Water district sues Bu-Rec for unpaid ‘carriage’ fee

BERTHOUD – The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District is suing the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for allegedly not sharing payments for water carried through pipelines and reservoirs that are part of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project.

The lawsuit, filed in Denver federal court, claims the Bureau is obligated to pay the District “carriage revenues” it collected from Loveland and Berthoud for non-project water carried through District-owned C-BT facilities.

Under the original 1938 C-BT Project contract, the District alleges, a portion of the payments by Loveland and Berthoud paid to the Bureau were to be forwarded to the District after the original contract was fulfilled. The contract was fulfilled in 2002, but NCWCD spokesman Brian Werner said the District has never received any money from the Bureau.

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“Once the (1938) contract was repaid, we should be receiving a portion of those revenues – and we haven’t,” he said.

Kara Lamb, a spokeswoman for the Bureau, said she could not comment on the suit.

“There’s nothing I can say at this time because of the pending litigation,” she said, adding that the Bureau had not yet received an official notification of the court filing.

District board acts

Werner said the lawsuit was “something we’ve been talking about for a while” and the NCWCD board of directors decided to seek a court ruling on the matter.

“The statute of limitations was coming up and the board decided to go forward with it,” he said.

In the lawsuit, the District claims it is owed “in excess of $10,000” and likely much more.

“Upon information and belief, the Northern District estimates that the money damages due it are in excess of $100,000,” the suit states. “The Northern District is not able to calculate with certainty the exact amount due it under the 1938 Repayment Contract because the required records and data are within the control of Reclamation and not within the possession of the Northern District.”

Werner said one of the District’s claims for relief in the lawsuit is to get access to Bureau of Reclamation records to determine exactly how much is owed.

“We don’t have any way of accounting for it,” he said. “We’re sort of grasping at air for that ($100,000).”

Article 22 at issue

The lawsuit states that Article 22 of the 1938 repayment contract calls for all non-project water storing and carrying income be used to pay off the construction project. Once the project was paid off in 2002, the non-project payments were to be divided equally between the District and the Bureau.

However, in contracts negotiated with Loveland in 2001 and Berthoud on March 23 of this year, the suit states, the Bureau has refused to honor that part of the 1938 contract.

In the case of Loveland, a charge of $8.08 per acre-foot was levied for water stored and conveyed through C-BT facilities. In the case of Berthoud, the charge was $29.82 per acre-foot.

The suit says both Loveland and Berthoud have made their water conveyance payments to the Bureau, but that the Bureau has refused to pay the money due to NCWCD under Article 22.

Werner said the District is also asking the court to make sure the Bureau honors future carriage contracts, in particular when the current Windy Gap contract expires in 2025.

“It’s sort of a principle because we know there will be more of these (contracts) in the future,” he said.