A water advocacy group says Colorado is losing precious water because of structural problems in 193 dams. Colorado Water Congress director Dick MacRavey says the dams are not allowed to hold their full capacity because of structural problems or other concerns. That means water that Colorado could be storing for use here is instead flowing out of state.

MacRavey says the state is losing more than 146,000 acre feet of storage capacity because of the problems.

Deputy state engineer Jack Byers says the restrictions were imposed after a review of each dam. But Byers says the unused capacity is a tiny fraction of the state's total storage capacity of 6.5 million
acre feet.

He says two of the restricted dams account for 65,000 acre feet or nearly half of the total lost capacity. Those dams are Two Buttes southeast of Lamar and Cucharas Dam Number Five near Walsenburg.