Berthoud Parkway now open, highway to move again

As the Berthoud Parkway, a sweeping arc of concrete that will take U.S. Highway 287 out of the middle of Berthoud, nears completion, another stretch of the historic roadway adjacent to another small northern Colorado town is undergoing realignment.

Construction of Glade Reservoir, a project planned north of LaPorte by a coalition of Front Range water providers, will require the relocation of an approximately seven-mile stretch of U.S. 287.

Moving the highway has become the most visible piece of the multimillion dollar, two-reservoir project, said Brian Werner, public information officer for the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District.

“It’s a highway realignment project with a small reservoir attached,” he joked, explaining that the highway change has been the most public of the issues related to the reservoir construction.

Meanwhile, after a delay of almost two years caused in part by construction defects, a 5.2-mile, four-lane bypass that skirts Berthoud on the northwest opened to traffic July 19. Another mile-long stretch between Colorado Highway 56 and Larimer County Road 6 is still under construction.

Contractors began work on the $26.5 million project in January 2003, with a completion date originally set for fall 2004.

Long wait

The delays were due mainly to the need to repair cracking concrete.

“There were some places south of Dry Creek Bridge where we were seeing cracking in the concrete,” Colorado Transportation Department spokeswoman Mindy Crane said. The contractor was required to inject epoxy into the voids to repair the roadway, a painstaking process that added months to the schedule.

A final phase of the project will involve paving the old highway from Berthoud’s Mountain Avenue to just north of Larimer County Road 12 as well as a section south of Bert’s Corner the landmark west of Berthoud where U.S. 287 curved south to Longmont in pre-bypass days.

The paving work should be completed this fall, Crane said. “Once that’s done we will turn the roadway over to the town and it will be under their jurisdiction.”

The Berthoud Parkway, as the bypass has been dubbed by the local citizenry, will likely have long since lost its newness by the time a realigned section of the highway opens north of LaPorte. Werner said the hoped-for date for bidding construction of the realignment is currently in 2009.

Cooperative effort

Sixteen Front Range water providers have undertaken the dual reservoir project known as the Northern Integrated Supply Project. The entities involved include Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, Windsor, Berthoud, Lefthand Water District, Erie, Evans, Central Weld County, Fort Lupton, Fort Morgan, Eaton, Severance, Lafayette, Morgan County, Firestone, Frederick and Dacono. The Northern Integrated Supply Project is coordinated by the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District.

The NISP’s goal is to provide up to 40,000 acre feet of new municipal water supplies to help quench the thirst of a growing Northern Colorado population. In doing so, it seeks to provide an alternative to converting agricultural water to municipal use, according to the NCWCD.

The project features two reservoirs. While they are still in design, Glade Reservoir, north of LaPorte, will be built to hold approximately 170,000 acre feet of water and Galeton Reservoir northeast of Greeley will be built to hold 40,000 acre feet.

Pricy project

The price tag for the Northern Integrated Supply Project is currently at $350 million, Werner said.

That amount includes the costs of two reservoirs and the highway realignment, and will be divided among the water providers involved, Werner said, with money coming from a variety of sources. Some have cash from reserves, others will seek out grants, low-interest government loans or bonds.

While CDOT won’t pay to realign U.S. 287 the state agency will have the final say on where the highway is moved. Four relocation options were presented at public meetings in early 2005.

Those four have since been narrowed to two preferred alternatives, Werner said. “Either takes off roughly at the Holcim cement plant and heads north. From there, one alternative would roll northwest over the hogbacks and tie back into U.S. 287 just north of the reservoir.”

This option is roughly seven miles in length, Werner said.

The other would continue north through the Owl Canyon area and loop back to meet U.S. 287. This alternative is approximately 12 miles.

The two “surprisingly, are both fairly close in terms of cost,” Werner said, “somewhere around $38 million.”

NISP hopes for a decision on the realignment from CDOT soon, Werner said.

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