The initial fill of Chimney Hollow Reservoir has concluded, and the reservoir currently has about 1,500 acre-feet of water—less than 2 percent of the reservoir's full capacity of 90,000 acre-feet. Read more about the initial fill at https://t.co/WaxdbfiFWz. pic.twitter.com/ndlN3Y6zoV
— Chimney Hollow Reservoir (@ChimneyHollow) May 5, 2026
Category: Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District
A new reservoir is slowly filling in Northern #Colorado. Its future is still murky — Scott Franz (KUNC.org) #ColoradoRiver #SouthPlatteRiver
Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Scott Franz):
April 22, 2026
At 8 a.m. Tuesday, there was only silence and the occasional crunch of rocks as a dozen people in orange vests waited in a moonlike landscape beneath a 350-foot-tall dam near Loveland.
“Ninetey seconds,” a worker called out.
Moments later, it sounded like a waterfall suddenly roared to life as Northern Water started filling Colorado’s newest reservoir, Chimney Hollow.
“It’s pretty cool, I mean it’s something we’ve been working on for a long time, so just to see it for real, it’s pretty cool,” Chris Manley, a water quality specialist with Northern Water, said as he watched water gush from a 40-foot-tall concrete tower at the bottom of the reservoir.
By the end of the week, the initial release of 1,500-acre feet of water will rise about 30 feet above the spot Manley and a gaggle of journalists were standing on Tuesday morning.
Engineers will make sure the pipes that will funnel Colorado River water to the reservoir are functioning correctly. It will also give Northern Water a chance to study an issue with the water supply.
The reservoir’s future became murky last year after officials announced that naturally occurring uranium was found in the rock used to build the dam for the reservoir.
Manley said the uranium discovery has set the project back roughly a year. But he said it is an issue Northern Water can manage long term.
“But we’ve got to really understand the situation a lot better before we can move forward,” he said.
This week’s initial fill will provide Northern Water with a real-world test of the water quality that was only previously done in laboratories.
None of the water coming into the reservoir will be released to taps at this point. The reservoir is only being filled to about 2% of its total capacity in the coming days.
“We’ll be measuring it actually pretty frequently, to see just what is (the water) picking up as it goes up and touches the dam and starts to move some of the sediments around here,” Northern Water spokesperson Jeff Stahla said.
Northern Water officials could not provide a timeline for when water will begin reaching the dozen water suppliers who have signed up to receive it.
The reservoir project cost an estimated $500 million and has been in the planning stages for more than two decades.
Conservation groups have raised concerns about the reservoir.
Jen Pelz, wild rivers program director at the conservation group WildEarth Guardians,told KUNC in 2022 that the project would burden a Colorado River water supply that is already overallocated.
“You can have a bunch of buckets, and you can build more buckets to put water on the front range,” Pelz said. “But the reality is, if the projected climate change impacts come to fruition — which all indications are, they’re coming to fruition quicker than we even thought — there’s going to be no water to fill those buckets.”
The reservoir is seeing its initial fill during historic drought conditions in the Colorado River basin.
It also happened a day after Denver Water announced it would drain Antero Reservoir near Fairplay to conserve water this summer and minimize evaporation.
“It’s definitely very ironic that we’re filling the reservoir in these historic drought conditions, but we’re fortunate that we had a little bit of supply left from last year,” Northern Water Operations Director Jerry Gibbens said. “It really showcases why storage is so important for our region.
Northern Water officials say the reservoir is a way to boost water security on the Front Range.
“As we’ve seen this year, water storage is such a key element of our overall water supply in northern Colorado, and this just adds another increment of that supply to a region where our water demands continue to grow,” Stahla said.
Hot, Dry Weather Continues in #Colorado Mountains and Plains — Northern Water #snowpack #runoff
Click the link to read the release on the Northern Water website:
March 31, 2026
The record-breaking hot and dry winter and early spring has continued through March in Colorado’s mountains and plains. Snow gauges and weather stations throughout Northern Water’s collection and distribution areas have collected data showing the lack of precipitation in the region this year.
On April 9, the Northern Water Board of Directors will use the data collected this year and more to determine the annual quota for allottees of Colorado-Big Thompson Project water. Unlike many irrigation systems, the C-BT Project is designed to provide water to supplement the native supplies available in a given year, using water collected in previous seasons. If there is a bright spot this season, it’s that C-BT Project reserves are above their average levels over the life of the project for this time of year.
If you would like to provide comment on the quota send an email to quota@northernwater.org or offer a comment at the April 9 Board meeting.
One year after landmark $100M #PoudreRiver settlement, work faces delays — Jerd Smith (Fresh Water News) #NISP #SouthPlatteRiver
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
March 12, 2026
More than a year after a landmark $100 million environmental settlement designed to improve the Poudre River was OK’d, little progress has been made to put the agreement into action.
The settlement, signed last February, came after Save The Poudre sued to stop the $2.7 billion Northern Integrated Supply Project (NISP). The deal was crafted to allow NISP to move forward while paying to improve the Poudre and protect it from any harm the project could cause.
NISP is designed to serve roughly one dozen fast-growing cities along the Northern Front Range and will include two reservoirs and a pipeline.
The Community Foundation of Northern Colorado is leading the effort to implement the settlement, which includes projects that will make the river healthier for fish and aquatic habitat, improve water flows and water quality, and increase recreational opportunities.
The foundation is overseeing a six-member committee that began meeting last August. The committee will decide how to implement the ambitious environmental projects outlined in the settlement.
“We are taking time to be intentional,” said Jodie Riesenberger, the foundation’s vice president for community impact.
But work has also been slow because key payments from NISP participants to the foundation are tied to benchmarks in building the massive reservoir and pipeline system. The committee received its first $5 million payment last year when the settlement was signed and is supposed to get its next $5 million payment when construction begins, something that could have happened later this year but has since been delayed. The full $100 million is to be paid out over a 20-year period, Riesenberger said.
Since the settlement was approved, though, the project’s largest customer, the Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, has dropped out of NISP. A handful of other cities, including Evans, have also dropped out, citing concerns about soaring design and construction costs, as well as the cost of the environmental settlement.
In response, Northern Water, which is overseeing project construction, temporarily halted design work as it re-examined NISP’s size.
Now, construction isn’t likely to begin until 2027 or later, according to Northern Water spokesman Jeff Stahla.
“We did slow things down,” Stahla said, “but there is still a chance we can start in mid-2027.”
Save The Poudre River President Gary Wockner said the delays aren’t surprising.
The committee has “been moving slow because there is a lot to learn. If you want to fix problems on the river, you have to understand the river and know what the problems are,” he said.
Since the river committee began meeting in August, Riesenberger said work has focused on analyzing what the issues are and trying to figure out how and whether to spend the money they have on hand now.
The delays “don’t impact what we’re doing yet, but it could if it drags on longer. The dream is that these dollars could do transformational things for the river,” Riesenberger said.
Snowpack finally saw some above average gains last week — Northern Water #SouthPlatteRiver #ColoradoRiver
As major #drought looms, #Colorado’s reservoirs are 85% full — Jerd Smith (Fresh Water News) #snowpack
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
January 22, 2026
Colorado’s water storage reservoirs are about 85% full as the state faces a drought year that could be the worst in nearly a quarter century.
State officials are comparing this year with 2002, a year that would deliver one of the worst droughts on record. Whether this year will beat that mark isn’t clear yet.
Having water in storage is how Western states help offset the impacts of crippling droughts. This reservoir storage number, though below average, doesn’t worry water watchers too much right now, according to Nathan Elder, manager of water supply for Denver Water, the state’s largest water utility serving about 1.5 million people.
Denver’s storage system mirrors the statewide average at 82% full. But what worries Elder and others is what lies ahead. Snowpack and streamflow forecasts are so low that the utility is unlikely to be able to fill the reservoirs back up when snows melt this spring.
And that’s unusual. “We always fill,” he said.
In the American West, winter snows melt in the spring, filling reservoirs. Those storage pools help deliver water consistently through long summers and dry falls. Elder said Denver has enough water stored now to last roughly three years.
Northern Water’s storage reservoirs are similarly full, but that’s not causing much cheer. Northern provides water to hundreds of farms and nearly 1 million residents on the Front Range north of Denver.
“We’re in pretty good shape,” said Luke Shawcross, Northern’s water resources manager. “But the forecast is just dismal.”
At a meeting of the state’s Water Conditions Monitoring Committee meeting Thursday, Allie Mazurek, a climatologist with the Colorado Climate Center at CSU, reiterated what has dominated the headlines in recent weeks: December was the warmest on record.
There is little optimism that the state can shake off this record-breaking dry spell, according to Brian Domonkos, snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Services. The agency tracks snowpack in Colorado and other Western states.
Statewide snowpack sits at 57% of normal, Domonkos said. “It’s a record low.”
To get back to some level of normalcy the state would need to receive a series of snowstorms that would drop 145% of the state’s average amount of white flakes.
“And that is not likely,” he said.
Looking ahead, Denver Water and others have begun weekly “water shortage” meetings, with a decision likely in March about whether and what kind of new drought restrictions to impose, Elder said in an interview earlier this week.
“It’s not a good situation,” he said. “We’ve survived years like this in the past and made it through. But it’s a reminder that we live in an arid environment and we need to be conserving all the time.”
This weekend, more snow is expected, but it won’t be a drought-buster, said CSU’s Mazurek.
Still, she said, “at this point, I’ll take anything.”
President Trump vetoes bill to fund pipeline to bring clean water to southeast #Colorado: U.S. Representative Boebert’s Epstein vote, Colorado’s imprisonment of Tina Peters have drawn the president’s ire recently — The #Denver Post #ArkansasRiver #ColoradoRiver
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Nick Coltrain). Here’s an excerpt:
December 31, 2025
House Resolution 131, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, both of Colorado, sought to jumpstart a project that has languished since 1962. The bill, one of two vetoed by Trump on Tuesday, would extend the repayment period for the project and lower the interest rate. It passed both chambers of Congress by voice vote earlier this year…Trump, who has recently lashed out at Colorado for a slew of grievances, cited the project’s $1.3 billion price tag and said it was supposed to be paid for by local municipalities — not the federal government — in his veto statement…
9News first reported the veto. In a statement to the news station, Boebert said, “If this administration wants to make its legacy blocking projects that deliver water to rural Americans, that’s on them.” She also told the network that she hopes “this veto has nothing to do with political retaliation for calling out corruption and demanding accountability. Americans deserve leadership that puts people over politics.”
Boebert, a Republican representing Colorado’s 4th Congressional District and a longtime ally of the president, recently broke with him by voting to mandate the release of the so-called Epstein files, a trove of documents about the notorious sex criminal with longtime ties to Trump. Trump has also singled out Colorado for retribution over the state’s imprisonment of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters.
Chris Woodka, senior policy and issues manager at the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which is overseeing the project, said his team is working with Colorado’s congressional delegation on next steps.
#Colorado Senate Bill Helps With Water #Conservation — Northern Water ENews
Click the link to read the article on the Northern Water website:
December 17, 2025
Colorado Senate Bill 24-005 (SB5) seeks to reduce unnecessary outdoor water use by limiting high-water landscaping in commercial areas to conserve water amid mounting drought concerns. Beginning Jan. 1, 2026, the legislation will restrict non-functional turf (irrigated grass areas used for decoration), artificial turf and invasive plant species in non-residential settings.
Implementing SB5
SB5 requires changes to land-use code to specify these restrictions for the following applications:
- Commercial, institutional and industrial properties
- Homeowner association common-interest community areas
- Public spaces such as street right-of-way, medians, parking lots and transportation corridors
Restrictions and Applications
Due to the value and appropriateness of higher water use and activity they support, SB5 does not apply to areas considered functional or recreational, including turf for athletic fields, parks and golf courses.
The bill does not impact existing development; it applies only to new developments and certain redevelopment projects that require building or landscaping permits and disturb at least 50 percent of a site’s landscape. It excludes single-family residential properties, focusing instead on public and commercial areas where landscaping serves primarily for aesthetic purposes.
New Landscape Rules Matter for Colorado’s Future
Landscapes play a vital role to communities, but historical turf-heavy designs consume significant resources to meet social expectations. Today, more sustainable solutions exist that use less water while still delivering functionality. Allocating water budgets to landscape formats that provide the highest social value for the water invested is a sensible application to managing this scarce resource.
Areas that are primarily ornamental can be designed to use less water than traditional turf grass while still providing important non-recreational functionality. For spaces that require turf-like groundcover, multiple alternatives exist that use less water than cool season Kentucky Bluegrass, including Tahoma31 warm season grass, Dog Tuff grass and a variety of native grass combinations that thrive in this climate with minimal supplemental needs. These alternatives support stormwater management, provide cooling and pollution mitigation, while also delivering enhanced benefits of habitat for Colorado’s native flora and fauna. Non-turf areas such as gardens and groves have plentiful options for perennials, groundcovers, shrubs and trees that use less water than turf while providing essential livability features to our region.
Northern Water’s Role
To support SB5 implementation, Northern Water has been providing training to regional municipalities, including the Growing Water Smart program from the Sonoran Institute. These workshops introduce new sustainable landscape options that meet municipal needs while also providing flexibility for cities to determine a unique sense of place for their regions. Northern Water and its partners also provide tools such as landscape designs and demonstrations at our Berthoud Conservation Campus so city planners and consultants can experience ColoradoScapes and understand their resource uses as they update land use codes. Many cities are excited to modernize the message their landscapes convey and have begun showcasing these features on their own properties.
Lower Water, Higher Value Landscapes
SB5 ensures that water resources are dedicated to areas with the highest essential and recreational use, while maintaining high quality, aesthetically pleasing commercial, industrial and transportation areas that require less water. These changes will create communities that show our region’s natural beauty and restore ecosystem services to our pollinators, birds and other animals, while offering an authentic Colorado experience. Learn more about all of our water efficiency services that support this water-wise future.
The #Colorado Water Conservation Board votes yes on Shoshone: The #ColoradoRiver District will retain some control over management of powerful water rights — Heather Sackett (AspenJournalism.org) #COriver #arification
Click the link to read the article on the Aspen Journalism website (Heather Sackett):
November 20, 2025
In a historic move Wednesday evening, the state water board voted unanimously to accept water rights tied to the Shoshone hydropower plant, a major step toward securing those flows in perpetuity for the Western Slope.
The Colorado Water Conservation Board said the Shoshone water rights, which are some of the oldest and most powerful on the mainstem of the Colorado River, can be used to benefit the environment.
“The Shoshone acquisition makes a lot of sense to me, and I’m very proud to be a part of the work that everybody’s put into it,” said Mike Camblin, who represents the Yampa, White and Green river basins on the CWCB. “I hope that our children and our grandchildren look back and realize we made the right decision on this.”
The Glenwood Springs-based Colorado River Water Conservation District plans to purchase the Shoshone water rights for $99 million from Xcel Energy, but the district first needed the approval of the CWCB, which is the only entity in the state allowed to hold instream-flow water rights to benefit the environment. Because the water is returned to the river after it runs through the hydroplant’s turbines, downstream cities, irrigators, recreators and the environment all benefit.
River District General Manager Andy Mueller called it a fantastic day in Colorado history.
“I think that was the right decision for the Colorado River and the right decision for our whole state,” Mueller said. “I think the state for generations to come, centuries in the future will benefit from having that water in the Colorado River.”
Importantly, the instream-flow agreement approved by the board says that the Western Slope, along with the CWCB, will retain some control over exercising the rights. The River District and its constituents drew a hard line in the sand regarding this point and said they would walk away from the deal if they had to cede control solely to the CWCB.
Though not totally unprecedented, co-management is a departure from the norm, as the CWCB has never shared management of an instream-flow water right this large or this powerful with another entity.
In attendance at Wednesday’s CWCB meeting in Golden were representatives of ditch companies, elected officials and water managers from across the River District’s 15-county area. Some of the attendees said during their public comments that if the River District didn’t retain some control over the water rights, they would pull their funding and withdraw their support from the Shoshone campaign.
Mesa County Commissioner Bobbie Daniel said the joint-management proposal is a safeguard that ensures that Western Slope interests are not pushed aside. Mesa County has committed $1 million toward the purchase of the water rights.
“The Shoshone call is one of the great stabilizing forces on the river, a heartbeat that has kept our valley farms alive, our communities whole and our economy steady, even in lean years,” Daniel said. “If a joint management is not adopted, Mesa County will withdraw its support for this acquisition. It’s not out of anger or politics, but because anything less would fail the people that we serve.”
Blow to the Front Range
The CWCB’s decision was a blow to Front Range water providers, who objected to the River District’s having a say over how to manage the water rights, even though they supported the overall goal of protecting flows for the environment. Denver Water, Northern Water, Aurora Water and Colorado Springs Utilities argued that the CWCB has exclusive authority over the rights, according to state statute.
Critically, because the Shoshone plant’s water rights — one that dates to 1902 for 1,250 cubic feet per second and another that dates to 1929 for 158 cfs — are senior to many other water users, they have the ability to command the flows of the Colorado River and its tributaries upstream all the way to the headwaters. This means that the owners of the rights can “call out” junior Front Range water providers with younger water rights that take water across the Continental Divide via transmountain diversions and force them to cut back.
The fact that Front Range water providers take about 500,000 acre-feet annually from the headwaters of the Colorado River is a sore spot for many on the Western Slope, who feel the growth of Front Range cities has come at their expense. These transmountain diversions can leave Western Slope streams depleted.
The Shoshone call pulls water west much of the time. But the Front Range parties wanted assurances that during extreme droughts or emergency situations, the call would be “relaxed,” allowing them to take more water to their cities’ millions of customers.
Alex Davis, assistant general manager with Aurora Water, said the CWCB should retain the ability to relax the call as a “backstop” under extremely rare circumstances.
“It is asking that in those emergency situations, the board has the ability to step in and say: We’re going to do what we think is best for the state of Colorado,” Davis said.
The agreement approved by the board lays out a collaborative process to consider a call relaxation, with a stakeholder panel of water managers from both sides of the divide. The specific wording of this agreement was hashed out during Wednesday’s meeting, with lawyers representing the CWCB and River District conferencing to tweak language and make edits.
The CWCB had been set to decide on the Shoshone rights at its meeting in September, but the River District granted an eleventh-hour 60-day extension so they could address issues raised by the board and try to negotiate a consensus with the Front Range parties.
Despite all the detailed arguments laid out by the parties, thousands of pages of technical and legal documents, and hours of testimony and public comment over the September and November CWCB meetings, the board’s scope of decisionmaking remained narrow: Should the CWCB accept a perpetual interest in the Shoshone water rights and will these rights preserve the natural environment to a reasonable degree?
In the end, the board decided yes, and also determined that it did, in fact, have the authority to allow the River District to co-manage the Shoshone water rights alongside it.
“I really think it’s pretty incredible that there’s no objection to the environmental aspects of this flow and the purpose of this water right for environmental purposes,” said CWCB Director Taylor Hawes, who represents the mainstem of the Colorado River where the Shoshone plant is located. “(The River District is) donating that water right. It seems like they should have a say. And while I realize this case is unique, I don’t see anything in the statute or the rules that prohibits us from doing this.”
But the fight to keep Shoshone flowing west is not over for the River District. The CWCB, River District and the water rights’ current owner, Xcel, now plan to file a joint application in water court to make the deal official by adding the instream-flow use to the water rights.
The water court process will decide another contentious issue that is sure to again highlight disagreement between the Western Slope and Front Range as they compete for the state’s dwindling water resources: precisely how much water is associated with the water rights, a number based on the plant’s past use.
“I also very much understand the concerns of both sides of the divide in not wanting the other side to have a windfall,” Hawes said. “That has been kind of the heart of all of this. And I hope we can all trust that the water court’s process will give us a result where we don’t have to worry about that. Everyone’s concerns will be addressed in that process.”
The #Colorado Water Conservation Board says “yes” to $99M Western Slope plan for Shoshone Power Plant’s water rights — Shannon Mullane (Fresh Water News) #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Shannon Mullane):
November 20, 2025
In a momentous decision for the Western Slope, state water officials unanimously approved a controversial proposal to use two coveted Colorado River water rights to help the river itself.
Members of the Colorado Water Conservation Board voted to accept water rights tied to Shoshone Power Plant into its Instream Flow Program, which aims to keep water in streams to help the environment.
The decision Wednesday is a historic step forward in western Colorado’s yearslong effort to secure the $99 million rights permanently. But some Front Range water providers pushed back during the hearings, worried that the deal could hamper their ability to manage the water supply for millions of Colorado customers.
For the state, the two water rights will be a crown jewel in its five-decade environmental effort to help river ecosystems. It’s one of several steps in the agreement process, and it could take years before the river feels that environmental benefit.
