EPA concerns threaten Glade water project

One of the biggest water supply-and-storage proposals in Northern Colorado history ended the year still moving toward reality, but staggering after a significant blow by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which threatened a possible veto of the plan.

The Northern Integrated Supply Project – which the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District began planning more than five years ago to ensure water for growing Northern Colorado communities – has been proceeding slowly toward earning a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin construction.

In April 2008, the Corps finally released a draft Environmental Impact Statement and opened a period of public comment that extended into September. Local environmental groups who have strongly condemned the project were not impressed with the EIS, saying it again showed how the proposal would further drain an already degraded Poudre River, threaten Fort Collins’ downtown economy and future plans for development along the river and bathe in debt the communities that have pledged to buy NISP water.

But perhaps the most serious objections to the draft EIS were raised by the EPA, which fired off two letters to the Corps of Engineers in September and October expressing concerns about many aspects of the document. The EPA’s acting regional administrator, Carol Rushin, said the draft EIS “does not adequately address the project’s potential to exacerbate water quality impairments to the Poudre and South Platte Rivers.”

NISP also proposes diverting water from the South Platte into a smaller proposed reservoir near Galeton northeast of Greeley.

Rushin noted that segments of both rivers were already impaired, with excessive levels of pH, copper, selenium and E. coli – in Poudre’s case – and excessive levels of selenium in the South Platte.

Rushin’s Oct. 16 letter to the Corps said the project’s “impacts of greatest concern to the EPA include the potential for adverse changes to water quality, channel form and function, aquatic life and riparian wetland communities following the removal of medium and high spring flow events and reduced summer baseflows.”

If the Corps of Engineers fails to resolve the concerns raised by the EPA, Rushin said the agency “may further consider its next steps for review of this project,” which could include a veto.

Concerns will be resolved

Chandler Peter, who has led the drafting of the EIS for the Corps of Engineers, acknowledged that the EPA could veto the project but said all of the concerns raised by the agency will be addressed.

“We’re working with the EPA to clarify their comments and address the issues they’ve raised,” Peter said, promising a response by late December or early January.

Carl Brouwer, NISP project manager for the water district, said a total of $6 million has been set aside to do the analysis necessary to secure a favorable Corps of Engineers final EIS and permit and said anything raised by the EPA could be resolved.

Brouwer said many of the EPA concerns have already been addressed in studies conducted by the district’s environmental consultant, Denver-based ERO Resources.

“We feel confident that every one of the issues we will be able to address,” he said. “It’s just helping people understand a little bit more.”

Brouwer said the water district is still hoping to get a permit from the Corps of Engineers in 2009 and to start the groundwork for the project in 2012 and complete it by 2016.

“Obviously, the more (preliminary) work we have to do, the longer it takes,” he said. “It’s the agency review that can take a very long time. I want to get to the fun part of the project, which is actually moving it forward.”

But project opponents say having a federal agency like the EPA expressing strong concerns about the project’s draft EIS might make that less of a certainty.

“It was tremendously gratifying to see the EPA weigh in on the same issues we and many others have voiced since NISP-Glade was first proposed,´ said Mark Easter, chair of the Save the Poudre Coalition. “Every sector of the community and government in Northern Colorado has now weighed in from the local to the national level – environmental groups, community groups, businesses, local government, state government and now the federal government.

“Almost nobody up here wants this project,” he added. “The NISP ship is sinking fast.”

However, a poll commissioned by the water district and conducted by Denver-based Ciruli Associates in August found 63 percent of Larimer County respondents and 81 percent of Weld County respondents supported the project.

The poll’s results, released Sept. 12, were based on random samples of 500 Larimer and 300 Weld county registered voters, according to the water district.

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