Agribusiness  August 28, 2015

Northern Water ‘disappointed’ in Fort Collins staff’s opposition to NISP

BERTHOUD — The head of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District expressed disappointment Friday that Fort Collins city staff has urged the city council to oppose construction of a hotly debated water-storage project.

After reviewing the Army Corps of Engineers’ Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed Northern Integrated Supply Project, staffers from several Fort Collins city departments issued a 108-page report Thursday that detailed its technical concerns and recommended that the council vote at its regular meeting next Tuesday to express conditional opposition to building it.

The staff report cited “numerous significant and fundamental concerns with respect to NISP’s impacts to the city and the failure of the SDEIS to adequately or accurately describe all of the impacts” – including its “lack of a quantitative water-temperature model” for the Cache la Poudre River as it flows through Fort Collins.

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In a response written on behalf of NISP stakeholders, Northern Water general manager Eric Wilkinson wrote Friday that they are “disappointed in the city of Fort Collins’ staff report” pertaining to NISP and the draft impact statement, which the Corps issued in June.nisp up grade 7:13

“NISP participants have spent $12 million on the detailed SDEIS process,” he wrote. “Under the direction of the Army Corps of Engineers, several expertly qualified independent consultants have thoroughly studied all aspects of NISP as reflected by the funding provided by the NISP participants to complete those studies. Two different consultant teams have independently studied the issues surrounding water and wastewater treatment and have concluded that NISP will have little to no impact on the city of Fort Collins operations.

“As a result of these efforts,” he wrote, “we had sincerely hoped that staff would have had a more favorable opinion of those analyses and of the SDEIS as a whole.”

If approved, NISP would include construction of two reservoirs that combined could store more than 215,000 acre-feet of water, 40,000 of which would be allocated to municipal water supplies annually. Glade Reservoir, which would be larger than Horsetooth Reservoir west of Fort Collins, would be built north of the intersection of U.S. Highway 287 and Colorado Highway 14 northwest of Fort Collins and would hold up to 170,000 acre-feet of water diverted from the Poudre River. Galeton Reservoir would be built east of Ault and Eaton in Weld County and hold up to 45,000 acre-feet of South Platte River water.

About a dozen cities and towns and four water districts have signed up to buy water from the project if it wins final approval from the Corps. Supporters see the project as crucial to keeping up with the growing demands of development, industry and agriculture along the Front Range, while opponents have said it would drain water from the Poudre as it flows through Fort Collins, limiting opportunities for recreation that include tubing, whitewater kayaking and fishing.

In his statement on Friday, Wilkinson wrote that the Fort Collins city staff’s concerns will be addressed, and that Northern Water and NISP participants looked forward to working with the cities of Fort Collins and Greeley to address their concerns.

“As planned by the Corps, in addition to the river-water quality evaluation completed for the SDEIS, detailed water temperature and water quality analyses will be completed prior to the release of the final EIS,” Wilkinson wrote, adding that the project has received more than 100 endorsements from around the state, including industry and economic-development groups, newspapers and the Larimer County commissioners.

The Fort Collins City Council will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday at city hall, 200 Laporte Ave. The Corps is taking public comments on NISP and the SDEIS through Thursday, and plans to issue a final environmental impact statement next year.

BERTHOUD — The head of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District expressed disappointment Friday that Fort Collins city staff has urged the city council to oppose construction of a hotly debated water-storage project.

After reviewing the Army Corps of Engineers’ Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed Northern Integrated Supply Project, staffers from several Fort Collins city departments issued a 108-page report Thursday that detailed its technical concerns and recommended that the council vote at its regular meeting next Tuesday to express conditional opposition to building it.

The staff report cited “numerous significant and fundamental concerns with respect to NISP’s impacts…

Dallas Heltzell
With BizWest since 2012 and in Colorado since 1979, Dallas worked at the Longmont Times-Call, Colorado Springs Gazette, Denver Post and Public News Service. A Missouri native and Mizzou School of Journalism grad, Dallas started as a sports writer and outdoor columnist at the St. Charles (Mo.) Banner-News, then went to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch before fleeing the heat and humidity for the Rockies. He especially loves covering our mountain communities.
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