“The Shoshone acquisition makes a lot of sense to me, and I’m very proud of the work that everybody’s put into it,” said Mike Camblin, who represents the Yampa and White river basins on the Colorado Water Conservation Board. “I hope that our children and our grandchildren look back at this and realize we made the right decision.”
Over 100 Colorado water professionals and community members gathered in Golden for a six-hour hearing about the environmental proposal, brought forward by the Colorado River District, which represents 15 counties on the Western Slope.
The small hydropower plant off Interstate 70 near Glenwood Springs has used Colorado River water to generate electricity for over a century. But the aging facility has a history of maintenance issues, and Western Slope water watchers have long worried about what happens to the rights if it were to shut down for good.
The Colorado River District wants to add the environmental use as part of a larger plan to maintain the “status quo” flow of water past the power plant, regardless of how long it remains in operation.
Western Slope communities, farms, ranches, endangered species programs and recreational industries have become dependent on those flows over the decades and broadly supported the district’s proposal.
“I’m good. I’m much more relaxed now,” Andy Mueller, the district’s general manager, said after the vote Wednesday. “The reality is, we have set up our state, through this instream flow agreement, for success for centuries on the Colorado River.”
Some powerhouses in Colorado water support the general permanency effort but oppose parts of the agreement. Northern Water, Colorado Springs Utilities, Denver Water and Aurora Water said the proposal would give the Colorado River District too much sway in decisions that would impact them.
These water managers and providers are responsible for delivering reliable water to millions of people, businesses, farms and ranches across the Front Range. Any change to Shoshone’s water rights could have ripple effects that would affect over 10,000 upstream water rights, including some held by Front Range water groups.
The negotiations over the agreement continued throughout the meeting. Board members had about 24 hours to review a stack of documents marked with tweaked phrasing and proposed edits.
Both sides are concerned that the other could get a water windfall through the agreement, said Taylor Hawes, who represents the Colorado River on the board. Those concerns can be addressed in the next step of the process: Water Court.
“That has been the heart of all of this,” Hawes said. “I hope we can all trust that the water court’s process will give us a result where we don’t have to worry about that.”
Who will control the flow of water?
The Colorado Water Conservation Board was supposed to make its final ruling on the environmental use proposal in September. Then Public Service Company of Colorado, the Xcel subsidiary that owns the rights, and the Colorado River District filed an 11th-hour extension to delay until the meeting Wednesday.
That’s, in part, because they needed more time to address a central conflict in the agreement: Who makes the final decisions when managing the powerful rights?
Shoshone uses two rights to access the Colorado River: one for 1,250 cubic feet per second that dates back to 1905, and a right to 158 cubic feet per second that dates back to 1940.
They amount to a big chunk of water. Plus, these rights can be used year-round, and they supersede more recent, junior rights like several held by Front Range water providers.
Under the agreement, the water rights will be co-managed by the Colorado River District and the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
Western Slope parties were adamant about this. Several speakers said they would pull their funding, and there would be no agreement if the River District did not have a say in how the water rights would be used.
“If joint management is not adopted, Mesa County will withdraw its support for this acquisition,” Bobbie Daniel, Mesa County Commissioner, said. “It’s not out of anger or politics, but because anything less would fail the people that we serve.”
The Front Range groups said the state should make the final decision if Colorado River District staff and CWCB staff disagreed over how to manage the water rights. They argued the board has exclusive authority under state law.
Alex Davis with Aurora Water said her team was pushing for a “hammer” — an entity, preferably the state, that could force water providers on either side of the Continental Divide to come to the negotiating table or that could make the final decision, especially in times of crisis.
Aurora pulls about 25,000 acre-feet of water from the Western Slope, through mountain tunnels and into its water system each year, she said. (An acre-foot of water is about what two to three households use in a year.) But when Shoshone is using its 1905 water right to its fullest, nearly all of Aurora’s transmountain diversions are turned down or turned off.
The city might want to ask Shoshone to use less water to provide some relief in an emergency. The agreement seems to give the Colorado River District a veto, Davis said.
“By the River District having that decision-making power, it may lead to less incentive on the West Slope side in those emergency situations,” Davis said in an interview with The Sun. “That’s what we were worried about.”
Colorado Water Conservation Board members decided to continue with the co-management approach, saying they were not giving up authority or working outside of state statute by doing so.
Mueller said the agreement is a win for the river and the entire state. It will protect endangered fish and a critical 15-mile stretch of habitat near Grand Junction. It includes exceptions that will protect cities during multi-year droughts and emergency situations, he said.
“The CWCB and the River District can act together for the best interest of the state,” Mueller said in an interview. “We’ll have to earn some trust in that realm over the years, but I’m quite convinced we can do it.”
About that $99 million bill…
The Colorado River District has entered into a $99 million agreement with Xcel Energy to buy the Shoshone water rights.
The state’s decision to accept Shoshone’s water rights into its environmental program met one of four key closing conditions of that purchase agreement, Amy Moyer, chief of strategy for the Colorado River District, said.
The deal still needs approval by Colorado’s Public Utilities Commission. It’ll be weighed in Water Court, where Western Slope and Front Range representatives will wade through another thorny issue: What has Shoshone’s “status quo” water use been over the last century?
The Colorado River District and its Western Slope supporters need to pay up. Although they’ve pulled together over half the asking price, they’re still waiting to hear about whether a request for federal funding will be approved.
If the deal passes those hurdles, then the resulting purchase and instream flow agreement will go on indefinitely. It will provide more predictability for water users across the state, and it will continue to factor into how Colorado communities grow, officials said Wednesday. “We’re making some very far-reaching decisions here,” Nathan Coombs, the board’s Rio Grande Basin representative, said. “I still think this is the right choice right now with the information we have.”
Northern Water again delays filling Chimney Hollow Dam over uranium issues — Michael Booth (Fresh Water News)
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Michael Booth):
November 13, 2025
Northern Water will further delay an initial partial filling of its new Chimney Hollow Reservoir into next year to allow time for expanded groundwater tests in the area to make sure unexpected uranium leaching inside the planned pool would not migrate to other supplies.
After spending years permitting and constructing the dam west of Loveland, Northern Water was surprised in June that routine water quality tests ahead of the filling go-ahead found natural uranium leaching out of rocks exposed from a quarry used for dam fill. Initial water fill-up was then delayed for testing, to see how long the leaching might last, and how the uranium would be diluted when water diverted under the Continental Divide by the Colorado-Big Thompson system eventually fills Chimney Hollow.
Now Northern Water says it needs more time to test groundwater outside the reservoir to provide background levels of naturally occurring uranium, and determine whether a filled reservoir would “influence” nearby groundwater with uranium-tainted water. A Northern Water spokesperson used “influence” rather than “leaking” to describe what engineers would be watching.
“Influence or mixing of surface and groundwater can vary greatly, depending on many factors, scenarios and even locations,” spokesperson Amy Parks said. “Without adequate baseline data, we are not able to assess those future conditions, so this short delay allows us to do that work.”
Similar-sized Carter Lake Reservoir is just over a ridge that makes up the east edge of Chimney Hollow.
“At this time, due to the existing bedrock, we do not think that migration of water from Chimney to Carter is likely. However, additional monitoring will help us ensure that can be detected in the future,” Parks said.
Filling of a small portion of the reservoir had been planned for this month, but now is “expected in early 2026,” according to the agency.
The 12 Northern Water members that bought into the project, including the cities of Broomfield and Loveland, are already paying for construction bonds through their rates. The delay in filling the reservoir is not expected to affect their finances, the utility said.
Members were not scheduled to receive Chimney Hollow water for years. “This doesn’t affect water deliveries or anything that project participants have been expecting, so it’s a good time” to widen testing protocols, Parks said in an interview.
“It’s really just an abundance of caution and making sure we’re putting the health and safety of our public and neighbors into priority, and making sure we’re crossing our t’s and dotting our i’s before we take that step of adding water,” she said.
What mitigation is necessary remains unknown
Northern Water still does not know the scale of mitigation required to keep uranium in Chimney Hollow water at safe levels. The agency earlier this year said it believed uranium leaching would decrease over time as stored water stopped penetrating farther into the naturally occurring seams. Excavators have now capped some unused construction materials that will eventually be underwater with a clay layer that will prevent some leaching.
If uranium levels in the filled pool do not drop far enough, other mitigation measures could include a water treatment plant or system below the reservoir, Parks said. Northern Water does not yet have a cost estimate on how much the testing, delays or treatment will cost, until more testing is complete, she said.
Engineering and testing teams decided “it’s best to delay this for a few months to make sure that we have the groundwater samples from the reservoir, from around the reservoir, before that water goes in there,” Parks said. “We just want to make sure that any water that goes into the reservoir now doesn’t influence groundwater around it.”
Chimney Hollow was built to store 90,000 acre-feet of water for 11 northern Colorado communities and water agencies and the Platte River Power Authority. The project was meant to “firm” or store water rights Northern Water owns in the Windy Gap project near Granby, which collects and pumps Colorado River water into the Adams Tunnel for Front Range buyers. Windy Gap and Chimney Hollow allow the Front Range communities to take advantage of their water rights in wet years when Lake Granby is too full to contain their portion of the river. Northern Water has also suffered setbacks this year on its other major project, the proposed $2.7 billion twin-reservoir Northern Integrated Supply Project. Some members of NISP, a slightly different list than Chimney Hollow members, are warning they will pull out of the two-dam and pipeline construction plan after decades of permitting because costs have risen too high and delays raise uncertainty.
How is #Colorado’s response to invasive mussels going? Funding and public education are key, experts say — Shannon Mullane (Fresh Water News)
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Shannon Mullane):
October 23, 2025
Colorado is in its first year of responding to a zebra mussel infestation in a big river, the Colorado River. State staff say they have what they need to handle the high-priority needs — they just need their funding to stay off the chopping block.
The fast-reproducing mussels, or their microscopic stage called veligers, were first detected in Colorado in 2022. Since then, the state’s aquatic nuisance species team and its partners have been working to monitor water, decontaminate boats, and educate the public to keep the mussels from spreading. That effort logged a serious failure this summer when state staff detected adult zebra mussels in the Colorado River, where treatment options are limited.
“We’re continuing to sample the Colorado from below the Granby Dam all the way out to the [Utah-Colorado] state line,” said Robert Walters, who manages the invasive species program for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
Adult zebra mussels, about the size of a thumbnail with a zebra-striped shell, reproduce quickly and can clog up pipes, valves and parts of dams, costing millions of dollars to remove. They also suck up nutrients, out-eating other native aquatic species, and their razor sharp shells cause headaches for beachgoers.
The state’s first adult zebra mussel showed up in Highline Reservoir near Grand Junction in 2022. But even after the lake was drained and treated, the mussels appeared again.
Then this year in July, the mussels showed up in a private reservoir in Eagle County near the Colorado River. And in September, specialists found adult zebra mussels in a stretch of the Colorado River itself.
Colorado has been working to keep these invasive species out of its waters since 2007, when a task force was created to coordinate management efforts.
In 2008, Colorado approved a law that makes it illegal to possess, import, export, transport, release or cause an aquatic nuisance species to be released.
Now, the program completes over 450,000 inspections each year, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s website. The teams have intercepted 281 boats with zebra or quagga mussels attached.
But their treatment options are limited on the Colorado River. CPW does not intend to treat the main stem of the Colorado River due to multiple factors, including risk to native fish populations and critical habitat, the length of the potential treatment area and complex canal systems, the agency said in a mid-September news release.
The goal continues to be educating the public — including lawmakers who are scheduled to hear an update on the zebra mussel issue during the Oct. 29 Water Resources and Agriculture Review Committee meeting.
“What I think that we really need to help us more effectively tackle this issue is a higher level of public awareness,” Walters said.
The first year of infestations
For invasive species teams, the first year involves a lot of monitoring, according to Heidi McMaster, the invasive species coordinator for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
She’d know: She has helped Reclamation with its response to invasive species, like quagga mussels.
Quagga mussels were discovered in Lake Mead, Lake Mojave and Lake Havasu on the Colorado River in January 2007. The mussels were later confirmed in Lake Powell in 2013, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.
Colorado River water from Colorado’s mountains eventually collects in Lake Powell before flowing through the Grand Canyon to downstream states, Lake Mead and Mexico.
“I would think that the first response is probably panic, especially if people are not prepared for it,” McMaster said. “Once that initial panic wears off, it is tapping into the existing resources, the preparedness plans that state or managers have on how to deal with it.”
During the first year, specialists are looking at existing rapid response plans, vulnerability assessments and communication plans. They take samples and track life cycles to try to understand how the mussels reproduce, how environmental conditions impact breeding and what kinds of treatments might work to stop the spread.
In the Southwest and along the Colorado River, the temperature of the water allows invasive species to breed multiple times a year, McMaster said. Each one can produce a million larvae. Not all survive: There are turbulent waters, areas with fewer nutrients, and other threats, like predators. But if they grow to adulthood they can layer on top of each other on underwater surfaces.
If left unchecked, invasive mussels could clog up pipelines that carry cooling water to turbines used to generate hydroelectric power. Without the cooling effect of the water, the turbine would “burn up” and power generation would shut down, McMaster said.
The goal at the end of the first year is mainly to inform the public. That means repeating the “clean, drain, dry” refrain as often as possible to anyone moving watercraft from one body of water to another, she said.
After that, a successful first-year response will also include setting up inspection and decontamination stations. Then, specialists move onto treatment options, McMaster said.
At Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, on the Nevada-Arizona border, managers took an aggressive treatment approach to avoid damage to the dam, she said. They used UV lights to stun and temporarily paralyze the microscopic veligers so they cannot attach inside the dam.
“Prevention is still the No. 1 goal,” McMaster said.
It’s the cheapest and least risky option, she said. Once an invasive mussel species arrives in an area, however, the costs can ramp up exponentially into the millions of taxpayer dollars. The goal is always to keep them at bay as much as possible, she said.
“They might be in the state of Colorado,” McMaster said, “but if you look at the overall percentage of uninfested areas, that’s still a lot of maintenance that’s not having to happen.”
Pest control on a private lake
On July 3, Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff discovered adult zebra mussels in a privately owned lake in western Eagle County, according to a news release.
CPW also identified additional zebra mussel veligers in the Colorado River near New Castle, Highline Lake and Mack Mesa Lake at Highline Lake State Park, the release said.
There were too many mussels in the Eagle County lake to count, Walters said in late August. Any hard structure in the lake and any underwater rocks were relatively covered in adult mussels, he said.
An invasive species specialist said in July that they believed the lake was an upstream source of the mussels in the Colorado River, and that an outlet from the lake was bringing zebra-mussel-infested water into the Colorado River, according to news reports.
Walters said that has not been confirmed.
“We are just continuing to try to monitor,” Walters said during an interview Aug. 29. “What I can say is that, to the best of our knowledge, there currently is no connection from this privately owned body of water into any of the river systems of the state.”
The state’s team spent about eight hours on Aug. 25 treating the lake with a copper-based molluscicide, a substance used to kill mollusks, he said.
Staff also sampled the private lake’s water Aug. 27 to make sure the treatment’s concentration was at the right level and planned to continue monitoring and treating the water throughout September, Walters said.
No boats or other watercraft were entering or exiting the lake, he said.
“It’ll be a long time before we know if it was truly effective at eradicating the zebra mussels,” he said.
The state focuses its monitoring efforts on public waters, mainly those with high recreational use. Motorboats and other types of boats are the main way the mussels spread, he said.
However, that doesn’t mean the teams don’t survey private ponds and lakes, Walters said.
After the state discovered zebra mussel veligers in the Colorado River and Grand Junction area, they started asking landowners if they could survey private lakes, ponds, gravel pits and more near the river. They often survey privately owned recreational areas, like water skiing clubs, he said.
“We have been trying to work with those private landowners to allow us access to come out and sample them for invasive species,” Walters said.
We need to keep our existing funding
But with thousands of private and public water bodies in the state, CPW alone is never going to be able to monitor all of them as frequently as the high-risk water bodies, he said.
The staff normally work in teams of two to inspect reservoirs and lakes. They pull fine mesh nets through the water to try to find microscopic veligers. They do shoreline surveys to look for razor sharp shells and other signs of invasive species.
On a small pond, the process can take one to two hours. On a big reservoir like Blue Mesa, Colorado’s largest reservoir, it would take six to eight hours, he said.
“I don’t think that there is ever going to be capacity to monitor every public and private body of water in the state of Colorado. And I don’t think that that’s ever going to be our expectation,” Walters said.
The aquatic nuisance species program has more resources than ever, but there’s always room for more, Walters said.
“At this time, we feel like we do have a good amount of resources to be able to sample the waters that we consider to be the highest priority,” he said.
Formerly, the team was based in Denver. Now, the state has established a traveling team to cover the Western Slope and another focused on the Grand Junction area.
They don’t need more authority to monitor private water bodies, he said.
“What we need is to continue to receive the funding that we are receiving today, and hope that does not get threatened if there’s any sort of budget cuts that are considered,” Walters said.
Aquatic nuisance species stamp sales cover about $2.4 million, or 50%, of the program’s annual funding needs. All motorboats and sailboats must have this stamp before launching in state waters, according to the CPW website.
Colorado state law calls on federal agencies, like the Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Forest Service, to cover the other half of the funding needs since many high-risk waters in Colorado are federally owned or managed.
How are other water providers responding?
Zebra mussels go with the flow. They naturally move downstream with the river’s current, but boats traveling from one lake to another can carry them upstream.
That has upstream water managers, like Northern Water and Denver Water, keeping a close eye on developments along the Colorado River.
The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District works with the federal government to transfer Colorado River water on the Western Slope through a series of reservoirs, pump stations and tunnels — called the Colorado-Big Thompson Project — to farmland and over 1 million residents from Fort Collins across northeastern Colorado.
Zebra mussels are such prolific reproducers they can clog up water delivery pipelines, the main concern for a water manager like Northern Water, spokesman Jeff Stahla said.
The C-BT project is no stranger to invasive species. In 2008, quagga mussels showed up in several reservoirs, including Grand Lake, Lake Granby and Shadow Mountain Reservoir. Another reservoir, Green Mountain, was also positive for quagga mussels in 2017.
All of the lakes are mussel-free and delisted, Stahla said. Now they’re tightening up security.
“The biggest task we can right now is to inspect those boats going into the reservoirs to make sure that they’re not going to be causing the problem,” he said.
Denver Water, which serves 1.5 million people in Denver and nearby suburbs, is also focused on inspecting and decontaminating boats.
“It’s a little unnerving. That’s for sure,” Brandon Ransom, recreation manager for Denver Water, said. “It’s certainly not welcome news that anybody in the state wants to see.”
The water provider also transfers Colorado River water through mountain tunnels and ditches to Front Range communities. Not only are the invasive mussels a concern for gates, valves, pipes and tunnels, they also cause problems for recreation. The shells are sharp enough to cut feet and the decaying mussels and old shells “smell to all heck,” Ransom said.
They haven’t launched new prevention efforts in response to zebra mussels reports, but that’s because the provider and its partner agencies already had fairly controlled boat launch and inspection procedures, he said.
They already intercepted adult zebra mussels on boats this year, he said. The latest catch was at Eleven Mile Reservoir in early October.
They’re trying to get the word out to people to make sure their boats and gear are clean, drained and dry. The zebra mussels like to hide in dark cavities, particularly around motors.
The good news is that Denver Water’s reservoirs, pipelines and tunnels on the Western Slope are upstream from the main infested areas, Ransom said.
“It doesn’t help me sleep at night, let’s put it that way,” he said. “We know that it’s closer and closer, and we’re trying to be extra vigilant when it comes to prevention in our waters.”
Uranium Monitoring, Testing and Modeling Continue — Northern Water E-Waternews October 2025
From email from Northern Water:
Northern Water and Chimney Hollow participants are committed to keeping our customers, stakeholders and end users, as well as the general public, informed as we gather additional information on the discovery of uranium at the Chimney Hollow Reservoir construction site. Collecting data and modeling are crucial steps in the development of mitigation strategies, and we are actively working to learn more by evaluating test results from field investigations and modeling scenarios.
Before making mitigation decisions, we want to make sure we have all the information to evaluate operational and treatment options. We are following a rigorous process, starting with geochemical characterization and scoping studies, to inform mitigation alternatives analyses and ultimately select a final approach. Following these steps allows us to make informed decisions, evaluate trade-offs and determine the best path forward.
