From The Greeley Tribune (Bill Jackson):
Jim Martin, executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, was the luncheon speaker for the 2010 Spring Water Users meeting of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District at the Radisson Conference Center. Martin said the [Environmental Protection Agency] has a major role in determining the approval of any of the nation’s proposed water projects, and that includes several in Colorado now in the planning and permitting process. Those include the Northern Integrated Supply Project, which would provide an additional 40,000 acre-feet of water per year for 15 entities in northern Colorado, and the Windy Gap Firming Project, which provides a storage facility in a new reservoir west of Loveland. Both those projects are in the process of undergoing Environmental Impact Studies and, if approved, will be built in the next five to 10 years. The problem, Martin said, is that the EPA doesn’t get involved until after the Environmental Impact Study of a project is complete. “As a result, it doesn’t have the history of the planning that go into those projects. That’s a serious institutional problem and it’s one that I don’t have a solution,” Martin said.