to convey Crystal Reservoir and its associated federal land and water rights to the City of Ouray as soon as practicable after enactment. The package includes the lake, Full Moon Dam and its spillway and outlet, Full Moon Ditch and Reservoir Number 10, related infrastructure, and approximately 45 acres shown on a June 23, 2025 Forest Service map. The conveyance is by quitclaim deed, subject to valid existing rights and a federal reversionary interest. The City pays no purchase price, but must pay conveyance survey costs.

Source limitation: the Senate reported this bill with a substitute and placed it on the calendar on September 17, 2026. The available official bill-version feed and retrieved XML still contain only the introduced text. The committee meeting page did not provide the substitute text in the reviewed material. The terms below are therefore an analysis of that introduced version, not a claim that the unverified substitute is identical. H.R.5911, a related House bill, has different conveyance wording; its text is not substituted for S.2754. The companion remains pending in the Senate, rather than an enacted transfer.

Who Benefits and How

Ouray would gain ownership and local operational control of the reservoir property and the transferred water interests, without paying a purchase price. The City could store water, make in-reservoir uses, and release water for augmentation or other beneficial uses consistently with applicable water rights and Colorado water law. The Secretary must allow continued City use of the nearby Red Mountain Ditch for its decreed purposes. These provisions do not create an unlimited new water allocation or extinguish other valid rights.

People fishing, hiking or otherwise recreating at the site would have a statutory condition preserving full public recreational access without an access fee and keeping the property as open space in perpetuity. The June 2025 map shows the reservoir facilities, nonmotorized trails and an adjacent highway right-of-way; it is a boundary reference, not permission to build beyond the bill's conditions. The Forest Service would transfer the specified repair, operating and maintenance responsibility to the City.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Ouray would take on all repair, operation and maintenance costs for Full Moon Dam and related infrastructure from the date of conveyance, as well as survey expenses. It must grant the Secretary easements for existing roads and trails that the Secretary determines start, end or cross the property. It could not use recreational access fees or unrelated commercial development to finance these obligations. The text gives no repair-cost estimate and does not promise the reservoir is in a particular engineering condition.

Development, commercial operations and construction are barred except as needed for operation and maintenance of the dam, reservoir and associated infrastructure. Expanding the reservoir's historical footprint may not flood, impair or harm upstream wetlands; deepening remains allowed consistently with the City's water rights. The Secretary bears other conveyance costs, finalizes the map and legal description, keeps them available for inspection, and may impose additional appropriate conditions. Minor map or description corrections require mutual agreement. The City may fund repairs before transfer only with the Secretary's approval. If the transferred land stops complying with the conveyance conditions, reversion requires the Secretary's discretion and a best-interest determination; it is not automatic upon every alleged breach. No separate repair grant, appropriation amount or commercial concession is created.

Key Provisions

• Requires a conditional transfer of the specified reservoir, infrastructure, approximately 45 acres and associated federal water rights to Ouray.
• Requires the City to bear surveys and ongoing dam-infrastructure costs while retaining free public recreation and open space in perpetuity.
• Limits development and wetland-harming expansion, preserves applicable rights and Colorado water law, and conditions federal reversion on the Secretary's decision.