Northern Water has been testing how the uranium minerals leach into water and what concentration to expect when the reservoir fills and its operation begins. To allow time for additional data collection and investigations to advance, we have elected not to fill the reservoir as quickly as initially planned. A small amount of water (less than 2 percent of total capacity) will be moved into Chimney Hollow Reservoir in November 2025. During this time, additional water quality data will be collected and used to evaluate the performance of model simulations, and required dam safety monitoring will begin. Even as the reservoir fills, no water will be released as further assessments are underway and mitigation options continue to be evaluated.
Because the mineralized uranium is coming from materials quarried at the site, excess (unused) rock from construction has been buried under a layer of water-sealing clay. The clay cap will effectively minimize uranium leaching from these materials.
We expect uranium leaching from the dam to decrease over time because there is a finite quantity of soluble uranium at the site. The duration of the leaching process is not yet fully understood and will depend on how the reservoir is operated over time. While the discovery of mineralized uranium has caused Northern Water and the Chimney Hollow participants to modify our plans, it is an issue that can be safely managed. The new reservoir remains an important part of securing water supply needs for Northern Colorado and its future. Please visit the Water Quality page on our website for more information and a list of Frequently Asked Questions.
2 Northern #Colorado communities back away from #NISP, but project is ‘pressing on’ — The #FortCollins Coloradoan #PoudreRiver
Click the link to read the article on the Fort Collins Coloradoan website (Erin Udell). Here’s an excerpt:
October 24, 2025
Key Points
- Eaton and Evans recently announced they are backing away from the Northern Integrated Supply Project, or NISP, due to rising costs.
- The news comes months after Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, NISP’s largest participant, announced its hopes to sell its 20% share in the project.
- Despite some growing reluctance, Northern Water plans to move forward with the full project.
Eaton and Evans recently notified Northern Water they will not be participating in the interim agreement or water allotment contract for its Northern Integrated Supply Project, or NISP, next year. Eaton Mayor Scott Moser notified Northern Water in a Sept. 2 letter. Evans Mayor Mark Clark’s letter was dated Oct. 7. Both communities, which cited NISP’s rising project costs in their decision, would entertain offers to sell their NISP shares, Evans and Eaton staff told the Coloradoan on Oct. 21. The project’s largest participant, Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, notified Northern Water of its interest in selling its 20% share in NISP back in July, the water district’s General Manager Chris Pletcher told the Coloradoan at thetime...
Over the years, the project has grown in both scope and price. As NISP’s once conceptual designs met reality, the scale of its reservoirs, pipelines and pump stations increased and the relocation of U.S. Highway 287 to accommodate Glade Reservoir proved to be “more complex and expensive than originally planned,” according to a staff presentation to Evans City Council on Oct. 7.
In Lower Arkansas River Valley, a $1.39B pipeline is the Holy Grail of clean water — Jerd Smith (Fresh Water News)
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
October 2, 2025
Rick Jones strides quickly into the offices of the May Valley Water Association. He’s running late after a morning of checking leaks in a pipeline that is one of several delivering well water to his 1,500 customers.
Jones has lived in Wiley, nearly 200 miles southeast of Denver, most of his life and has served as superintendent of the association for 38 years.
Outside the front door of his office in a small, well-kept brick building on Main Street, a dispenser delivers radium-free water for 25 cents a gallon to anyone who walks up with a container. It helps the small water company offer clean water because its own groundwater-based system struggles with radium contamination. Having the dispenser helps it meet its state obligations to deliver some clean water to the public.
Last year, the machine dispensed 24,000 gallons.
“It’s usually pretty busy,” Jones says.
But this may be changing. With construction of the long-awaited Arkansas Valley Conduit finally underway, the May Valley Water Association is in line to get clean water from Pueblo Reservoir, more than 100 miles to the west. Then contamination notices from the state health department will stop and the cloud that lies over these small towns in the Lower Arkansas River Basin due to their historically bad water will begin to lift.
The long-awaited conduit, he says, “is what everyone is hanging their hopes on.”
A dark water history
The need for clean water in the Lower Arkansas Valley became apparent long before the conduit was initially approved more than 60 years ago. In the 1950s and earlier, by some accounts, wells drilled near the river were showing a range of toxic elements, including naturally occurring radium and selenium. Both can cause severe health problems, including bone cancer, with long-term exposure to radium, and heart attacks and lung issues with selenium, if high amounts are consumed.
In 1962, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation prepared to build the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, an ambitious plan to capture clean water from the Arkansas and Colorado rivers and store it in Pueblo Reservoir. The conduit, or AVC, was a component of the project that never got built.
Why? No one could figure out how to provide clean water to so few people living in a remote area of the state, let alone how to pay for it, according to Chris Woodka, a senior policy manager with the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District. The district operates the sprawling Fryingpan-Arkansas Project for the federal government and is overseeing the conduit’s construction.
But everything changed in 2023, when decades of lobbying Congress produced some $500 million in cash toward the $1.39 billion pipeline. That equals $30,888 per person, a cost many people say is extraordinary in a region whose household income of $47,000 is roughly half of the state average of $89,000.
“It’s a very expensive project for 45,000 people,” said Keith McLaughlin, executive director of the Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority, which has set aside $30 million in federal grant money to help cover the cost. “It’s an enormous project for that number of people.”
Still he said it’s important for the state, despite the state’s own budget challenges. “You have very low-income communities down there and it’s a really critical project. That makes this very high on our priority list,” McLaughlin said.
To date, 39 communities have signed onto the project. Towns at the far western end of the conduit, such as Avondale and Boone just outside Pueblo, could see water as soon as 2027, while others farther east will wait another 10 years or so as each segment of pipeline is laid and spurs to each community are built, Woodka said.
Alarm as costs rise
La Junta is the largest customer so far, according to Tom Seaba, who manages the historic town’s water and sewer department. He can’t remember a time when the much-delayed conduit and water quality problems didn’t hang darkly over the region.
La Junta residents are among the most critical of the pipeline largely because it’s not clear exactly when it will reach the town, and costs are expected to continue rising, Seaba said..
In the valley these are not idle concerns. The federal government’s first construction estimate in 2016 put the price of the pipeline at $600 million. Nearly 10 years later it has more than doubled, to $1.39 billion, according to the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District.
Seaba won’t say whether he supports or opposes the giant pipe, but he will say that the final cost is likely to be breathtaking.
“Could people’s water bills double? Absolutely,” he said.
To address those staggering costs, Colorado’s congressional delegation, in a bipartisan effort, has pushed hard to make sure the cash comes through and that repayment terms are affordable. The delegation is proposing, right now, to cut interest rates in half and extend the life of the loans to 75 years. The bill has passed the U.S. House, where it was sponsored by Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert and Jeff Hurd, whose congressional districts span the valley. It is pending in the U.S. Senate, where it is being sponsored by Democratic Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet.
The State of Colorado has also stepped in to help. The Colorado Water Conservation Board is offering $30 million in grants, and a $90 million loan. The Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority can provide up to another $30 million in federal grants if application deadlines can be met.
A plan to share costs
Right now, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is slated to pick up 65% of the project’s $1.39 billion cost, or $903.5 million. The Southeastern Conservancy District will cover its 35% share, or $486.5 million.
At the same time, there are also plans to ask the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to declare the project a hardship due to the region’s low income, and its shrinking population and economy, Woodka said. Should that occur, the valley’s remaining costs could be picked up by the federal government.
Still financial pressures are rising. The Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority received millions in federal funding after the pandemic, but it must spend all the cash by 2028. And that means that small towns and water districts hoping to connect to the pipeline must move quickly to design new delivery systems, get cost estimates, and submit applications to the state.
McLaughlin, the water and power authority director, is worried these communities, some with just 200 or 300 people, won’t be able to get their loan applications for the spur lines done in time to meet his agency’s deadlines with the federal government. Only a handful have been received to date.
“While we want to fund as many of the spur lines coming in as possible, there are lots of projects competing for the same dollar,” McLaughlin said. “And the money is awarded first-come, first-served.”
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) is also watching the clock as the valley’s water woes continue.
Seventeen of the 39 districts and towns that plan to tap the conduit’s clean water, are under state enforcement orders to permanently remove contaminants, according to the CDPHE. Some of those orders have been in place for decades, and the state has, so far, allowed them to continue delivering flawed water as the long-awaited pipeline comes together.
“As part of this regulatory process, the public drinking water systems are required to do public notice, and certainly they are aware of the health risk associated with their drinking water so they can decide whether they want to make another choice,” said Ron Falco, safe drinking water program manager for the state health department.
Several communities have done just that, spending millions of dollars to install reverse osmosis systems. These remove contaminants and make the drinking water safe to consume.
Las Animas is one of them, according to Bill Long, a resident who also serves as president of the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District.
“In Las Animas, we built a reverse osmosis plant. Now our drinking water is perfect, but we have a problem with the reject water from the RO plant,” Long said, referring to the contaminated wastewater that is a byproduct of treatment. “We can discharge that back to the river, but we can’t do that in perpetuity. We solved one problem but we created a new one. … The state won’t allow us to discharge that forever.”
To Long, the pipeline is the only way to ensure long-term, clean drinking water for the Lower Valley and to provide a chance to rebuild its economy.
“Better water creates new opportunities,” Long said. “If we try to do anything in Las Animas that requires a new water supply, we can’t do it. We would have to build a new RO plant, and apply for a new discharge permit, which the state would likely not give us.” Long was referring to the Arkansas River’s own water quality problems, which can be worsened by the discharges.
Back in Wiley, Jones said the May Valley Water Association plans to start saving to pay for the $5.1 million he expects to spend to repair aging pipes, and install the new lines and pumps that will allow him to connect to the conduit and get off the state’s list of drinking water safety violators.
Does his community feel shortchanged that it has taken so long to have what most communities take for granted?
“Yes. There are people who say ‘Yeah, we got shorted.’ But the good thing is they’ve started it. I guess I’m hopeful. It will bring better water quality, and for some places like us, we will finally get out of trouble with the state.”
Negotiations to continue beyond 14-hour hearing over one of the #ColoradoRiver’s oldest water rights — The #Aspen Times #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on the Aspen Times website (Ali Longwell). Here’s an excerpt:
September 20, 2025
The battle over one of the Colorado River’s oldest, non-consumptive water rights continued this week during a 14-hour Colorado Water Conservation Board hearing over whether the rights could be used for the environment. The Colorado River District is seeking to acquire the Shoshone water rights — tied to a hydropower plant on the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon — from Xcel Energy for $99 million. The River District, a governmental entity representing 15 Western Slope counties, is proposing to add an instream flow agreement to the acquisition, which would allow a certain amount of water to remain in the river for environmental benefits. While the state’s water board — the only entity that can hold an instream flow water right in Colorado — was set to decide on the proposal this week, this was pushed to November after the parties agreed to take more time to reach a consensus on the proposal.
“The exercise of the Shoshone water rights impacts almost every Coloradan,” said Davis Wert, an attorney speaking on behalf of Northern Water.
Northern Water is contesting the instream flow agreement alongside Denver Water, Aurora Water, and Colorado Springs Utilities. These providers rely on transmountain diversions from the Colorado River basin to supply water to their customers…While the hearing did include some back and forth, the entities west and east of the Continental Divide agreed on a few things during the hearing. First, adding an instream flow agreement to the Shoshone right will preserve and improve the natural environment. Second, they want to maintain the status quo on the Colorado River…Michael Gustafson, in-house counsel for Colorado Springs Utilities, said the provider did not oppose the change of the senior Shoshone water right for instream flow purposes “to provide for permanency of the historic Shoshone call and maintenance of the historical Colorado River flow regime…
With that, however, there were a few sticking points during the hearing: who should manage the instream flow agreement — and have the authority to make decisions on Shoshone calls — and how much water has historically been granted as part of the right. The historic flow regime has been highly contested between the parties but will ultimately be determined in the Colorado Water Court proceedings that will conclude the River District’s acquisition. Wert acknowledged this as the Front Range entities presented a historic use analysis that contrasted the preliminary analysis obtained by the River District…The Colorado River District’s proposed instream flow agreement includes a “co-management strategy,” while the contesting Front Range providers want the sole management authority to reside with the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
Competing interests debate sale of historic #ColoradoRiver rights during marathon hearing — Shannon Mullane (Fresh Water News) #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Shannon Mullane):
September 18, 2025
State water officials debated a controversial proposal to use two powerful Colorado River water rights to help the environment, weighing competing interests from Front Range and Western Slope water managers.
Almost 100 water professionals gathered in Durango this week for a 14-hour hearing focused on the water rights tied to the Shoshone Power Plant, owned by an Xcel Energy subsidiary. Members of the Colorado Water Conservation Board were originally set to make their final decision on the proposal this week, but an eleventh-hour extension pushed their deadline to November.
Board members peppered presenters with questions during the hearing, weighing thorny issues like who has final authority to manage the environmental water right and how much water is involved.
Their decision could make a historic contribution to the state’s environmental water rights program and impact how Colorado River water will flow around the state long into the future.
“It’s pretty hard to anticipate all of the ways that ‘in perpetuity’ may play out,” said Greg Felt, who represents the Arkansas River on the board. “Building in representation for flexibility … is not a bad idea for an acquisition like this.”
The Shoshone Power Plant, next to Interstate 70 east of Glenwood Springs, has used Colorado River water to generate electricity for over a century.
In May, the Colorado River District, representing 15 counties on the Western Slope, shared a proposal to add another use to the water rights: keeping water in the Colorado River channel to help the aquatic environment.
The change requires approval from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which runs the state’s environmental water rights program, and other entities like water court and the state’s Public Utilities Commission.
The Colorado River District wants to add the environmental use as part of a larger plan to maintain the “status quo” flow of water past the power plant, regardless of how long the power plant remains in operation.
Western Slope communities, farms, ranches, endangered species programs and recreational industries have become dependent on those flows over the decades.
“What we’re presenting here today is an offer of a historic partnership,” Andy Mueller, Colorado River District general manager, said. “We believe that this sets the state up for a truly collaborative future on the Colorado River.”
But any change to Shoshone’s water rights could have ripple effects that would affect over 10,000 upstream water rights, including those held by Front Range water groups, like Denver Water, Northern Water, Colorado Springs Utilities and Aurora Water.
These water managers and providers are responsible for delivering reliable water to millions of people, businesses, farms and ranches across the Front Range.
They raised concerns in the hearings about how their water supply could be impacted by the Western Slope’s proposal.
For board member John McClow, who represents the Gunnison-Uncompahgre River, one key question came down to authority.
“I just want to make sure we have adequate legal justification for doing what you suggest we should do,” McClow told CWCB staff during the hearing.
When the Colorado River is too low to meet Shoshone’s needs, its owner, Public Service of Colorado, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, can call on upstream water users with lower priority water rights to cut back on using their water so that Shoshone has enough.
Whoever manages this “call” impacts thousands of upstream users, including Front Range providers.
Under the proposal, the Colorado River District will own the water rights. The district has an agreement with Xcel to buy the rights for about $99 million.
Generally, the Colorado Water Conservation Board is supposed to be the sole manager of environmental water rights under state law.
The Colorado River District says it should have a say, giving examples of other agreements with similar arrangements between the water board and water rights owners.
Northern Water said the state should have exclusive authority. This is the most important issue for the conservation district, Kyle Whitaker, water rights manager for Northern Water, said Thursday.
If the state agency hands over any amount of control, then the district would push for the water court to approve a smaller amount of water available to Shoshone. That would send less water to Western Slope communities.
If the River District controlled the environmental right, they could conceivably max out the amount of water passing by the power plant year-round, which would impact upstream water rights.
“We have to protect our systems under all future potentialities,” Whitaker said. “This will have a chilling effect on collaboration and cooperation amongst all involved and is likely to result in an outcome that is not only less desirable but also less beneficial to the Colorado River.”
The River District has said it plans to maintain these flows without changing how other water users are impacted.
For board members, this question of authority is just one of many sticky legal and management issues they have to weigh as they make a decision about the Shoshone water rights while tasked with representing the interests of the entire state.
“As far as I’ve been able to understand it, I agree with you about what the statute and the rules say we may do,” Felt told CWCB staff. “I believe we’re here to determine what we should do.”
This is a developing story and may be updated.
Front Range, Western Slope heavyweights lay out arguments over #ColoradoRiver’s Shoshone water rights as state hearing nears — Shannon Mullane (Fresh Water News) #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Shannon Mullane):
September 4, 2025
The points and counterpoints are in: Colorado’s water heavyweights have laid out their arguments about the future of a powerful Colorado River water right ahead of a state hearing in mid-September.
A Western Slope coalition led by the Colorado River District and Front Range groups — Aurora Water, Colorado Springs Utilities, Denver Water and Northern Water — are debating a potential change to water rights tied to the Shoshone Power Plant in Glenwood Canyon. The influential water rights, owned by an Xcel Energy subsidiary, impact how water flows across the state.
The Western Slope wants to add an environmental use to the water rights, which currently allow Xcel to use the water for hydropower, mining, milling, manufacturing and other purposes. It’s part of the coalition’s broad plan to keep the Colorado River’s “status quo” flows at Shoshone Power Plant long into the future.
Front Range water managers and providers are concerned that their water supplies could be impacted, especially if the Colorado River District is overestimating the amount of water that should head west toward Shoshone, near Glenwood Springs, rather than east to growing Front Range cities.
Each side has insinuated that the other is swaying its estimate of past water use to send more water to their part of the state.
“We do not contest the environmental benefits. Protecting flows in Glenwood Canyon is valuable,” said Aurora Water in a rebuttal statement filed Friday. “Aurora’s participation in this hearing is not about securing any sort of ‘windfall,’ as some have wrongly alleged. That claim is baseless and pure projection. Our sole position is that Shoshone should be preserved as it has historically operated — no more, no less.”
Thirteen entities submitted rebuttal statements, totaling 367 pages,[to] the Colorado Water Conservation Board. It’s part of the state’s multistep review process in advance of the hearing at the board’s next meeting, Sept. 16-18.
For western Colorado communities, the Shoshone water rights impact their economies, quality of life and environments. Shoshone’s water rights are old enough that they have priority over other, more recent water rights in dry periods under state law. Over the past century, these communities have grown up relying on the power plant to send water westward — toward their farm diversions and rafting corridors — as it generates electricity.
For Front Range communities, the stakes are similar. Water providers rely on water from western Colorado to support growing cities, industries and farms. And in some cases, their water rights come in second to Shoshone’s under the “first in time, first in right” water administration system.
With high stakes on either side, Fresh Water News is breaking down some of the key questions in the debate.
What is an instream flow right?
An instream flow right is meant to help preserve the natural environment. In 1973, Colorado lawmakers allowed a state agency, the Colorado Water Conservation Board, to use water rights to keep water in rivers, streams and natural lakes through the Instream Flow Program.
At the time, Coloradans were concerned about stretches of streams that dried up when mountain runoff slowed while demand from humans — cities, farms and industries — continued. Shallower, slower streamflows impact habitat and food sources for native species while sometimes creating better habitat for their competitors.
The program aims to keep water in streams and natural lakes to reduce these impacts. Since 1973, the state has appropriated instream flow rights on nearly 1,700 stream segments covering more than 9,700 miles. In Shoshone’s case, the instream flow right would apply to a 2.4-mile stretch of the Colorado River between the point where Shoshone takes water out of the river and the point where it releases that water back into the river channel.
What’s this state-led process?
The state-led process will determine whether the water rights attached to the Shoshone Power Plant can be used to protect instream flows.
Colorado lawmakers designated the Colorado Water Conservation Board, a state water policy agency, as the sole entity that can own and operate instream flow rights. The agency’s board of directors is reviewing testimony, environmental analyses, and other materials as part of a standard, 120-day review process for proposed instream flow rights. The board is scheduled to make its final determination at its September meeting.
The Colorado River District kicked off the review period in May when it formally proposed adding an instream flow right to Shoshone’s water rights. Under the district’s proposal, the district would own the title to Shoshone’s water rights, but the state would manage it in perpetuity.
After the hearing, the proposed Shoshone environmental water right would also need to go through a water court process.
What is this “historical use” debate about?
In order to legally change Shoshone’s water rights to include environmental use, state officials need to know how much water has been used under Shoshone’s water rights in the past.
Shoshone’s 1905 water right allows the power plant to divert up to 1,250 cubic feet per second of water. A second, more recent, water right allows the plant to divert 158 cfs. But the amount of water that is actually used to generate power at Shoshone fluctuates or has paused because of facility maintenance.
Calculating past use is complicated. BBA Water Consultants, hired by the Colorado River District, looked at Shoshone’s operations from 1975 through 2003. The plant’s 29-year average historical use was 844,644 acre-feet, according to the consultants’ preliminary analysis.
They excluded years after 2003 because Shoshone had significant outages totaling 1,466 days over 19 years compared with 89 days during the study period.
