Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
June 14, 2026
…it remains unclear whether Denver Water will ever be able to fill the reservoir to its new full capacity as a yearslong court battle lumbers on between the utility and environmentalists. Months of mediation between the parties have failed. Denver Water is now asking a federal appeals court to reverse a lower court judge’s 2025 order barring the utility from filling the expanded reservoir and ordering the yearslong federal permitting process to be redone. A panel of three judges for the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear arguments in the case on July 31 in Santa Fe…
U.S. District Court Judge Christine Arguello in 2024 found that federal regulators violated environmental protection laws when they failed to properly analyze the environmental impact of the project or consider reasonable alternatives to the dam expansion that would be less harmful. She later issued the order against filling the reservoir. Environmental groups argued in court, and in their filings, that regulators failed to evaluate how siphoning more water from the drought-stricken Colorado River would impact the basin as a whole. And the groups charged that they failed to weigh other project options that wouldn’t require the clear-cutting of a half-million trees or risk damage to wetlands. The case has drawn the attention of other Front Range water providers, lawyers from across the county and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — all of which have filed briefs in the appeals case…
While the dam structure itself is complete, at least a year of work remains to fully finish the project, Martin said. Construction crews must finish the spillway and place the final topper foot of concrete on the completed dam structure. Divers will place a gate between the reservoir’s water and the dam’s intake tubes. But the crews on site will diminish in the coming months, from up to 500 workers a day to closer to 100. On the morning of June 3, crane operators already worked to remove from the dam crest the heavy machinery that was necessary to build the main structure.
