Thornton water pipeline plans in ‘holding pattern’ after rejection from Larimer County

FORT COLLINS — The three Larimer County commissioners voted unanimously Monday to reject the Thornton pipeline application, leaving Thornton city leaders to mull their next moves in an ongoing effort to secure water from areas north of Fort Collins.

“We are more or less in a holding pattern,” Thornton communications director Todd Barnes said Tuesday. “We heard what (the county commissioners) said last night in the hearing. Now they are going to write up their decisions and provide the reasoning behind their reasoning.”

Barnes said it would be “wise for us to wait until we have had a chance to review the written responses to our 1041 application” before committing to a specific course of action.

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While he said Thornton leaders had to devote much time to exploring the possibility of a lawsuit against Larimer County, Barnes noted “there are definitely legal avenues we can go down if we have to.”

Colorado statutes require county or municipal governments to approve 1041 applications for local projects with potential regional or statewide benefits. The purpose of the regulations are to ensure local bodies have a say in what occurs within their boundaries.  

Thornton, which decades ago bought thousands of acres of Weld County and Larimer County farmland along with the associated water rights, proposed a nearly $500-million pipeline to transport water from the north to the growing Denver suburb. Thornton leaders had hoped to start construction of the pipeline this year.

“The suggestion by some that Larimer County should simply deny Thornton’s application and force Thornton to construct elsewhere is contrary to the intent of 1041 regulations as well as the reality of limited availability of water resources in the region,” Thornton Water Project Director Mark Koleber told commissioners during Monday’s hearing, the seventh held on the pipeline issue.

While Thornton municipal officials “recognize there are committed individuals and groups who care passionately about the Poudre River,” Koleber noted that Larimer County staff recommended approval of the pipeline and determined Thornton’s proposal met the state’s 1041 application criteria.

Larimer County commissioners disagreed that the application met all of the requirements, particularly one that prohibits projects from demonstrating a “significant adverse effect” on the land or its natural resources.

Critics of the pipeline have expressed concerns about the potential for negative environmental impacts associated with construction of the pipeline as well as loss of water from the Poudre River.

“In my view, we have a tendency to look at things in isolation or within silos without due consideration to significant adverse effects on the land or its natural resources, especially if one considers the cumulative impacts,” Larimer County Commissioner John Kefalas said.

Commissioner Steve Johnson acknowledged that Thornton has the right to access water it owns the rights to, but said the opposition to the city’s proposal was too fierce to approve the pipeline as currently proposed.

“Land use decisions often times have a certain NIMBY element to them,” he said, referencing an acronym that means “not in my backyard.”

“That’s human nature; we don’t like change or disruption,” Johnson said. But, he added, the level of opposition in this case rises well beyond the scope of typical NIBYism.

“That tells me there is significant impact, an adverse effect … that I think is real,” he said.