Some Front Range water users say this estimate is too high or that more recent years should have been included.
Aurora Water said the Western Slope group used “cherry-picked data” and the historical use was closer to 538,204 acre-feet, a 36% difference.
Are there other disagreements?
In short, yes. The oft-repeated refrain in water deals is “the devil’s in the details.”
Colorado Springs Utilities raised concerns in its rebuttal about adding an environmental use to Shoshone’s more recent, or junior, water right, which currently allows water to be used for manufacturing and power generation. The Colorado River District’s plan would expand the junior right and potentially cause a water-administration ripple effect that would impact the utility’s water supplies.
Denver Water was concerned about historical use. It and Aurora Water also took issue with how the environmental water right would be owned and managed under the Colorado River District’s proposal. State lawmakers gave the CWCB exclusive authority to hold and use instream flow rights, but the River District’s plan encroaches on that authority by saying the district will hold the title, but the state agency will manage the right.
Northern Water shared many of these concerns, requesting that the state delay its decision.
For its part, the Colorado River District said everyone agrees on the main issue — adding an environmental use to the Shoshone water rights — but that the objectors “misstate the law” and are trying to distort the parameters of the state’s upcoming decision.
The district says the water court decides how much water is at stake, saying the water providers should leave “historical use” up to the court. It has also suggested the state stay neutral on the historical use amount.
$4 million in federal funds restored for Upper #ColoradoRiver Basin watersheds damaged by fire, overgrazing — Jerd Smith (Fresh Water News) #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
July 10, 2025
Millions of dollars in federal funding has been released to continue restoring lands and streams in the fire-scarred Upper Colorado River Basin watershed in and around Grand Lake and Rocky Mountain National Park.
The roughly $4 million was frozen in February and released in April, according to Northern Water, a major Colorado water provider and one of the agencies that coordinates with the federal government and agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service to conduct the work.
Esther Vincent, Northern Water’s director of environmental services, said the federal government gave no reason for the freeze and release of funds.
The amounts and timing of the freeze and release are being reported here for the first time.
U.S. Congressman Joe Neguse, who represents Grand County, did not respond to a request for comment regarding the funds.
The news comes as tens of millions of dollars in federal grants and budget allocations are being cut in Colorado and across the country as part of the Trump administration’s reorganization of federal agencies and associated budget cuts.
In June, Gov. Jared Polis’ office released an accounting of federal money that has flowed to state agencies. That analysis showed the agencies were able to retain $282 million in funding, but that $76 million had been lost, and another $56 million is at risk.
It’s unclear how much funding that flows through federal agencies to other Colorado entities and nonprofits such as those in the Upper Colorado River Basin, has been lost.
The U.S. Forest Service did not respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation declined to comment on the funding actions.
In Grand County, $761,000 has been released from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to help move forward on a broad-based effort by the Kawuneeche Valley Restoration Collaborative, according to Northern Water. The valley has been damaged by drought, failing irrigation systems and overgrazing by wildlife and is a critical piece of the Colorado River’s upper watershed. The collaborative, established in 2020, is a major partnership of seven entities, including Northern Water, Grand County, the Nature Conservancy and Rocky Mountain National Park.
The $3.3 million in East Troublesome fire funding that has been released through the U.S. Forest Service will help restore the watershed around Grand Lake and land in Rocky Mountain National Park. The fire began in October 2020 and burned nearly 200,000 acres, making it the second largest fire in Colorado history.
The fire burned land that constitutes a sprawling water collection area for Northern Water, a major water provider that pipes Colorado River water from Grand County, under the Continental Divide and east to the Front Range, where it serves roughly 1 million residents of northern Colorado and hundreds of farms.
Steve Kudron, former mayor of Grand Lake who now serves as its town manager, said restoration work in both projects is critical to the economy and health of the historic tourist town, which lies at the western edge of Rocky Mountain National Park.
“The biggest concerns that we had were closing parts of the forest because there hasn’t been sufficient cleanup. Some mountainsides are unstable,” he said. “It’s the funding that makes it safe for the public to go into those areas. That’s why it was important to get the funding back.”
Front Range concerns over purchase of Colorado River rights on Western Slope to get hearing: #ColoradoRiver District wants to buy Shoshone Power Plant rights to protect water flows — The #Denver Post #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website. (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
July 2, 2025
Four major Front Range water providers — Denver Water, Aurora Water, Colorado Springs Utilities and Northern Water — will present their concerns about the purchase of the Shoshone Power Plant water rights by the Colorado River District during a hearing in September before the Colorado Water Conservation Board. The board during a special meeting Tuesday decided to hold the hearing to hash out the urban utilities’ concerns about how much water should be allocated to the right. The board must decide by September whether to approve the new use of the water right proposed by the district…The Colorado River District, a taxpayer-funded agency that works to protect Western Slope water, in 2023 announced a $99 million deal to buy the water rights from Xcel Energy, which owns the power plant. The purchase — a decades-long effort by the district — will ensure that water will continue to flow west past the plant tucked into Glenwood Canyon and downstream to the towns, farms and others who rely on the Colorado River even if the century-old power plant were decommissioned.
Each of the Front Range utilities have said they do not oppose the purchase itself. They do, however, question the river district’s calculations of how much water has been used historically under the rights. Under Colorado water law, that number will determine how much water must flow through the plant in the future. The district’s calculations are too high, the four utilities argue, and would leave them with less water from the Colorado River for their own uses. The river district has repeatedly said it plans to maintain the status quo and will not use more water than has been used in the past. Disputes about the amount of water historically used under a water right should be settled in water court, the district’s general manager Andy Mueller said Tuesday in a statement.
“We are deeply concerned that the Front Range entities requesting this contested hearing are asking the CWCB to encroach on the jurisdiction of water court,” Mueller said. “… We believe maintaining public trust relies on following the right path and avoiding political intrusion.”
Front Range cities step up opposition to $99M #ColoradoRiver water rights purchase — (Shannon Mullane) #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Shannon Mullane):
May 22, 2025
Denver, Aurora, Colorado Springs and Northern Water voiced opposition Wednesday to the Western Slope’s proposal to spend $99 million to buy historic water rights on the Colorado River.
The Colorado River Water Conservation District has been working for years to buy the water rights tied to Shoshone Power Plant, a small, easy-to-miss hydropower plant off Interstate 70 east of Glenwood Springs. The highly coveted water rights are some of the largest and oldest on the Colorado River in Colorado.
The Front Range providers are concerned that any change to the water rights could impact water supplies for millions of people in cities, farmers, industrial users and more. The Front Range providers publicly voiced their concerns, some for the first time, at a meeting of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, a state water policy agency.
The proposed purchase taps into a decades-old water conflict in Colorado: Most of the state’s water flows west of the Continental Divide; most of the population lives to the east; and water users are left to battle over how to share it.
“If this proposal were to go forward as presented in the application, it could harm our ability to provide water for essential use during severe or prolonged drought. I think it’s important for the board to understand that,” Jessica Brody, an attorney for Denver Water, told the 15-member board Wednesday.
Denver Water, the oldest and largest water provider in Colorado, delivers water to 1.5 million residents in the Denver area.
The Colorado River District, which represents 15 Colorado counties west of the Continental Divide, wants to keep the status quo permanently to support river-dependent Western Slope economies without harming other water users, district officials said.
The overstressed and drought-plagued river is a vital water source for about 40 million people across the West and northern Mexico.
“That right is so important to keeping the Colorado River alive,” Andy Mueller, Colorado River District general manager, said during the meeting’s public comment period. “This is a right that will save this river from now into eternity … and that’s why this is so important.”
Over 70 people, nearly twice the usual audience, attended the four-hour Shoshone discussion Wednesday, which involved 561 pages of documents, over 20 speakers and a public comment period.
The Western Slope aims to make history
The water rights in question, owned by Public Service Company of Colorado, a subsidiary of Xcel, are some of the most powerful on the Colorado River in Colorado.
Using the rights, the utility can take water out of the river, send it through hydropower turbines, and spit it back into the river about 2.4 miles downstream.
One right is old, dating back to 1905, which means it can cut off water to younger — or junior — upstream water users to ensure it gets its share of the river in times of shortage. Some of those junior water rights are owned by Denver Water, Aurora, Colorado Springs Utilities and Northern Water.
The rights are also tied to numerous, carefully negotiated agreements that dictate how water flows across both western and eastern Colorado.
Over time, Western Slope communities have come to rely on Shoshone’s rights to pull water to their area to benefit farmers, ranchers, river companies, communities and more.
The Colorado River District wants to buy the rights to ensure that westward flow of water will continue even if Xcel shuts down Shoshone (which the utility has said, repeatedly, it has no plans to do).
They’ve gathered millions of dollars from a broad coalition of communities, irrigators and other water users. The state of Colorado plans to give $20 million to help fund the effort.
The federal government might give $40 million, but that funding was tied up in President Donald Trump’s policy to cut spending from big Biden-era spending packages. It was unclear Thursday if the awarded funds will come through, the district said.
Supporters sent over 50 letters to the Colorado Water Conservation Board before Wednesday’s meeting.
“I wanted to just convey the excitement that the river district and our 30 partners have, here on the West Slope, to really do something that is available once in a generation,” Mueller said.
The Front Range water providers all said they, too, wanted to maintain those status quo flows. They just don’t want to see any changes to the timing, amount or location of where they get their supplies.
Under the district’s proposal, the state would be able to use Shoshone’s senior water rights to keep water in the Colorado River for ecosystem health when the power plant isn’t in use.
The Colorado Water Conservation Board is tasked with deciding whether it will accept the district’s proposal for an environmental use. The meeting Wednesday triggered a 120-day decision making process.
“Any change to the rights will have impacts both intended and unintended, and it is important for the board to understand those impacts to avoid harm to existing water users,” Brody said.
The water provider plans to contest the Colorado River District’s plan within that 120-day period.
How much water is at stake?
The Front Range providers voiced another concern: The River District’s proposal could be inflating Shoshone’s past water use.
Water rights come with upper limits on how much water can be used. It’s a key part of how water is managed in Colorado: Setting a limit ensures one person isn’t using too much water to the detriment of other users.
For those who have a stake in Shoshone’s water rights — which includes much of Colorado — it’s a number to fight over.
The River District did an initial historical analysis, which calculated that Shoshone used 844,644 acre-feet on average per year between 1975 and 2003. One acre-foot of water supplies two to three households for a year.
Denver Water said the analysis ignored the last 20 years of Shoshone operations. Colorado Springs, Northern Water and Aurora questioned the district’s math. Northern was the first provider to do so publicly in August.
“We think the instream flow is expanded from its original historic use by up to 36%,” said Alex Davis, Aurora Water’s assistant general manager of water supply and demand.
She requested the board do its own study of Shoshone’s historical water use instead of accepting the River District’s analysis — which would mean the state agency would side with one side of the state, the Western Slope, against the other, Davis said.
The River District emphasized that its analysis was preliminary. The final analysis will be decided during a multiyear water court process, which is the next step if the state decides to accept the instream flow application.
Water court can be contentious and costly, Davis said.
“This could be incredibly divisive if we have to battle it out in water court, and we don’t want to do that,” Davis said.
Opinion: Protecting Northeastern #Colorado’s Water Supply Requires Cooperation, Transparency — Brad Wind (Northern Water) #NISP #PoudreRiver #SouthPlatteRiver
Click the link to read the column on the Northern Water website (Brad Wind):
May 20, 2025
You might have read recently about how the Northern Integrated Supply Project, or NISP, is contributing $100 million to a fund for projects to improve the Cache la Poudre River in northeastern Colorado. That funding is part of an agreement between the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, known as Northern Water, and the nonprofit group Save the Poudre that will conclude a federal lawsuit against the project.
It’s an outcome that both sides can accept because of the importance of both the Poudre River and a much-needed water supply to communities throughout the region.
The agreement should catch the attention of Denver metro-area water providers that are looking to export existing irrigation water supplies out of northeastern Colorado to serve their future customers.
For background, NISP was conceived in the 1990s and early 2000s to provide water to the emerging communities of the northern Front Range. The project will consist of two off-channel reservoirs, one located northwest of Fort Collins and one north of Greeley. It also anticipates exchanges of water with nearby farmers eliminating the dry-up of some agricultural land in the future.
Throughout the lengthy permitting process for NISP, the public has had many opportunities to offer comments and concerns to federal, state and local officials. Some of the concerns were incorporated into mitigation and improvement requirements associated with the project, and all written comments were addressed specifically in the final Environmental Impact Statement produced by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The $100 million settlement of the federal litigation identifies even more improvements that can be made in the region beyond those required by permitting agencies.
Unfortunately, actions by certain Denver metro-area water providers that anticipate removing water from northeastern Colorado do not undergo such robust scrutiny. Oftentimes, advocates for water resources in the region learn about potential water transfers only when an item appears on a meeting agenda of a metro-area water provider. By then it is too late to consider the regional economic, environmental and social impacts that such a change could produce.
Frequently, these water deals are brokered by third parties who quietly accumulate water and land assets to present them behind closed doors in neat and tidy packages to thirsty cities. There are few, if any, opportunities to discuss how these water transfers will impact local communities in northeastern Colorado or how these impacts could be mitigated by those who seek to move water to the Denver metro area.
The half-million residents who receive water from NISP participants are going to pay billions of dollars to develop water resources for their communities while addressing concerns in the Poudre River watershed. At the same time Denver metro communities are working to undercut the existing supplies that previous northeastern Colorado residents have invested in and relied upon for decades.
Water providers in the Denver area need to be part of the long-term solution to how our northeastern Colorado communities remain vibrant, not distant parties to single point-in-time transactions that provide a perpetual benefit to communities beyond the horizon.
If native water supplies must depart for the Denver metro area from northeastern Colorado, it is appropriate that the new water user should not just pay for the costs to acquire water but also offset the impacts to northeastern Colorado’s degraded quality of life, and diminished regional economy.
All of our futures are diminished by the loss of water from our region. Public processes and mitigation can lessen, to a degree, the perpetual impacts such a loss will endure.
Northern #Colorado will soon have new reservoirs, but the cost to build them has skyrocketed — Alex Hager (KUNC.org) #PoudreRiver #SouthPlatteRiver
Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Alex Hager):
May 15, 2025
This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.
There’s a stretch of highway in Larimer County where prairie grasses sway with each passing vehicle. Cars, horse trailers and semi trucks zip through the valley on their way between Fort Collins and Laramie. Soon, it’ll be under more than 200 feet of water.
It’s the planned site of Glade Reservoir, the cornerstone of a massive new water storage system designed to meet the demands of fast-growing towns and cities in Northern Colorado. After more than two decades of permitting, planning and environmental lawsuits, it’s closer than ever to breaking ground.
But along the way, some things changed. Over the years, costs to build the reservoir system — and reroute seven miles of U.S. Highway 287 — have ballooned. Price estimates for the Northern Integrated Supply Project, often referred to as NISP, went from $400 million to $2.2 billion. Because of that, some of the towns that signed up to use its water are cutting back on their involvement before the reservoir system stores a single drop.
Northern Water, the agency building NISP, has projected confidence that it will still get built as planned. The long road from idea to construction, and the things that have changed along the way, can tell us a lot about how Northern Colorado uses water, and how much it costs to keep taps flowing.
Rising costs
When it was first pitched, in the early 2000s, NISP garnered support as a way to make sure small towns with fast-growing populations could host new housing developments without going dry.
For a tiny town like Severance, that was an attractive proposition. Just 11 years ago, about midway through the NISP planning process, the town had a population of about 3,000. That’s when Nicholas Wharton took the job as town manager. Since then, he’s overseen the installation of the town’s first stoplight, the from-scratch development of its own police department and a homebuilding boom that has nearly quadrupled Severance’s population.
Signing on to NISP, he said, was a way to make sure Severance had enough water for all that growth.
“I think for smaller towns,” he said, “It was a great idea back when it was affordable to us.”
Since then, Severance has cut back on the amount of water it will store in NISP, and the amount it will pay to be a part of the project. At one point, the town held 2,000 shares of the project. In 2024, it sold off 1,500 of those shares. Wharton said the town council might try to sell off even more.
And Severance isn’t alone.
Due West, in Eaton, town officials also got cold feet. They were one of four NISP shareholders to offload a portion of their involvement in the new reservoir project on the same day in July 2024.
For years, the water agencies that were part of NISP were mostly focused on paperwork — making sure the project had the permits it needed to get built. Then, there was a lawsuit from environmentalists standing in the way. But after NISP’s proponents were mostly seeing green lights on permits and decided to settle a major lawsuit, the focus shifted to money.
“I think the question for us now is, how do we afford this?,” said Wesley Lavanchy, Eaton’s town administrator. “Moving forward, how much can we afford? It’s like chocolate cake. You like it, it tastes great, but you can’t eat the whole thing.”
Ultimately, Eaton decided to sell off more than half of its NISP shares.
“I suspect that more entities would have been able to hold their commitment had the permitting process not drug on so long, the cost escalated, the litigation kind of wrapped things up,” Lavanchy said.
Cheaper alternatives
While the cost to build NISP has gone up, the cost of other water sources has gone down. Eaton and Severance said it’s getting easier to afford shares of the Colorado-Big Thompson project, which was a big motivator in their pullback from NISP.
That project, referred to as CBT, pipes water from the Colorado River across the continental divide. It flows underneath Rocky Mountain National Park and into major reservoirs along the Northern Front Range, such as Horsetooth Reservoir near Fort Collins and Carter Lake outside of Loveland.
Water from the Colorado-Big Thompson project is managed by Northern Water, the same agency building and operating NISP.
For years, the CBT system was the main way for growing cities in Larimer and Weld Counties to get water for residential development. Typically, farms have sold their portion of CBT water to cities, towns, or developers. Occasionally, they are taken to auction, where cities bid against one another for water stored in those big reservoirs.
The cost of that water skyrocketed between 2010 and 2022. Estimated prices, adjusted for inflation, went from less than $20,000 per share, to around $100,000 per share, according to data from the consulting firm Westwater research. Since 2022, that soaring rise has leveled out.
“We believe that’s largely driven by a softening in the home construction sector,” said Adam Jokerst, a Fort Collins-based regional director for Westwater. “A lot of CBT purchases are by municipalities and developers who dedicate them to municipalities. And when new home construction slows, we see less demand for those shares.”
How did NISP get so expensive?
Northern Water said the price to build NISP has been climbing for about 15 years. Brad Wind, the agency’s general manager, cited inflation and rising interest rates as major drivers. He doesn’t, however, expect that to stop or significantly change the reservoir project.
“It’s an expensive project,” Wind said. “We and the participants advancing the project like it was envisioned.”
The lengthy process to get the project’s two reservoirs — Glade, and a smaller one called Galeton reservoir — from concept to construction gave time for the winds of economic change to shift direction. It’s not uncommon for a massive dam project like NISP to take more than fifteen years to attain a laundry list of environmental permits.
The project also faced opposition from local governments and nonprofits. At one point, Fort Collins voted to oppose the project. The most significant roadblock came from the environmental nonprofit Save the Poudre.
The group rallied local support and took legal action to try and stop NISP. At a 2015 event, Save the Poudre director Gary Wockner told a crowd of supporters that he would “fight to stop the project for as long as it takes.”
In late February, Wockner’s group settled for $100 million dollars. Northern Water will pay that sum into a trust over the course of the next two decades, and the money will be used to fund river improvement projects. In the intervening time, though, the price tag to build NISP likely grew significantly.
New Northern Colorado reservoirs moving ahead after settlement of NISP lawsuit — Alex Hager, March 5, 2025.
Wind said Northern plans to hire a contractor that could find ways to bring down the price by changing construction methods, but doesn’t expect “substantial reductions” to building costs, especially with rising prices of imported construction materials.
Over the years, the towns and water agencies that wanted to use NISP signed periodic agreements to stay part of the project. Now, time is ticking for those participants to sign a binding contract.
Eaton’s Lavanchy said that upcoming contract made his town take a harder look at their water needs, and whether those needs would be satisfied by NISP.
“We’re not dating anymore,” he said, “We’re getting married, and there’s no way out. Divorce is not an option. So it’s like, ‘Let’s be smart and think about, what are these obligations going to run us?’”
‘Demand continues to increase’
Even as some entities cut back on their financial ties to NISP, the project still has momentum.
For one, those towns and water agencies looking to sell their shares found a willing buyer. Eaton, Severance, Fort Lupton and the Left Hand Water District all sold their shares to the Fort Collins Loveland Water District.
The Fort Collins Loveland Water District, which serves an area roughly between Harmony Road and State Route 34, declined to be interviewed for this story.
