Northern water district eyes Yampa diversion

BERTHOUD – Even though its Northern Integrated Supply Project is out on the table and awaiting federal review and public scrutiny, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District is not letting other possible water supply alternatives go unexamined.

Late last month, the District released a report on a potential project that could yield more than 300,000 acre-feet of water by diverting it from the Yampa River on the state’s Western Slope. That amount would bring a staggering new supply to the ever-thirsty Front Range.

“We’re hopeful it would take us well beyond 2030 – probably to 2050 – taking care of perhaps most of the Front Range’s future needs,´ said Carl Brouwer, District engineer.

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“That’s a big chunk of water – another Poudre River,” added District spokesman Brian Werner.

Last summer, the District’s board of directors commissioned consulting firm Black and Veatch to conduct a multi-basin investigation into ways to minimize the dry-up of farmland in northeastern Colorado. A 2003 study by the state, called the Statewide Water Supply Initiative, projected that the South Platte River Basin will need another 400,000 acre-feet of water for municipal and industrial uses by 2030 and that between 133,000 and 226,000 acres of farmland could dry up by the same year if new water supplies aren’t delivered.

Some Denver area water users are already scrambling to find new water supplies. The city of Aurora’s $850 million Prairie Waters Project aims to draw at least 10,000 acre-feet out of the South Platte River each year and pipe it 34 miles south to the city. The project would increase the city’s water supply by 20 percent beginning in 2010 by developing existing water rights it owns on the river.

East Cherry Creek Valley Water and Sanitation District last summer began drawing water out of the South Platte after building a 31-mile pipeline and buying water rights from Weld and Adams county irrigation companies and sanitation districts.

Other metro Denver communities are looking for water to supply their swelling populations, further exacerbating an already difficult situation for local agriculture. Last spring, 440 South Platte basin wells in Weld, Adams and Morgan counties were ordered shut down because well owners with junior water rights couldn’t show they could repay the water they were taking from cities and other entities with senior rights.

Project parameters

In a nutshell, the Yampa project would:

• Require a diversion structure and pumping station to convey Yampa River water to a new West Slope raw water storage reservoir that would be located just north of Maybell,

• Allow diversion only when a minimum flow of 1,000 cubic-feet-per-second can be maintained downstream,

• Require three pumping stations along its delivery route,

• Require between 46 and 67 miles of tunnels, depending on the selected route,

• Require 198 to 222 miles of pipe,

• Provide about 115 megawatts of hydro power,

• Store 575,000 acre-feet,

• Cost about $4 billion,

• Be operational by Summer 2023.

District officials are quick to point out that the proposal would divert only about 20 percent of the Yampa River water now flowing out of the state, leaving existing recreation and other uses unharmed.

They also insist they are not planning to take the lead on a Yampa diversion project and are just trying to get more ideas on the table to provide water the Front Range needs now and in the future.

“The District is committed to searching for ways to prevent more and more farms from being dried up while at the same time providing benefits for the state as a whole,´ said Eric Wilkinson, the District’s general manager. “We believe this study shows real promise and the project definitely warrants further consideration.”