Second, NISP has a total of 15 participants, and many of them are still on board for the same amount of water they signed up for years ago.
“No matter what,” Severance’s Wharton said, “In one way, you’ll see those 15 probably still continue to be a part of it no matter what, because everybody does realize how precious that water is and how this will be one of the last [big reservoirs.] I don’t think anybody’s discouraged.”
Even the towns that reduced the amount of water they’ll pay to use from NISP are keeping some. Severance and Eaton said they want to make sure they’re getting water from a diverse group of sources, especially with climate change and political bickering threatening their main source of water — the Colorado River via the CBT.
Ultimately, the fast-growing region served by Northern Water — from Boulder County to Fort Collins, and east to Fort Lupton — will keep needing water for a future that will likely see plenty of new home construction.
“It doesn’t appear that folks are shying away from moving to Northern Colorado,” Brad Wind said. “Either from within our state or from outside of our state, so the demand continues to increase for a high quality water supply, which NISP will produce.”
Regional Pool Allocation Set at 23,000 Acre-feet; Sealed Bids Due 2 p.m. Thursday, May 22, 2025 — Northern Water
From email from Northern Water (Jeff Stahla):
May 9, 2025
The Northern Water Board of Directors allocated 23,000 acre-feet of Regional Pool Program (RPP) water during its May 8, 2025, Board meeting. RPP water is available for lease by eligible Northern Colorado water users, with sealed bids due 2 p.m. May 22, 2025. Bid prices per-acre-foot must be greater than or equal to $33.80, a floor price the Board selected based on the 2025 agricultural assessment rate. Late bids will not be considered.
The allocation will be available to bidders from two subpools of 11,500 acre-feet each; one that delivers water from Horsetooth Reservoir, and a second that delivers to water users south of Horsetooth Reservoir, including the Big Thompson River, St Vrain Creek and Boulder Creek.
The following forms are required to submit a bid:
- Pre-Approval Form – To confirm eligibility, interested bidders must email or mail the Pre-Approval Form to Northern Water. A new Pre-Approval Form is required each year.
- Carrier Consent Form – If the RPP water will be delivered by a carrier, such as a ditch or reservoir company, bidders and their carriers must complete the Carrier Consent Form or provide a signed agreement stating that the carrier will deliver the RPP water to the bidder. This form must also be emailed or mailed to Northern Water.
- Bid Form – Sealed bids will be accepted at Northern Water’s headquarters through a “self-serve” process. Bidders will sign in at a kiosk in the Building A lobby at Northern Water, 220 Water Ave., Berthoud, and print a bid label for their sealed bid envelope. The label will identify the bidder name, date and time stamp, and bid number. Bidders are then asked to secure the label to the bid envelope and place it in the drop box. Sealed bids may also be mailed to Northern Water, but bids must be received before the deadline.
Sealed bids are due by 2 p.m. Thursday, May 22, at Northern Water’s headquarters, 220 Water Ave., Berthoud, CO 80513. As described above, sealed bids can be mailed or hand delivered; email and fax bid forms will not be accepted. RPP leases within each subpool will be awarded based on highest bids per acre-foot. Sealed bids will be opened at 2:10 p.m. Thursday, May 22, in the Grand Lake Conference Room of Building A at Northern Water.
Questions regarding the Regional Pool Program and bid submittal can be emailed to regionalpool@northernwater.org or by calling Sarah Smith at 970-622-2295 or Water Scheduling at 970-292-2500.
$100 million settlement allows #Colorado reservoir projects to move forward, ending decades of dispute — The #Denver Post #NISP
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
March 5, 2025
Two new bodies of water in northern Front Range will boost water supplies for 15 communities
Plans for a $2 billion water supply project in northern Colorado will move forward after the communities supporting it agreed to pump $100 million into improving the health of the Cache la Poudre River — a settlement ending decades of dispute over the water infrastructure plans. Leaders from the Northern Integrated Supply Project and the nonprofit environmental group Save the Poudre finalized the settlement on Friday, clearing the way for two new reservoirs. The deal will funnel $100 million over 20 years into a fund to sustain 50 miles of the river from the mouth of the Poudre Canyon, northwest of Fort Collins, to the river’s confluence with the South Platte. The Poudre River Improvement Fund will pay for projects to enhance the river’s flows, water quality, ecosystem and recreational opportunities. The settlement ends Save the Poudre’s 2024 lawsuit alleging the Army Corps of Engineers did not adequately consider the environmental impacts of the Northern Integrated Supply Project when it issued a Clean Water Act permit for its construction. Environmentalists with the group have opposed the project for decades because it would drain the river and damage its ecosystems…
Northern Water, the utility that’s spearheading the project, and other water suppliers have pursued the water infrastructure improvements since 1980, stating they are critical to meeting the needs of the growing region. When complete, the Northern Integrated Supply Project will include Glade Reservoir northwest of Fort Collins, Galeton Reservoir northeast of Greeley, 50 miles of buried water pipelines and five pump plants. The project will send more than 40,000 acre-feet of water annually to the participating water suppliers in Boulder, Weld and Larimer counties — enough water for about 80,000 households.
“This is a milestone day for the communities participating in the project,” Northern Water General Manager Brad Wind said in a news release. “The settlement agreement will close the permitting process for the project, open the door to constructing a project that will deliver much-needed water supplies to vibrant communities, and allow for dozens of large-scale riverine investments in and along the Poudre River.”
Construction of Glade Reservoir is expected to begin in 2026. It will hold about 170,000 acre-feet of water from the Poudre River — a capacity slightly larger than that of Horsetooth Reservoir, according to Northern Water’s release. Construction of 45,600-acre-foot Galeton Reservoir will begin after the first reservoir is complete, and it will store water from the South Platte. An acre-foot of water is enough to support two Colorado households for a year. The project will support water supplies for 15 towns and water districts in northern Colorado, including the Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, the Left Hand Water District, Fort Morgan and Erie.
Peace on the #PoudreRiver: $100M dam settlement has everyone basking in the rarity of the moment — Jerd Smith (Fresh Water News) #NISP
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
March 20, 2025
Fort Morgan has never fully owned its water supplies. The small farm town on the Eastern Plains has always leased its water from whomever had some to spare.
But with the late February settlement of a lawsuit that will allow construction of the $2 billion Northern Integrated Supply Project, or NISP, to move forward, Fort Morgan’s 10,564 residents will rest easier, knowing that for the first time, they will own the water that flows from their taps, according to City Manager Brent Nation.
“It has been our intention all along to own our water,” Nation said. “With this settlement, we can finally move forward. It’s a good thing for us.”
Fifteen water districts and cities in northern Colorado have banded together to build the massive project, which will take water from the Cache la Poudre River and create two dams and reservoirs and a sprawling pipeline system.
Participants include Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, Erie, Fort Morgan, Left Hand Water District, Central Weld County Water District, Windsor, Frederick, Lafayette, Morgan County Quality Water District, Firestone, Dacono, Evans, Fort Lupton, Severance and Eaton.
When completed, sometime after 2030, according to Northern Water, which is NISP’s sponsor, it will deliver 40,000 acre-feet of water annually to some 80,000 families. One acre-foot equals nearly 326,000 gallons, enough to serve two to four urban households each year.
But before then, and for years to come, the settlement will begin reshaping and restoring the Poudre.
Why the fuss?
Concern over the river has been rising for years.
According to Save the Poudre, nearly 400,000 acre-feet of water flow out of Poudre Canyon, but some 300,000 acre-feet are taken out by farmers and others almost immediately, leaving the river shallow, stressed and over heated as it flows more than 100 miles to its confluence with the South Platte River east of Greeley.
According to the settlement agreement, the $100 million will pay to move water diversion points farther downstream, leaving more water in the river as it flows east, rather than taking the water out higher up and reducing its flows.
Water-sharing arrangements between cities and farmers will be written to enhance recreation and stream improvements. New fish and boat passages will be installed around existing dams on the river. A new network to track the health of the river, its temperature and water quality, will also be added…
New dams and reservoirs must go through extensive permitting and environmental reviews to win approval from federal and state regulators. It took NISP about 15 years to win its final permit. That permit already includes requirements that will help the river, according to Northern spokesperson Jeff Stahla.
Under the federal permit, for instance, one-third of the total water delivered by the project must be delivered at specific volumes to boost stream flows in the winter and in the summer to aid fish and cool water temperatures, Stahla said.
Help delivered through the new settlement will come in addition to the federal and state requirements.
“It’s going to make a significant difference to the Poudre,” Northern Water General Manager Brad Wind said.
The settlement has also taken a lot of the heat out of the rooms where water planners and environmentalists…fought for more than a decade…
Dan Luecke is a well-known hydrologist and environmentalist who led the successful fight to stop Two Forks dam southwest of Denver in the 1980s. That too was a long, tortured battle, which largely ended when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with backing from the White House, rejected the proposal in 1990. There was no financial settlement then, Luecke said. But the $100 million Poudre agreement, though not as large as others in the American West, such as the $450 million Klamath River settlement, is noteworthy.
“$100 million is a pretty substantial number. It’s impressive in my mind,” Luecke said. “And the complexity of it, that they have to pump water in these reservoirs and use long pipelines to get the water back out to the urban areas. … It’s monumental.” (Luecke is a board member of Water Education Colorado, which founded Fresh Water News.)
The Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, which serves parts of both cities, is the largest participant in the NISP project, and will pay hundreds of millions of dollars for its share of the project and the settlement. And that’s OK with Stephen Smith, a member of the district’s board.
The Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, which serves parts of both cities, is the largest participant in the NISP project, and will pay hundreds of millions of dollars for its share of the project and the settlement. And that’s OK with Stephen Smith, a member of the district’s board.
“I feel comfortable with that,” Smith said, adding that he was speaking as a private individual, not a board member. “This money is going to go into the Poudre. If the money were going to buy off Save The Poudre, that would be a negative to me, but to have this six-member committee and to have an opportunity to put $100 million into the river, I consider that to be outstanding, I couldn’t be happier.”
New Northern #Colorado reservoirs moving ahead after settlement of #NISP lawsuit — Alex Hager (KUNC.org) #PoudreRiver #SouthPlatteRiver
Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Alex Hager):
March 5, 2025
This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.
A massive new reservoir project in Northern Colorado is closer to reality after its architects settled a lawsuit with an environmental group seeking to block construction. The Northern Integrated Supply Project, or NISP, will go ahead sooner than expected after a lawsuit settlement. Northern Water will pay $100 million into a trust after Save the Poudre, a nonprofit, agreed to drop its lawsuit. That money will fund river improvement projects.
The controversial water project, which will cost around $2 billion to build, has been tied up in planning and permitting for more than two decades. Advocates for the new reservoirs say it’s an important way to make sure fast-growing communities in Larimer and Weld counties have enough water for new homes and residents. Opponents worry it will take water out of a Cache la Poudre River that is already taxed by diversions for cities and farms.
…the settlement money will go into a new “Poudre River Improvement Fund.”
[…]
The fund can be used for “ecological, habitat, and recreational improvements,” including the potential creation of a “Poudre River Water Trail” from Gateway Park in Poudre Canyon to Eastman Park in Windsor. The fund will be managed by a six-person committee, three of whom will be appointed by Save the Poudre, and three by the NISP enterprise…
NISP would supply 15 different water providers along the northern Front Range through two reservoirs and a system of pipelines and pumps. Northern Water, the agency that would build and operate NISP, projects that it will provide water to nearly 500,000 people by 2050.
Water from the system would flow to a diverse group of towns and cities north of Denver. Small, fast-growing towns such as Erie and Windsor stand to receive some of the largest water allocations from NISP. The list also includes the Fort Collins Loveland Water District, the Left Hand Water District, which is just north of Boulder, and Fort Morgan on the eastern plains.
“These are communities that have identified the need for housing as something that will increase the quality of life,” said Jeff Stahla, a spokesman for Northern Water. “So this is an important time for us as residents to realize that we can help to solve some of the problems and some of the the challenges that we’re seeing out there on the horizon as more people choose to live here.”
Stahla said construction is expected to take off in 2026, with some pipes being laid in the summer and fall of this year. If Save the Poudre’s lawsuit was still in place, he said, construction would have begun in “2027 or even beyond.” Glade Reservoir, the centerpiece of NISP’s water storage system, would flood a valley northwest of Fort Collins that is currently home to a stretch of U.S. Highway 287 connecting Fort Collins and Laramie, Wyo. That section of road would be rebuilt further East.
Stahla said Northern Water’s permit includes requirements to mitigate environmental impacts caused by the new reservoirs. He alluded to the fact that the river is already connected to a number of large reservoirs and its water is piped and pumped far away from its original course.
“The Poudre River has really been a working river for 150 years now,” he said. “What NISP is planning to do certainly is not the only impacts to the river that have been occurring or will occur.”
…Stahla…suggested work on diversion structures, which redirect the river’s water towards farms and water treatment plants. Stahla suggested they could be modernized… and moved further downstream to allow more water to flow through certain sections of the river.
Lawsuit settlement clears the way for #NISP construction — Northern Water #PoudreRiver #SouthPlatteRiver
Here’s the release from email from Jeff Stahla at Northern Water:
February 28, 2025
BERTHOUD, Colorado – Northern Water, on behalf of the Northern Integrated Supply Project (NISP) Water Activity Enterprise, and the nonprofit group Save the Poudre have reached a settlement to the lawsuit challenging the federal permit issued for NISP, clearing the way for the construction of the vital water supply project in Northeastern Colorado.
The agreement, signed late on Friday, Feb. 28, by the Northern Water Board of Directors, outlines the creation of a new and long-term funding source for additional investments to benefit the reach of the Poudre River from the mouth of the Poudre Canyon to the river’s confluence with the South Platte River near Greeley. Throughout the next two decades, $100 million will be contributed by project participants to create a fund likely at the NoCo Foundation, or similar type foundation, with the intention of the money to be made available for projects and initiatives that improve the river for recreational uses, wildlife, water quality and more.
The agreement includes dismissal of the legal challenge to the federal Section 404 Clean Water Act permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in January 2023. Northern Water received the permit after two decades of work showing the need for the project. The mitigation requirements in the permit will remain, with the settlement funding adding projects beyond those outlined in the various permit documents issued for the project.
“This is a milestone day for the communities participating in the project,” said Northern Water General Manager Brad Wind. “The settlement agreement will close the permitting process for the project, open the door to constructing a project that will deliver much-needed water supplies to vibrant communities, and allow for dozens of large-scale riverine investments in and along the Poudre River.”
NISP’s Program Manager, Carl Brouwer, added, “This added investment to the river will complement the mitigation and enhancements identified by the involved permitting agencies.”
When complete, the project will include Glade Reservoir northwest of Fort Collins, a forebay and pump plant below the Glade Reservoir dam, Galeton Reservoir northeast of Greeley, 50 miles of buried pipelines to convey water to project participants, four additional pump plants, improved diversions on the Poudre River to allow fish passage and a requirement to convey 30 percent of the NISP water downstream for added benefit to the Poudre River. A section of U.S. Highway 287 will be rerouted around Glade Reservoir at the expense of project participants. Engineers estimate the project will cost $2 billion, with full buildout producing an annual yield of 40,000 acre-feet.
Construction of a fish passage at Watson Lake northwest of Fort Collins and a wetlands area at Eastman Park in Windsor has already occurred. Work on the remaining pipeline segments, the relocation of U.S. Highway 287 and the Glade Reservoir dam is projected to begin in 2026, with construction at Galeton Reservoir occurring after the completion of Glade Reservoir.
NISP includes participating communities and water providers large and small. The 15 participants include Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, Erie, Fort Morgan, Left Hand Water District, Central Weld County Water District, Windsor, Frederick, Lafayette, Morgan County Quality Water District, Firestone, Dacono, Evans, Fort Lupton, Severance and Eaton.
Water storage such as NISP is identified in the Colorado Water Plan as a necessary component for Colorado’s long-term water future. It joins water conservation, land use planning and other solutions to meet future water needs in Colorado.
About Northern Water
Northern Water, a public agency created in 1937, provides water for food production and municipal, domestic and industrial uses for more than 1 million people in Northeastern Colorado via the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, Pleasant Valley Pipeline and Southern Water Supply Project. Northern Water also generates hydropower at two sites and provides water quality services throughout the region. Its Municipal Subdistrict delivers water through the Windy Gap Project.
Through the building of two new reservoirs in Northern Colorado, the Northern Integrated Supply Project will supply 15 Northern Front Range water providers with 40,000 acre-feet of new, reliable water supplies. Aside from needed water storage, the project will incorporate an array of environmental and wildlife mitigation aspects and bring additional recreation opportunities to the region. Learn more at www.NISPwater.org.
Northern Water may be nearing settlement of lawsuit filed to stop $2 billion reservoir project — Jerd Smith (Fresh Water News) #NISP #PoudreRiver #SouthPlatteRiver
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
February 13, 2025
More than a year after an environmental group sued to stop a $2 billion northern Colorado water project, whispers of a settlement are being heard as the case winds its way through U.S. District Court in Denver.
Last January, Save The Poudre sued to block the Northern Integrated Supply Project, a two-reservoir development designed to serve tens of thousands of people in northern Colorado. The suit alleged that the Army Corps of Engineers had not adequately weighed the environmental impacts and less harmful ecological alternatives to the project…
Northern Water, which operates the federally owned Colorado-Big Thompson Project for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, is overseeing the permitting and construction of NISP. The agency also declined to comment on any potential settlement. Northern Water serves more than 1 million Front Range residents and hundreds of growers in the South Platte River Basin.
“We’re still moving forward with what we need to do on the litigation,” Northern spokesman Jeff Stahla said.
Northern Water’s board discussed the litigation in a confidential executive session last week at a study retreat and it is scheduled to discuss it in another private executive session Feb. 13 at its formal board meeting, according to the agenda.
Sources told Fresh Water News and The Colorado Sun that those discussions are related to the potential multimillion-dollar settlement.
Key developments this past year
In October, a federal judge delivered a favorable ruling to Wockner’s Save the Colorado on a case involving Denver Water’s Gross Reservoir expansion project. Now [envisonmental groups] are seeking an injunction to force Denver Water to stop construction of the dam, which began in 2022.
Raising the Boulder County dam by 131 feet will allow Denver Water to capture more water from the headwaters of the Upper Colorado River on the Western Slope. In its ruling, the federal court said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had failed to consider the impact of climate change on the flows in the Colorado River.
What impact that ruling may have on the NISP case isn’t clear, but [the environmental group that sued Denver Water] said they believe it will give his organization more leverage to push for changes in NISP.
In addition, the City of Fort Collins has dropped its formal opposition to NISP. And Stahla said Northern has continued to push forward with key parts of the development, including the design work needed to relocate a 7-mile stretch of U.S. 287 northwest of Fort Collins.
Fort Collins Mayor Jeni Arndt said the city changed its stance because most of its environmental concerns had been met through the 21-year federal permitting process.
“The EPA had signed off, and the Corps of Engineers had signed off,” she said. “It was obvious that this was not going to be another Two Forks,” referring to a massive dam proposed in the 1970s by Denver Water on the South Platte River near Deckers. It was rejected by the EPA due to environmental concerns.
Arndt said the city also planned to use a later review process, known as a 1041 review, to address other environmental concerns that might arise.
If NISP is ultimately built, and most believe it will be, it will provide water for 15 fast-growing communities and water districts along the Interstate 25 corridor, including the Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, Fort Morgan, Lafayette and Windsor.
The largest participant in the giant project is the Fort Collins-Loveland District. Board member Stephen Smith said he believes NISP will move forward one way or another and that it is critical to serving the water-short region.
“NISP is going to get built and it will provide water to Fort Collins by 2033,” he said.
Poudre Flows: Collaboration to Protect the Cache la #PoudreRiver — #Colorado Water Trust
Click the link to read the blog post on the Colorado Water Trust website (Josh Boissevain):
October 29, 2024
On October 14th, the Poudre Flows Project, a collaboration of Colorado Water Trust, the Colorado Water Conservation Board, Cache la Poudre Water Users Association, the cities of Fort Collins, Greeley, and Thornton, Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife, began increasing flows in the Cache la Poudre River. During the week of October 14, Thornton added flows between the mouth of the Poudre River and the confluence with the South Platte.
The Poudre Flows Project aims to reconnect the Cache la Poudre River past numerous frequent dry-up locations between the mouth of the Poudre Canyon and the confluence with the South Platte River while still allowing water rights owners to use their water. Under a temporary plan approved by the State, water provided by the cities of Thornton and/or Greeley can be used in a trial run of the innovative Poudre Flows Project. As conditions allow, the temporary plan allows water provided by Thornton to be used to increase flows by up to 20 cubic feet per second (“cfs”) for up to two weeks this fall and again in the spring. As conditions allow, the plan will also allow water provided by Greeley to be used to increase flows between 3-5 cfs between the months of April to October.
“The Poudre Flows project has brought a cross section of water users and river advocates together to add and protect flows on the Poudre River,” said Emily Hunt, Deputy Utilities Director for the City of Thornton. “Thornton is proud to contribute the first deliveries of water in a trial run of this project and is excited to continue its work with the Colorado Water Trust and the Poudre Flows partners to achieve significant environmental benefits for the Poudre River.”
The Poudre Flows Project implements a new mechanism known as a Streamflow Augmentation Plan that was approved by the Colorado legislature to help restore depleted river flows. Generally, an augmentation plan is a tool used by water users to increase flexibility and maximize utilization of water supplies on a stream while still protecting other water users. While augmentation plans are typically used to replace water diverted from the river to meet water use needs, the Poudre Flows Project uses this same tool to meet environmental needs by releasing water to the river and protecting it from diversion by others as it flows downstream.
“The Colorado Water Conservation Board is proud to be a part of this critical effort to protect flows on the Cache La Poudre River,” said Lauren Ris, CWCB Director. “Through our agency’s Instream Flow Program, we are able to ensure that the river maintains its vital flows, supporting both the environment and the communities that depend on it. This collaboration highlights the importance of innovative solutions to protect Colorado’s water for generations to come.”
Historically, environmentalists and recreationalists have been at odds with water users who take water out of the river. The Poudre Flows Project is bringing together those who have previously been in conflict, including municipalities, water conservancy districts, state agencies and agricultural producers. This group will strategically leverage water rights to preserve and improve river flows in times of low flow. The Poudre Flows Project has a pending water court case; but in the meantime, Greeley and Thornton have obtained temporary approvals in October from the Colorado Division of Water Resources, via substitute water supply plans, to use their water rights in the Streamflow Augmentation Plan for one year. This is the first Streamflow Augmentation Plan in the state and could be a model for streamflow improvement in other river basins.
“Greeley is excited to see the Poudre Flows project going live after many years of regional collaboration, enabling legislation, and investment in this innovative water administration strategy,” said Sean Chambers, Director of Water Utilities for the City of Greeley. “The project will physically enhance the Cache la Poudre river, its aquatic habitat, and the administration of water rights, and Greeley appreciates the Colorado Water Trust’s leadership and project management.”
THE POUDRE FLOWS STORY:
For more than a decade, the water community of the Poudre River Basin has been working on an innovative plan to reconnect one of the hardest working rivers in Colorado, the Cache la Poudre River. Since the Colorado gold rush in the mid-1800s, people have diverted water from the Cache la Poudre River for beneficial uses that have helped northeastern Colorado grow into the agricultural and industrial powerhouse it is today.While the Poudre River flows are high during the spring runoff, there are times throughout the year when the river dries out entirely in places below some water-diversion structures. To combat dry conditions and improve river health, local communities have worked hard over the past decade with the goal of improving and bringing vitality to the Cache la Poudre River. The Poudre Flows Project is a perfect example of those efforts.
Colorado Water Trust, a statewide nonprofit organization with a mission to restore water to Colorado’s rivers, has been one small part of this process. Over a decade ago, Colorado Water Trust had an unorthodox, pioneering idea to reconnect the Poudre River, and the water community of the Poudre River Basin said, “Let’s get it done.” A broad collaboration of water providers, cities, state government, nonprofits, and a collective of farmers have worked tirelessly to make this novel idea a reality and rewater the Poudre River. Finally, this year, the Poudre Flows Project will be put into action through the generous contributions of water by the cities of Greeley and Thornton. This is the first step toward reconnecting the Poudre River both now and for future generations.
”The Poudre Flows Project is such a great example of collaboration and innovative thinking when it comes to water, and it shows a recognition of how important our streams are to us as Coloradans,” said Kate Ryan, Executive Director of Colorado Water Trust. “You have all different types of water users on the Poudre River coming together to take responsibility for the health and vitality of this river and to find ways to protect it for future generations. The success of this project could serve as a blueprint across the state for communities of water users to protect their own rivers and streams in the face of a changing climate.”
Colorado’s water landscape is very complex and the legal structure for this project is innovative. The Poudre Flows Project will provide water right owners a flexible opportunity to add their water to the plan on a temporary or permanent basis. This groundbreaking project has the potential to be replicated in other basins throughout Colorado. Lastly, one of the unique aspects of this project is that it doesn’t change the Poudre River from being the hardest-working river in Colorado. Instead, the Poudre Flows Project provides an avenue for optimal management of river water, to protect people’s livelihoods AND the river itself. The Poudre Flows Project proves that if we work together, we can maintain all that we love about Colorado, from the beauty and thrills of a flowing river to the local food and beer that river water helps provide, and the flourishing neighborhoods that depend on the river’s water in their homes.
“Partnerships are the key ingredient to the success of the Poudre Flows Project,” said Katie Donahue, Director of the City of Fort Collins Natural Areas Department. “Together we are launching a new chapter of river resiliency for our community.”
FUNDERS FOR THIS PROJECT INCLUDE:
• Xcel Energy Foundation
• City of Fort Collins
• City of Greeley
• City of Thornton
• Northern Water
• Gates Family Foundation
• Eggleston Family Fund of the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado
• New Belgium Brewing Company
• Odell Brewing Company
• Alan Panebaker Memorial Endowment of the Yampa Valley Community Foundation
• Telluray Foundation
• Colorado Water Conservation BoardFOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Josh Boissevain
Staff Attorney, Colorado Water Trust
(720) 579-2897 ext. 6
JBoissevain@coloradowatertrust.org
Windy Gap Reservoir nearly crashed an aquatic ecosystem. A $33 million water project is undoing the damage — Fresh Water News #ColoradoRiver #COriver #SouthPlatteRiver
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado Website (Shannon Mullane):
October 17, 2024
With the snip of a ribbon Tuesday, Colorado water managers officially opened a new waterway in Grand County that reconnects a stretch of the Colorado River for the first time in four decades to help fish and aquatic life.
The milelong waterway, called the Colorado River Connectivity Channel, skirts around Windy Gap Reservoir, where a dam has broken the natural flow of the river since 1985. The $33 million project’s goal is to return a stretch of the river to its former health, a river where aquatic life thrived and fish could migrate and spawn. But getting to the dedication ceremony Tuesday took years of negotiations that turned enemies into collaborators and can serve as a model for future water projects, officials say.
“It speaks to the new reality of working on water projects, which is that it doesn’t have to be an us-versus-them situation,” Northern Water spokesperson Jeff Stahla said. “People can get together and identify things that can help not only the water supply, but also help the environment.”
Windy Gap Reservoir and the new channel are just off U.S. 40 near Granby, a few miles southwest of popular recreation areas around Lake Granby and Grand Lake.
The reservoir was designed to deliver an average of 48,000 acre-feet of water per year from Grand County through numerous reservoirs, ditches, canals and pipelines to faucets in homes and sprinklers on farms across northeastern Colorado. One acre-foot roughly equals the annual water use of two to three households.
But soon after construction finished in 1985, locals and fly fishermen started noticing problems — starting with the bugs.
Drivers used to cleaning insects out of their radiators suddenly had one less chore as certain types of mayflies, stoneflies and caddisflies disappeared. In 2011, state biologists calculated a 38% loss in diversity between the early 1980s and 2011.
The dam blocked fish passage, and the reservoir became a breeding ground for whirling disease, a deadly condition for local trout caused by a microscopic parasite.
It choked seasonal high flows. Without the flows to flush the sediment from between small rocks, the habitat for a fundamental food source, small organisms called macroinvertebrates, diminished. The sculpin, a small fish that often serves as an indicator of river health, disappeared entirely.
“The ecosystem started crashing,” said Kirk Klancke, a longtime conservationist in the area. “It didn’t die out completely, but it certainly started crashing. We lost all the sensitive, most important macroinvertebrates.”
The fishery’s gold medal status was threatened, and losing that would have been a blow to the local economy, he said.
The reservoir also couldn’t reliably serve its main purpose: catching water and pumping it 6 miles to Lake Granby to eventually reach the Front Range. When the lake is filled to the brim in wet years, it can’t store Windy Gap’s water, leaving northeastern communities in the lurch, according to Northern Water.
The new channel is the fix.
To create the channel, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District started work in 2022, draining Windy Gap Reservoir and cutting its size in half. The result is a smaller reservoir and a floodplain through which the channel flows.
Crews built a new diversion headgate — the main focus of the dedication this week — that manages how much water enters the reservoir from the channel. They removed a small, upstream dam crossing the Fraser River that blocked fish passage.
After vegetation is established, the channel will open to fishing and recreation, likely around 2027.
Water has been flowing through the channel for about a year, and officials are already seeing benefits: Colorado Parks and Wildlife said Tuesday that the sculpin has been detected in that stretch for the first time in 20 years.
“Seeing the project come to fruition, and then getting the bonus of having wildlife biologists tell you, ‘Yep, we’re already seeing signs of biological healing,’ was just mind blowing,” said Tony Kay, former president of Trout Unlimited who has been working on connecting the river for 26 years.
It was emotional. Not everyone who started this process was able to see it through to the end, like Bud Isaacs, a downstream landowner who was one of the first to raise the alarm and who passed away in 2022, Kay said.
“We never actually thought that this would happen,” he said.
The channel is also one facet of a sweeping, multimillion-dollar plan to fix multiple problems in one go.
Through the Windy Gap Firming Project, growing Front Range communities will have more reliable water storage in the form of Chimney Hollow Reservoir, which is under construction near Loveland and will work in tandem with Windy Gap to provide water supplies.
The effort to build the connectivity channel has seemed slow moving at times, but officials, environmentalists and urban areas are celebrating it as an example of hard-won collaboration.
“It was a gamble to partner with Front Range water diverters. There were a lot of people who told us you can’t do deals with the devil. You’re going to end up really regretting it,” Klancke said. “The connectivity channel has proved we went down the right road.”
It’s also just one step in addressing chronic low-flow issues along the upper Colorado River caused by drought and massive water diversions to Colorado’s Front Range, Klancke said.
In five years time, Kay hopes to see a healed river through the new channel and farther downstream. He’ll be saying “thank you” every time he drives past that stretch of the river.
“Bud would be over the moon,” he said.
Appeals court rejects lawsuit, says Northern Integrated Supply Project can move forward — #Colorado Public Radio #NISP
Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Public Radio website (Ishan Thakore). Here’s an excerpt:
October 8, 2024
The Colorado Court of Appeals rejected a lawsuit from environmentalists last week that sought to force Larimer County to reevaluate a massive northern Colorado water project, which would eventually supply 13 billion gallons of water to 15 Front Range communities. The Northern Integrated Supply Project would pump water from the Poudre River into two large reservoirs that would be built near Fort Collins and Greeley and would include dozens of miles of new pipelines and a major renovation of existing canals. The utility proposing the project, Northern Water, says it’s the only way to meet demand for an additional 500,000 customers it expects to serve by 2050…In promotional materials, Northern Water said the reservoir project would add water into the Poudre River during dry spells, and that the project would improve water quality in the river basin…
In 2019, Save the Poudre and No Pipe Dream, another advocacy organization, sued the Larimer County Board of Commissioners for approving a local permit for the project. The groups alleged that two commissioners were biased in favor of the project and that the permit — a critical step before construction — should be denied. In an Oct. 3 decision, the appeals court upheld a lower court decision and confirmed the permit was properly issued…The ruling inches the reservoir project one step closer to construction more than 20 years after it started in earnest. Northern Water first started planning for the project in the 1980s. It has already cleared significant hurdles, including approval from multiple state and county agencies and the federal government through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers…
The reservoir project may still require a local permit from Fort Collins, since part of its pipelines may cut through the city. For years, the city opposed the project because of its potential impact to wetlands and other natural features. In 2023, the city strengthened its approval process for large infrastructure works, which means it will have to be impartial when evaluating those permits. In July 2024, the city council formally rescinded its opposition to the project.
A major #ColoradoRiver water transfer has some asking for more details — Alex Hager (KUNC) #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Alex Hager):
September 11, 2024
This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.
A Front Range water distributor is pushing back on a planned transfer of rights to water from the Colorado River. It has led to a disagreement between two major water agencies — a minor flare-up of longstanding tensions between Eastern Colorado and Western Colorado, which have anxiously monitored each others’ water usage for decades.
Northern Water, which serves cities and farms from Fort Collins to Broomfield, is asking for more data about the future of the Shoshone water right. Meanwhile, the Colorado River District, a powerful taxpayer-funded agency founded to keep water flowing to the cities and farms of Western Colorado, says Northern Water may be attempting to stymie its purchase of the water rights.
In early 2024, The Colorado River District announced it would spend nearly $100 million to buy rights to the water that flows through the Shoshone power plant, near Glenwood Springs. Shoshone’s water right is one of the oldest and biggest in the state, giving it preemptive power over many other rights in Colorado.
Even in dry times, when water shortages hit other parts of the state, the Shoshone power plant can send water through its turbines. And when that water exits the turbines and re-enters the Colorado River, it keeps flowing for a variety of users downstream.
Since that announcement, the river district has rallied more than $15 million from Western Colorado cities and counties that could stand to benefit from the water right changing hands. Those governments are dishing out taxpayer money in hopes of helping make sure that water stays flowing to their region, even if demand for water goes up in other parts of the state.
The river district plans to leave Shoshone’s water flowing through the Colorado River. It’s an effort to help settle Western Colorado’s long-held anxieties over competition with the water needs of the Front Range, where fast-growing cities and suburbs around Denver need more water to keep pace with development.
The water right is classified as “non-consumptive,” meaning every drop that enters the power plant is returned to the river. The river district wants to ensure the water that flows into the hydroelectric plant also flows downstream to farmers, fish and homes. The agency plans to buy rights to Shoshone’s water and lease it back to the power company, Xcel Energy, as long as Xcel wants to keep producing hydropower.
Almost all of the $98.5 million for the river district’s purchase of Shoshone’s water will come from public funds. In addition to money from its own coffers and Western Colorado governments, the river district also plans to apply for federal funding to pay for its purchase of Shoshone’s water. It is planning to seek $40 million from the Inflation Reduction Act.
Despite decades-long tensions between water users on the Western Slope and the Front Range, leaders on the East side of the mountains have stayed mostly quiet about the Shoshone transfer.
Northern Water’s recent statements about Shoshone perhaps mark the most notable public pushback to the pending deal. The agency supplies water to Front Range cities such as Loveland and Greeley, as well as farms along the South Platte River all the way to the Nebraska border.
The agency outlined its concerns in a letter to elected representatives, including Colorado Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper and congresspeople Joe Neguse, Lauren Boebert, Yadira Caraveo and Greg Lopez.
In short, Northern said it supports the concept of the transfer, but wants an independent study of how much water the Colorado River District plans to send down the river each year.
“We want to make sure that we’re all going into this with the same data to make sure that everyone’s interests are being addressed,” said Jeff Stahla, Northern Water spokesman.
Northern posits that the Western Slope could pull more water than the amount that has been historically used by Shoshone – enough to increase strain on upstream reservoirs that also supply the Front Range.
The River District calls that claim a “gross mischaracterization” of its plans.
“Their points ignore the stated intent of the effort and are counter to the stated values,” said Matthew Aboussie, a spokesman for the River District, “And they 100% know that.”
The River District published its own letter about the matter. The agency’s director said Northern Water’s efforts “were received as intentional obstacles intended to threaten the viability of the Shoshone Permanency Project,” and said Northern’s calls for more data collection could require a time-intensive study of the project and tie it up in litigation for up to a decade.
“We are not looking to change the historic flows,” Aboussie said. “So the intention is to protect the status quo.”
The River District is currently compiling data about the history and future of the Shoshone water right and plans to present it in Colorado’s water court, which is part of the state’s normal process to approve the transfer or sale of water rights.
Messing w/ Maps: #ColoradoRiver Plumbing edition — Jonathan P. Thompson #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on The Land Desk website (Jonathan P. Thompson):
August 16, 2024
🗺️ Messing with Maps 🧭
Imagine that you’ve set off for a hike in the desert of western Arizona, hoping to get up high so you can get a view of the juxtaposition of alfalfa fields against the sere, rocky earth. But you somehow get disoriented, the sun reaches its apex and beats down on you, the temperature climbing into the triple digits. The ground temperature becomes so hot you can feel it through the soles of your Hoka running shoes. Your water bottle is empty. Feeling certain you are going to die you pick a direction and stagger in as straight a line as you can manage, rasping for help. And then, just when you’re about to curl up under a rock and surrender, you see, coming straight out of a hillside, a virtual river. It must be a mirage, you think, or a hallucination, you run toward it, climb the fence, and dive into the cool, deep water.
This is not a fantasy scenario. There is, in fact, a place in the western Arizona desert where a lost traveler could stumble upon a giant canal emerging from the earth.
It’s just one of the crazy plumbing projects along the Colorado River and its tributaries. And they can look pretty weird when you stumble upon them in remote places. That’s what happened to me the other day — virtually. I was using Google Earth to chart the 1776 Escalante-Dominguez expedition’s path when, near Chama, I came across a large volume of water emanating from an arid meadow. After some thought I realized it was the outlet for the San Juan-Chama Project that diverts about 90,000 acre-feet of water annually from three tributaries of the San Juan River, sends it through the Continental Divide via a tunnel, and delivers it to Willow Creek and Heron Reservoir. From there it can be released into the Chama River, which runs into the Rio Grande, which is used by Albuquerque and Santa Fe to supplement groundwater and the shrinking Rio Grande.
These things aren’t only unsettling in a visual way, but in a conceptual way as well. One would expect cities and agricultural zones to rise up around where the water is and to grow according to how much water is locally available. Instead, cities rise up in places of limited water and grow as if there were no limits, importing water (and power and other resources) from far away.
Northern Water Board Increases #Colorado-Big Thompson Quota Allocation (70% to 80%) #drought #ColoradoRiver #SouthPlatteRiver
Click the link to read the release on the Northern Water website (Jeff Stahla):
August 14, 2025
In response to a flash drought that has developed throughout the northern Front Range, the Board of Directors of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District has increased the quota allocation of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project by 10 percentage points.
In a unanimous vote, the Board on August 14, 2024, increased the quota from 70 percent to 80 percent, meaning an approximate 31,000 acre-feet of water will be made available to allottees of the Project.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a large area of eastern Boulder and Larimer counties have entered severe drought status in July, and an area of drier conditions in the Longmont-Boulder area has worsened into extreme drought conditions, putting at risk the ability of farmers to finish production of their crops for 2024.
Water storage levels in the Project are adequate to meet the additional quota declaration.
Northern Water’s Board typically sets an initial quota in November and a supplemental quota in April, but there have been occasions in which additional quota has been allocated, including in 2020 and 2022. In April, the Board set the quota at 70 percent, which allowed project allottees to access seven-tenths of an acre-foot for each allotment contract unit they own.
#ColoradoRiver Connectivity Channel Final Season of Construction – Summer 2024 — Northern #Colorado Water Conservancy District #COriver #aridification
The finishing touches are just around the corner for the historic and broadly supported Colorado River Connectivity Channel (CRCC). After having been talked about for decades, the CRCC, which has aquatically reconnected two segments of the Colorado River around Windy Gap Reservoir for the time since the reservoir was built in the 1980s, is heading into its third and final construction season, with work expected to wrap up this fall. In this new 5-minute video, Northern Water and Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials discuss the ramping back up of construction, goals for the final construction season, and how fish have been successfully using the new channel since water first started flowing though it back in October.
New Agreement to Improve River Flows in Grand County — @Northern_Water
Here’s the release from the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (Christine Travis and Jeff Stahla):
April 23, 2024
Grand County and Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (Northern Water) have agreed to a unique and first-of-its-kind Operational Framework that provides Grand County with the ability to have as much as 7,000 acre-feet of additional controllable water to release from the Colorado-Big Thompson (C-BT) Project for stream enhancement and other purposes that will benefit Grand County’s recreation and agriculture industries. The volume available for streamflow improvement will be dependent on annual river conditions and C-BT Project storage levels.
Approved Tuesday [April 23, 2024] by the Grand County Commissioners, the agreement outlines a methodology to determine the water that will be available to the County each year. Water made available under this agreement to the County will be released to Willow Creek, or to the Colorado River, will supplement existing flows, and could accumulate to nearly 40,000 acre-feet over the course of a decade. Prior to 2005, this water was used for irrigation of hay fields near the Town of Granby. Since that time, the underlying lands have been removed from agricultural production and converted to residential and commercial development. Without this agreement, the water will continue to be captured by the C-BT Project and available to Northern Water for uses in Northeastern Colorado.
“The Operational Framework Agreement will provide the County with an additional water management tool to improve and enhance flows on the Colorado River,” said Grand County Commissioner Chair Merrit Linke. “The Colorado River is the life blood to sustaining our agriculture and recreation industries that are critically important to our local economy as well as all of the West Slope.”
Grand County and Northern Water will, in coming months, consult and coordinate with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation regarding the implementation of the agreement.
From farms to cities: Analysis shows #Colorado-Big Thompson water right ownership changes — The #FortCollins Coloradoan #ColoradoRiver #SouthPlatteRiver #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on the Fort Collins Coloradoan website (Ignacio Calderon). Here’s an excerpt:
February 29, 2024
On Wednesday [February 28, 2024], 96 Colorado-Big Thompson water shares and 154 acres of farmland from the Carlson Family Trust were auctioned for $5,473,600 and $990,000, respectively. It was the second such water auction in February. Earlier this month, Carol Oswald Yoakum sold her 90 shares of Colorado-Big Thompson water for an average of $52,481 per share...In recent years, around 95% of Colorado-Big Thompson shares that were transferred went from farms to municipalities and water districts, a Coloradoan analysis found…
When Colorado-Big Thompson water changes hands, it is recorded in the Northern Water Board’s monthly meetings agenda. The Coloradoan manually compiled every document available online, with records going back to June 2019, to understand this trend. The analysis focused on the transfers where there was a change in contract class. This excludes transfers where water is kept in the same use, like when shares are passed down in a family farm. Different contract classes allow for different water uses…During the time period covered by the analysis, the Coloradoan found 237 transfers, which moved 4,396 shares. The 10 biggest receivers, which were all water districts or municipalities, accounted for nine out of every 10 shares. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean most water is being used by cities…
“When we look at the data of where water is delivered, we see that on average it’s a little more than 50% that goes to municipal use, but municipal ownership is about 75%,” said Jeff Stahla, spokesperson for Northern Water, referring to water use from the Colorado-Big Thompson Project…Christopher Goemans, an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at Colorado State University, said “we’ve seen this shift in the ownership of rights from agricultural to municipal uses. And yet the vast majority of the water is still diverted and used in agriculture.”
[…]
On the other hand, the cost of acquiring water is driven in large part by the market for water rights. Wednesday’s auction averaged around $57,000 per Colorado-Big Thompson water share — several orders of magnitude higher than it cost when the project began. In 1960, three years after the project first started delivering water to users, the cost per share was $1.50.
Area #snowpack levels remain slightly below average for this time of year, with West Slope stations in Northern Water’s service area at a collective 95 percent of median and East Slope stations at 88 percent of median — @Northern_Water
#Colorado farmers find plenty of sweet deals at $4.7 million Front Range water auction — Fresh Water News #ColoradoRiver #SouthPlatteRiver #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
February 21, 2024
LONGMONT: It is 10:16 a.m. on Valentine’s Day. More than 100 people are gathered in a sprawling room at the Boulder County Fairgrounds. Pencils, notebooks, calculators, auction catalogs and heart-shaped chocolates lie on tables as buyers begin bidding for some of the most sought-after and pricey water in Colorado.
In less than an hour, they will have spent some $4.7 million to buy shares of water in the Colorado-Big Thompson (C-BT) Project, a federal water system whose construction began after the Dust Bowl, which now serves more than 1 million people on the northern Front Range and which helps irrigate thousands of acres of farmland in the South Platte River Basin. It is operated by Northern Water.
This liquid, in some ways, is the Saks Fifth Avenue of water — high quality, clean, neatly packaged and easily delivered within the boundaries of Northern Water’s eight-county district. Another major attraction is that transactions involving C-BT shares don’t have to be approved by Colorado’s water courts, as most water sales do.
Under the contract between Northern Water and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, transfers of C-BT Project shares are instead approved by the Northern Water Board of Directors.
Some 90 shares were for sale on that morning, a tiny fraction of the 310,000 shares that comprise the entire project, according to Jeff Stahla, a spokesman for Northern Water, which operates the system for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
And the sales prices were low, averaging just over $52,000 per share, well below the $70,000-plus the water has fetched in recent years, Stahla said.
Jim Docheff is a retired dairyman from Weld County. He sits in the front row, in a Western red felt jacket and tan cowboy hat, one of his sons by his side.
Ultimately he will buy six shares of the water. “It’s all I could afford,” he said, smiling.
How much water is conveyed in a share of the Colorado-Big Thompson system varies from year to year and is tied to how much water the system gathers from the headwaters of the Colorado River and how much irrigators need, Stahla said. Each spring, Northern’s board decides how much water will be allotted to its shares, which are designed to supplement native supplies in the South Platte River Basin.
Some years, the board sets a quota as high as 100% per share, which is one-acre foot. The lowest it has set is 50%. In a dry year, the board might set the quota higher to help growers, and in a wet year, it may be lower because less water is needed.
An acre-foot of water equals about 326,000 gallons.
This purchase will add water security to Docheff’s dairy operations for years to come, he said, as his sons continue the work the family has been doing for 89 years.
But the deal must be approved by Northern Water, which will certify that the water will stay in its district, that it will be put to beneficial use, and that it will serve as a supplemental rather than a sole source of water, a requirement under its federal operating rules.
Docheff and others were surprised by the numbers. “Honestly, I thought the prices were low,” Docheff said.
In recent years, Colorado-Big Thompson shares have topped $70,000. And in fact, one share did sell for $79,200 on Valentine’s Day, but most sold for less, trading in the $50,000 to $72,600 range, according to Scott Shuman of Hall and Hall Auctions, which ran the morning’s proceedings.
And that was good news for farmers, who dominated the bidding. They were able to afford to buy shares in a system in which fast-growing cities from Broomfield north to the Wyoming state line once dominated the sales, often pricing farmers out.
“I think it actually speaks to the fact that there is a robust market for agriculture and you have producers who are looking to firm up their [water] portfolios,” Stahla said.
The lower prices may also be tied to a softening in the housing market in northern Colorado, Shuman said.
“We had an auction in 2019 and we had tons of cities participating,” Shuman said. But not this time around.
“In 2019 there were new subdivisions being built everywhere and we’re not seeing that kind of building now,” he said.
Throughout the proceedings, Carol Yoakum and her family, the sellers of the C-BT shares, sat at the back of the room, watching bid prices post on a huge screen behind the auctioneer.
“I think it went just fine,” she said, after the bidding closed. “I hope it makes everybody happy.”
More by Jerd SmithJerd Smith is editor of Fresh Water News. She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email at jerd@wateredco.org or @jerd_smith.
Auction of #ColoradoRiver water nets $4.7 million: Bidders paid an average of $74,600 per acre-foot — @AspenJournalism #SouthPlatteRiver #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on the Aspen Journalism website (Heather Sackett):
February 16, 2024
Longmont dairy farmer Jim Docheff has been in the dairy business for all of his 88 years, and his son Joe grows the corn and alfalfa for the dairy cows on the farm east of the city. On Wednesday, Docheff acquired six units of Colorado River water to use on his family farm by outbidding other would-be buyers in a water auction.
“I came with the idea of buying up to 10 units, but I only got so many dollars to spend,” Docheff said.
Docheff was one of 42 registered bidders who gathered at Barn A of the Boulder County Fairgrounds for a chance to buy some of the 90 units for sale of Colorado-Big Thompson Project water. The transmountain diversion project, built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the 1940s, takes water from the headwaters of the Colorado River in Grand County and transports it via a system of tunnels, pipes and canals to farms and cities in northeastern Colorado.
The first bid for one unit of C-BT water hit a high mark of $72,000, but prices soon stabilized at around $46,000 per unit. After a bidder won the round, they said how many units they wanted to buy, with some people scooping up two, five or 10 units. A buyer’s premium of 10% was added to the high bid to get the total purchase price, which averaged $52,488 per unit.
After all 90 units had a high bid, auctioneer Scott Shuman with auction company Hall and Hall offered the crowd a last chance to outbid their neighbors and reopen bidding on any of the units, or to buy the entire 90 shares.
“If you didn’t get as much water as you thought you would, here’s your opportunity to add something to it,” he said. “I do not want to say ‘sold’ and then have anybody meet me in the parking lot saying ‘I really wanted to get a couple of those units; I would have given you more for it.’”
But no bidders raised their hands.
“All right, happy Valentine’s Day, ladies and gentlemen, we sold all the water units,” Shuman told the crowd. “Give yourselves a hand, give the Yoakum family a hand.”
When all was said and done, the auction netted a total sale price of about $4.7 million for about 63 acre-feet of water. The seller was longtime Longmont farmer Carol Oswald Yoakum.
C-BT water regulated
It’s common for shares of C-BT water to change hands, but a large-scale sale by auction like the one held on Wednesday is rare. The last one was in 2019.
But not just anyone can own C-BT water. It is highly regulated and there are rules about its use. To participate in the auction, would-be buyers had to meet criteria set by the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which manages and delivers the water to users. Northern does not allow more than three acre-feet of C-BT water per irrigated acre, and it’s best if a bidder is an existing water user like an irrigator or municipality within Northern’s delivery area who already has water from a different source since C-BT water is only meant to be used as a supplemental supply. And out-of-state investors looking to speculate get turned down immediately.
“If they don’t have a farm, if they don’t have a beneficial need for the water, then there’s a very high probability that (Northern) would not approve a contract for them,” said Sherri Rasmussen, contracts manager with Northern Water. “I’ve had calls from New York people wanting to buy C-BT and my first question is: What do you want C-BT for? And they’re like, ‘Well, for investment, what do you think?’ And it’s like no, you don’t qualify.”
The C-BT project provides supplemental water to farms and cities along the northern Front Range and eastward along the South Platte River. Northern delivers this water to 33 municipalities and 120 ditch, reservoir and irrigation companies, according to its website. The project diverts about 200,000 acre-feet a year from the Colorado River basin.
Each year in April, Northern Water’s board determines the amount of water that users will get for each unit depending on whether it’s a drought year and how much water is available. The board most commonly settles on 7/10 of an acre-foot. That means Wednesday’s buyers paid an average of $74,600 per acre foot to own the water in perpetuity. That’s up from an average of $36,300 per acre-foot buyers were paying for C-BT water in 2015, according to WestWater Research, a water market research firm.
According to Adam Jokerst, a regional director with WestWater, C-BT unit prices are simply a function of supply and demand.
“Population growth largely drives water prices on the Front Range and in areas with the fastest population growth in the northern Front Range, that’s where we see the highest water prices,” he said.
But not all the buyers Wednesday were cities looking to transfer water from agriculture to support their continued growth. According to Shuman, of the 15 buyers, six were farmers; four were dairies; two were developers; two were municipalities and one was a farm foundation.
According to Jeff Stahla, public information officer for Northern Water, dairy farming in the district has been growing in recent years.
“That’s one of the takeaways from today: A lot of this water is staying in agriculture,” he said.
Another water auction is set to take place on Feb. 28 in Ault, east of Fort Collins. The Carlson Family Trust will sell 96 units of C-BT water and 154 acres of land.
This story ran in the Feb. 18 edition of The Aspen Times, the Vail Daily, Summit Daily, SkyHi News.
‘A finite supply’: Ex-landowner sells 90 shares of Colorado-Big Thompson water at auction — The #FortCollins Coloradoan #ColoradoRiver #SouthPlatteRiver #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on the Fort Collins Coloradoan website (Pat Ferrier). Here’s an excerpt:
February 14, 2024
Through the years, [Carol Oswald] Yoakum acquired 900 acres of farmland north of Longmont…A couple hundred acres went for a 20-home subdivision, 575 acres were put into a conservation easement with Boulder County so the views [of Long’s Peak] she lived with for 57 years would always be protected. She retained 175 acres…Now 91, Yoakum sold Meadow Green Farm in March 2023. On Wednesday, the last links to the property — 90 shares of Colorado-Big Thompson water — were auctioned at Boulder County Fairgrounds in Longmont. Fifteen buyers paid an average of $52,481 per share, or $4.72 million, making the water that once nourished the farm as valuable as the land itself.
The relatively rare water auction within Northern Water boundaries was the first of two this month that will ultimately see 186 shares of Colorado-Big Thompson water transition to new hands and new uses. On Wednesday, Yoakum’s 90 shares went to ditch companies, developers, farmers, ranchers and one municipality that will use it to add to their water holdings, supply water to new subdivisions and irrigate some farmland…Michael Markel of Markel Homes bought five shares at $49,500 each (including a 10% seller’s fee that goes to the auction house) to help provide water to homes in a 420-unit subdivision in Lafayette. “This will just cover a fraction” of the project, Markel said. Although the price per share opened at a high of $72,000, most shares sold for $46,000, plus seller’s fee. Water was sold in one to five units but could be combined for more shares. The largest share of water, 12 units, sold for $46,000 per share plus fees…Sterling Zehnder, who farms about 110 acres near Kersey, bought four shares at $53,000 each for irrigation.
On Feb. 28, the Carlson Family Trust will auction its 154-acre family farm in Eaton and 96 shares of Colorado-Big Thompson water. Markel said he may be among the bidders at that sale, too.
To buy Colorado-Big Thompson water, which is owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and jointly operated and managed by Northern Water, a buyer has to represent a municipality or already own some shares; the water has to be used within district boundaries; and it can’t be the sole source of water. “C-BT is intended to supplement” an existing water supply, said Jeff Stahla, spokesperson for Northern Water.
Save the Poudre is suing to stop NISP project that would provide water to 15 communities — The #FortCollins Coloradoan #PoudreRiver #SouthPlatte #River
Click the link to read the article on the Fort Collins Coloradoan website (Rebecca Powell). Here’s an excerpt:
Environmental group Save The Poudre has filed a lawsuit to try and stop the Northern Integrated Supply Project from going forward to construct two reservoirs and supply water to 15 communities…In the lawsuit, filed Thursday, Save The Poudre says the diversion of water from the Poudre River would cause severe damage to the river, including its aquatic life, the Poudre River Whitewater Park in Fort Collins and the riparian corridor…The lawsuit also alleges that in approving the permit, the Army Corps violated both the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act because it didn’t adequately consider alternatives and didn’t choose the least environmentally damaging alternative, respectively…
NISP would divert water from the Poudre and South Platte rivers to store in two new reservoirs: Glade Reservoir north of Fort Collins and the smaller Galeton Reservoir east of Ault. Communities that would be served by the project include the Fort Collins-Loveland Water District and others in Weld and Boulder counties.
Grand County Organizations Awarded Grants in Second Year of Funding — @Northern_Water
Click the link to read the release on the Northern Water website:
In its second year of grant funding, the Windy Gap Environmental Fund (WGEF) has awarded four Grand County organizations funds for various environmental projects. The Northern Water Municipal Subdistrict contributed funding as part of the settlement to end the federal lawsuit over Chimney Hollow Reservoir. The WGEF Committee awarded $680,000 in 2023, in addition to $1,065,000 of grant funding allocated in 2022, for a total of nearly $1.75 million.
The largest grant awarded in December 2023 was for $401,179 to Learning by Doing for its final design and implementation of the Willow Creek Restoration Project. Learning by Doing is a solution-focused collaborative group of local, state, federal and nonprofit water stakeholders charged with safeguarding Grand County rivers and streams. Learning by Doing was also awarded another $25,000 grant for the design of a stream restoration project at Kaibab Park.
Additional grants awarded include:
- $150,000 to the Town of Fraser to complete a stormwater infrastructure survey.
- $104,144 to the Grand Lake Recreation Foundation for design of river restoration of the Colorado River in the vicinity of the Red Top Valley Ditch diversion.
The WGEF is administered by the Grand Foundation, while the WGEF Committee reviews proposals and allocates grant funding. The committee is composed of three representatives from the Municipal Subdistrict and three from the Upper Colorado Watershed Environmental Team.
Construction of Chimney Hollow Reservoir began in August 2021 after the Municipal Subdistrict won a federal lawsuit in the first round that challenged the permit issued by the Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers. The Municipal Subdistrict then settled during the appeal process, which required a $15 million contribution throughout the four-year construction timeline that will be administered by the Grand Foundation to pay for projects that enhance the Colorado River and its many tributaries in Grand County.
#ColoradoRiver crisis looms over state’s landscape decisions — @AspenJournalism #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on the Aspen Journalism website (Allen Best):
The deepening troubles of the Colorado River, a significant source of water for most of Colorado’s 5.9 million residents, has implications for the types of grasses we grow in our yards and in street medians.
Speaking in Las Vegas recently, former Arizona Gov. and former U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt recalled warnings of worsening drought and imbalances between supplies and demand. “There’s going to be a day of reckoning,” Babbitt, 85, told Politico’s E&E News, referring to the warnings of scientists during past decades. “Here we are. The crisis has arrived.”
Colorado’s mounting efforts to limit new expanses of thirsty turf won’t solve the Colorado River problems. Colorado is just one of seven states in the basin. And even within Colorado, agriculture consumes roughly 90% of Colorado’s water and cities about 7%. Exterior use, such as for watering thirsty Kentucky bluegrass yards, consumes 40% to 60% of municipal water.
But if this water use is on the margins, it’s one that many water managers believe must be addressed. A bill that originated in the Water Resources and Agriculture Review Committee in October has the support of two of the state’s largest cities and has sponsors from both political parties from across Colorado.
This proposal would preclude the installation of nonfunctional turf as well as artificial turf in commercial, institutional or industrial properties or in transportation corridors, such as along streets or in road medians. Nonfunctional turf is defined as grasses that are predominantly ornamental — and that few will ever walk on unless to mow, yet still require heavy watering. Think, for example, of those giant carpets of green grass that commonly surround business parks such as the Denver Tech Center or Broomfield’s Inverness business park.
The bill, however, does not address residential water use.
Many urban landscapes in Colorado are planted in Kentucky bluegrass and other thirsty species that require close to double what the semiarid climate delivers. Native grasses such as blue gramma and even some imported species can survive with far less or even no supplemental water.
Continued population growth also adds pressure to city water utilities. The Colorado Water Plan projects growth of the state’s current population to at least 7.7 million by 2050, mostly along the Front Range.
Legislators have been advised by the state’s Colorado River Drought Task Force to bump funding to $5 million per year for turf removal. In 2022, they allocated $2 million, which has now been exhausted in grants to local jurisdictions.
Also informing Colorado’s path forward will be recommendations from another task force, appointed by Gov. Jared Polis last January, to investigate opportunities for an accelerated transformation in use of water in urban landscapes. The 21 committee members were drawn from the ranks of local governments, academia, environmental advocacy groups and developers.
At their eight meetings, committee members wrestled with what should be the proper mix of incentives and mandates and ultimately just how far the state should push into matters of local land use. One member suggested that banning new turf in road medians was a no-brainer. Another member urged flexibility for local jurisdictions to achieve state goals. “We’re going to be on this journey for a long time,” said Catherine Moravec of Colorado Springs Utilities. “Less controversy will help keep us together.”
In final meetings, now concluded, members agreed on the need to support state legislation. The Colorado Water Conservation Board, which oversaw the process, emphasizes that the task force’s report will have no direct connection to legislation. The task force’s pending report “may be used by decision-makers at state, local or even neighborhood scales,” said Jenna Battson, the agency’s outdoor water conservation coordinator. “It’s a resource.” The task force recommendations are expected to be released in late January after review – and perhaps tweaking – by Polis.
Changing the status quo
Water scarcity underlies all these discussions. Specific circumstances vary. Some jurisdictions, most notably those between Denver and Colorado Springs, depend upon receding underground aquifers for most of their water. They get very little or no Colorado River water.
Most other jurisdictions do rely upon the Colorado River. Ambiguity has long dogged the Colorado River Compact, the agreement reached by delegates from the seven basin states in 1922. What if runoff declined substantially? The river since 2000 has delivered an average 12.3 million acre-feet per year, far short of the 20 million acre-feet that delegates had assumed.
Must Colorado and the three other upper-basin states — New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — leave more water to flow downstream if runoff declines even more? That would cause curtailment of diversions with water rights after 1922. A study commissioned by the Glenwood Springs-based Colorado River Water Conservation District found that 96% of Front Range water use could be subject to curtailment.
That includes diversions by Denver Water. “It is possible that Denver Water’s deliveries of Colorado River basin supplies could be curtailed for a period of time,” advised a statement from Denver Water issued in August 2022 when the utility was issuing new water bonds.
That statement was issued the same month that Denver Water and 30 other utilities from Colorado to California that rely upon Colorado River Basin water committed to removing urban turf, with a goal of 75 million square feet in the case of Denver Water. That’s an area roughly equivalent in size to 1,800 football fields. At the current rate, that will be achieved in 100 years, according to Denver Water.
Even so, that was a sharp reversal for Denver Water, a utility that delivers water to 1.5 million people in Denver and 17 other municipalities in the metro area. Even after severe drought 20 years before, Denver made no move to remove turf. If drought got bad enough, the agency reasoned, it could ask customers to stop watering their yards. The utility now plans a pilot program in 2024 in conjunction with Resource Central to cost-share lawn removal with customers.
Greg Fisher, Denver Water’s manager of demand planning and efficiency, told legislators in October that spending money to help remove turf makes no sense if thirsty nonnative turf species are simultaneously being planted elsewhere.
“Ultimately, success for us is changing the status quo, creating a new cultural landscape that will benefit Colorado’s environment and save water at the same time,” he said. Fisher cited the ancillary benefit of providing habitat for pollinators, which is not provided by imported grasses. Denver supports the bill.
The proposed state law up for consideration in the 2024 session would also preclude artificial turf in lieu of grass. The bill says artificial turf releases harmful chemicals into watersheds and exacerbates the heat island effect compounded by rising temperatures in coming decades.
Colorado is famously a local-control state. Its towns and cities, many of them operating under home-rule charters, jealously guard local prerogatives. They, not the state, decide the speed limits on their streets and don’t like the state telling them what to do, particularly in land use. Always, there is tension.
But in water, the state has already adopted efficiency requirements. Any toilet sold in Colorado must consume no more than 1.2 gallons per flush. Colorado law also requires the most efficient pop-up sprinklers.
Should state law also override local authority in deciding landscaping choices? If still a sensitive area, even cities normally inclined to tell legislators to butt out are now more inviting of state engagement or at least inclined to remain neutral.
“Aurora will typically be one of the communities that shows up and says don’t do anything at the state level that impedes our local control,” Marshall Brown, general manager of Aurora Water, told the legislative committee in October in support of the ban on planting new vegetation with high water needs. This proposal, he added, retains local control while providing strong guidance from the state.
When Aurora changed its mind
For many years, Aurora tried voluntary programs for turf removal, in order to stretch its water. It made no sense if others then planted large amounts of grass. “We didn’t have success until we mandated a ban on nonfunctional turf,” Brown said.
In September 2022, Aurora City Council adopted a wide-ranging ordinance that is among the most aggressive in Colorado. It bans Kentucky bluegrass and other thirsty cool-weather grass in front yards of new residential developments. New golf courses are allowed, but not with thirsty grasses. They must have grasses that use less water. New ornamental water features, such as fountains, are also banned.
Several decades ago, Aurora had gained a reputation for lacking greenery due to the mostly treeless landscape of newer subdivisions.
“I would ask those people to go east of Aurora and see what they see,” said Tim York, water conservation manager for Aurora. “They won’t see turf and they won’t see very many trees. Although we aren’t against trees. We definitely need trees. Just be sure to put them in the right places.”
Aurora, now with a population of 400,000, for many decades believed it needed well-watered turf in its urban landscapes. Even in the late 1980s, the city water department had just one employee devoted to conservation.
“In retrospect, installing landscapes for aesthetic purposes that require over 2 feet of water per year was probably not the right way to do it,” said York.
The 2002 drought forced a new reckoning. That hot, dry, windy year revealed the inadequacy of Aurora’s portfolio of water rights and storage, both for that intense drought but also in regard to projected population growth. The city’s utility manager warned of dire reductions if snow didn’t arrive. It did the next spring, on St. Patrick’s Day of 2003, but the episode revealed the city’s vulnerabilities.
Both reuse and conservation became an active part of the municipal agenda. Since then, per-capita water use has declined by 36%. The population during that time has grown by 30%. The city offered rebates to residents willing to replace their thirsty turf.
In 2022, though, the city recognized the fallacy of creating a bigger problem that would have to be addressed later.
York, a landscape architect by training with experience in Las Vegas, contends that pleasant urban landscapes can be created with lesser volumes of water. It just takes more thoughtfulness about the function.
“That function should not be that ‘It looks pretty’ and that is all that it does,” York said. “A water-wise landscape, done correctly with species variation, can be far more attractive than the monotonous green carpet turf found in most places.”
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman said homeowners resisted the ban at first, as did some members of the City Council, who saw it as going too far. They were convinced by Coffman that taking action now may prevent more dramatic actions in the future if the Colorado River situation deteriorates further. Aurora gets 25% of its water from multiple sources in the Colorado River basin.
There were also arguments that water-wise landscaping is ugly.
“I don’t think it’s ugly,” Coffman said in an interview. “What is ugly is when homeowners, because of the cost of water, give up on their yards. That’s ugly. But anyway, it’s the new reality we live in, and people have to get used to it.”
Down the Colorado River
Nevada and California have adopted far more significant restrictions.
A century ago, when the Colorado River Compact was crafted, Las Vegas had a population of little more than 2,000. The compact allocated only 300,000 acre-feet to Nevada, compared with 4.4 million acre-feet for California.
By 1996, Las Vegas was becoming a metropolitan area, and lawns replicating those found in Midwestern towns were still being planted in an environment of soaring summer heat and only 4 inches of average precipitation. The Southern Nevada Water Authority began offering incentives for turf removal. That program has since then cost $285 million, according to a January 2023 report prepared for the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
In 2021, with the notion of an empty Lake Mead becoming an all-too-real possibility, Nevada banned all ornamental turf dependent upon Colorado River water. Ornamental in this case applies to grass used in street medians, entrances to developments and office parks — in general, places where people rarely set foot except to mow. This covers about 31% of all the grass in the Las Vegas area.
California also took a very aggressive step in 2023. The law, Assembly Bill 1572, prohibits using drinking water for purely decorative grass in medians and outside business and in common areas of homeowner association neighborhoods, the Los Angeles Times reported in September. The ban will take effect in phases between 2027 and 2031. It exempts sports fields, parks, cemeteries and residences.
Metropolitan Water, the agency that supplies wholesale water to most of Southern California, estimates that the bill will save 300,000 acre-feet. That’s equal to Nevada’s Colorado River allocation.
Sterling Ranch may be Colorado’s best example of judicious water use. The development of more than 3,000 houses lies in the southwest corner of metropolitan Denver. The developer set out to do better than 0.75 acre-feet annually per single-family residence, which is Douglas County’s requirement. It aimed for 0.4 acre-feet but has come in at 0.2 acre-feet. The developer expects an apartment complex will yield even less consumption, at 0.14 acre-feet per unit.
Andrea Cole, general manager of Dominion Water & Sanitation District, the water provider at Sterling Ranch, said “conservation” is not used in messaging “because it implies that it was yours to use and we are asking you to please use less.” At Sterling Ranch, she said, developers combined demand-management techniques — including higher rates for outdoor water use — with land-use planning to dial down water use.
Several Colorado jurisdictions have taken more-limited action in the past several years. In August, for example, Broomfield adopted a code limiting new turf grass to 30% of front and side yards of detached single-family homes and commercial properties. Turfgrass must primarily consist of low-water grasses. Both a city and a county, Broomfield has 77,000 people but with expectations of growing to 125,000 as land is developed.
In Edgewater, a municipality of moderately dense neighborhoods west of downtown Denver, redevelopment will be the primary target of regulations adopted in November. The regulations limit Kentucky and other cool-weather grasses to 25% of residential areas. It also has limitations in commercial and other areas similar to what is proposed in the proposed state law.
Paige Johnson, sustainability director for Edgewater, said the primary goals are saving water and creating and sustaining robust and diverse natural ecosystems.
And in Castle Rock
Castle Rock gets virtually no water from the Colorado River except for a tiny bit of reused water. It was a late bloomer among cities of metro Denver with fewer than 4,000 residents in 1980. The limited water from Plum Creek combined with wells drilled into aquifers of the underling Denver Basin were just fine.
It now has 80,000 residents but plans for 142,000 in decades ahead. In anticipation of that much larger population, it has been offering rebates of $1.50 per square foot for replacement of water-thirsty grasses with native species that use less water. Those who replace grass with concrete or artificial turf can get only $1. Both exacerbate heat-island effects of high temperatures and create more runoff problems during rains.
Castle Rock calls these less-thirsty yards “ColoradoScapes.” Such areas must have 75% vegetation to qualify.
In October 2022, after several years of outreach, Castle Rock adopted regulations that lifted the bar several notches higher. No thirsty grasses can be planted in front yards. Backyards, where families tend to gather, can have a maximum of 500 square feet. Castle Rock also banned new ornamental turf — grass that no one actually walks on — in road medians and at entrances to housing projects.
Mark Marlowe, director of Castle Rock Water, emphasizes cost in justifying the restrictions. Building water-treatment plants and distribution to meet peak demand during the hot days of summer bears a large price tag. Getting additional water from more distant places is also expensive.
Castle Rock residents today use 118 gallons per capita on average daily. “If we can get our community below 100 gallons per capita a day, we can save upward of $70 million in long-term water rights and infrastructure,” Marlowe said.
Similar to other Colorado cities, 50% of Castle Rock’s water was devoted to outdoor landscaping. That has declined to 42%. Marlowe projects it will continue to drop as Castle Rock Water has set a goal of removing 30% of the current non-functional grass turf in the municipality and replacing it with Coloradoscape by approximately 2050.
Limiting water devoted to outdoor landscaping helps Castle Rock in another way. Water applied to outdoor landscapes mostly disappears into the atmosphere, while about 90% of water used indoors gets treated. In many places in Colorado, this treated water is released into streams and rivers to satisfy those with water rights downstream.
Because it draws the water from the aquifers, Colorado water law allows Castle Rock to reuse that water repeatedly, to “extinction.” Overall, the city hopes to achieve 75% renewable water by midcentury, reserving use of the Denver Basin aquifers to droughts.
Denver has a very different situation. A century ago, when Castle Rock was a small ranch town of fewer than 500 residents, Denver already had 256,000 people. Envisioning a far larger city, civic leaders had laid plans for Colorado’s first major transmountain diversion to take water from the Fraser River via the Moffat Tunnel.
Now, the city is landlocked, able to grow upward but not outward. Water use has leveled off. The city has a strong water portfolio but wants to help residents learn how to use less water for landscaping.
“You don’t have to have wall-to-wall grass to have an inviting city,” said Denver Water’s Fisher. He cautioned against pointing fingers at those with cool-weather turf. “I do think we’re trying to slowly change how people approach their landscapes and make that connection back to water,” he said.
A golf course without water hazards
In Colorado Springs, the state’s second-largest city, overall water demand has remained relatively flat since the mid-1980s. During that time, the city’s population has nearly doubled. Most of that 40% decline in per-capita water use has occurred since 2001. Other Front Range cities similarly report substantial declines of 35% to 40%.
Colorado Springs Utilities has championed the use of native grasses in urban landscaping but also paid careful attention to the efficiency of preinstalled irrigation systems as it plans for a population of 800,000 in coming decades. It’s now at 500,000.
The city also wants to help residents maintain their yards using water-wise techniques. Between 25% and 30% have stopped irrigating their yards. That neglect “has a significant, negative impact on our collective quality of life and economic vitality,” said Colorado Springs Utility in a statement. “Our work is to reach those customers as well.”
The changing climate also poses challenges. Julia Galluci, supervisor of water conservation for Colorado Springs, said the city expects to have water resources available for outdoor watering about one day a week by 2050. “We are trying to implement the kinds of landscapes that can survive in that kind of climate and environment,” she said.
Colorado Springs has been moving slowly, only this year moving into its messaging of the more general population. “It’s not a quick fix,” said Galluci.
Of course, if the Colorado River situation deteriorates rapidly, city and state policies may accelerate. After last winter’s strong snowpack, the big reservoirs— Mead and Powell — rebounded slightly after dropping to perilously low levels. In April 2022, railroad tracks on a ledge of the canyon wall that had been abandoned upon completion of the Glen Canyon Dam re-emerged after being underwater since soon after the dam was completed in 1966. Those artifacts are underwater again, but no one knows for how long.
As for new golf courses, they may look different in the future. Aurora’s recent commitment to restrictions was triggered by a golf course approved long before. The golf course has been granted authority to move ahead after agreeing to use a grass variety that will cause it to use 250 acre-feet annually instead of the 400 acre-feet that would be needed by more conventional grass.
Developers of the golf course will tap an aquifer with a projected 50-year supply. When that aquifer goes dry, they will not seek to use city water, Other golf course developers may also want to study new hybrid species of grass. A new type of Bermuda grass, for example, uses 50% to 75% less water.
Colorado has two golf courses that use no more water than comes from the sky. One is a nine-hole municipal course at Springfield, in southeast Colorado. The other lies 100 miles east of Aurora, near Hugo. The Hugo Golf Club falls under the heading of “pasture golf.” It has 300 trees that get watered, but the fairways where bison once grazed now consist of native buffalo grass, cactus and sagebrush. For greens, it has sand. Naturally, it has no water hazards.
Of course, if the Colorado River situation deteriorates rapidly, city and state policies may accelerate. After last winter’s strong snowpack, the big reservoirs— Mead and Powell — rebounded slightly after dropping to perilously low levels. In April 2022, railroad tracks on a ledge of the canyon wall that had been abandoned upon completion of the Glen Canyon Dam re-emerged after being underwater since soon after the dam was completed in 1966. Those artifacts are underwater again, but no one knows for how long.
As for new golf courses, they may look different in the future. Aurora’s recent commitment to restrictions was triggered by a golf course approved long before. The golf course has been granted authority to move ahead after agreeing to use a grass variety that will cause it to use 250 acre-feet annually instead of the 400 acre-feet that would be needed by more conventional grass.
Developers of the golf course will tap an aquifer with a projected 50-year supply. When that aquifer goes dry, they will not seek to use city water, Other golf course developers may also want to study new hybrid species of grass. A new type of Bermuda grass, for example, uses 50% to 75% less water.
Colorado has two golf courses that use no more water than comes from the sky. One is a nine-hole municipal course at Springfield, in southeast Colorado. The other lies 100 miles east of Aurora, near Hugo. The Hugo Golf Club falls under the heading of “pasture golf.” It has 300 trees that get watered, but the fairways where bison once grazed now consist of native buffalo grass, cactus and sagebrush. For greens, it has sand. Naturally, it has no water hazards.
Mountain snow in the last week brought the total snow water equivalent at the Upper #ColoradoRiver and #SouthPlatteRiver SNOTEL sites to approximately 90% of median — @Northern_Water #snowpack #COriver
Last week, gains at the Upper Colorado sites were about 112% of normal and the South Platte sites had gains of 122%.
#Snowpack news December 6, 2023: Significant precipitation over the weekend brought most of our SNOTEL stations much closer to the median for this time of year — @Northern_Water
The total snow water equivalent at the Upper Colorado sites is on average 89% of median and the South Platte sites are at 87% of median.
First Water Flows Through #ColoradoRiver Connectivity Channel — @Northern_Water #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article on the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District website:
November 7, 2023: In what’s been described as “the largest aquatic habitat connectivity project ever undertaken in state history,” crews successfully tested the new Colorado River Connectivity Channel (CRCC) at the end of October. The new channel around Windy Gap Reservoir hydrologically and ecologically now reconnects two segments of the Colorado River for the first time in approximately 40 years.
Northern Water staff were joined by Grand County officials, Windy Gap Project Participant Representatives, Colorado Parks and Wildlife representatives and others to watch the first flows go through the long-awaited channel. This new video captures the historic day and includes comments from the project participants and stakeholders who were present to witness the occasion.
While water is now running through the new channel, there is still construction work to be done. Crews will continue putting the finishing touches on the project’s new dam embankment, diversion structure and other elements before winter weather brings activity to a stop in the upcoming weeks. Construction is expected to resume
next spring and wrap up later in 2024. Vegetation establishment along the channel will continue into 2025 and 2026, before the area is anticipated to open for public recreation in 2027.
The new channel will enable fish and other wildlife to move freely upstream and downstream around what is now a smaller Windy Gap Reservoir. Meanwhile, the reservoir will continue providing a diversion point on the Colorado River for the Windy Gap Project during the high flows of spring and early summer.
The CRCC is part of a package of environmental measures, valued at $90 million, associated with construction of Chimney Hollow Reservoir, which is ultimately where Windy Gap Project water will be stored once reservoir construction is completed.
Grand Lake will get no state help — for now — to restore its once-crystalline water — Fresh Water News
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
November 15, 2023: A state commission that sets water quality standards in Colorado is declining for now to wade into a debate over murky water in Grand Lake.
The Colorado Water Quality Control Commission will instead continue to monitor concerns about the popular tourist destination as federal and state authorities pursue solutions, the commission said at its regularly scheduled meeting Monday.
The lake is considered a prime jewel in Colorado’s scenic landscapes. Located on the western edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, it has been a tourist haven since the late 1800s.
But clarity deteriorated when the federal government began construction on the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, or C-BT, in the late 1930s.
The system gathers water from streams and rivers in Rocky Mountain National Park and Grand County, and stores it in Lake Granby and Shadow Mountain Reservoir.
From there it is eventually pumped up into Grand Lake and delivered under the Continental Divide via the Alva B. Adams Tunnel to Carter Lake and Horsetooth Reservoir on the Front Range to serve more than 1 million residents and hundreds of farms.
The pumping creates turbidity that clouds the lake during the resort area’s prime tourist season in the summer. Before the C-BT was built, the lake was clear to a depth of 9.2 meters, or roughly 30 feet. Now it is far less.
Years of studies and work group sessions have failed to produce a solution.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation plans to re-examine several options to fix the problem, including harvesting weeds and introducing aeration at Shadow Mountain, said Jeff Reiker, who manages the agency’s Eastern Colorado Area office. Reclamation owns the C-BT system, which is operated by Northern Water.
“We don’t have any major structural alternatives that have been identified as viable,” Rieker said. Some ideas considered previously involved things such as building a tunnel that would transport murky water from Shadow Mountain through Grand Lake, preventing the murkier water from mixing with Grand Lake’s.
“However, we are continuing our efforts to see if any structural alternatives need to be reconsidered. We want to focus on what can be done with our existing funding and authorities.”
The situation is complicated because it involves federal and state agencies, and any effort to redesign the massive system would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Early on locals had hoped the lake would be protected from damage caused by the project. A 1937 federal law, U.S. Senate Document 80, was approved in part to protect Grand Lake’s recreational and scenic values, and a 15-year-old state standard was designed to improve water clarity, setting a goal for clarity of 3.8 meters, or about 12.5 feet.
During the pumping process, algae and sediment from Shadow Mountain are carried into Grand Lake, clouding its formerly clear waters, causing algae blooms and weed growth, and harming recreation.
In 2008, the state water quality commission moved to set a clarity standard, but it has since been replaced with a clarity goal and the aim of achieving “the highest level of clarity attainable.”
Northern Water and others have implemented different management techniques, including changing pumping patterns, to find ways to improve water quality. In some years, Northern has been able to improve clarity, but not to historical levels.
The utility is getting better at managing clarity, meeting the 3.8-meter standard 50% of the time in recent years, up from 27% historically, said Esther Vincent, Northern Water’s manager of environmental services.
“We have made notable progress,” she said.
Grand Lake advocates did not object to the commission’s decision, but urged it to bolster efforts to improve water quality.
Despite the progress, major improvements remain elusive, said Jeff Metzger, a volunteer advocate who has been trying to solve the problem for roughly 30 years.
“There are numerous documents related to efforts to improve Grand Lake clarity,” he said. “And we have seen some improvements. But none of these agreements have moved the needle.”
During the next several months, Reclamation and Northern Water will continue leading efforts to find a fix and the commission could revisit the issue again after 2024.
At the same time, advocates hope to involve Colorado legislators in their efforts to restore the lake and plan to introduce a resolution next year asking lawmakers to endorse their efforts…
Fresh Water News is an independent, nonpartisan news initiative of Water Education Colorado. WEco is funded by multiple donors. Our editorial policy and donor list can be viewed at wateredco.org.
@Northern_Water has created a Landscape Conversion Water Savings Calculator
Click the link to go to the Northern Water website to score the calculator:
Northern Water has created a beta version of a water savings estimate calculator to assist residents of Northern Colorado to estimate how much water can be saved through landscape conversions. The Excel spreadsheet uses data from Northern Water’s weather network to estimate a given type of landscape’s water need and compare it against that of a proposed landscape to determine approximate water savings. Actual water savings will vary based on several factors including irrigation efficiency, maintenance, and weather. To request a copy of the tool, please email your request using the button below.
Check out the quick screen recording video to see how easy it is to complete the calculator tool.