Chatfield Reservoir plan delayed at least four years

Federal budget cuts, post-Katrina concerns cited

Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 21, 2007 at midnight

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A plan to store more water at Chatfield Reservoir has been delayed at least four years, bogged down by federal budget cuts and Hurricane Katrina-related dam concerns, Colorado water officials say.

The delay means that fast- growing communities such as Highlands Ranch, Castle Rock and Aurora, as well as water-strapped plains farmers, will have to wait longer to receive much-needed space to store water.

Officials had hoped that a critical federal decision on feasibility - Chatfield was built by the U.S. Corps of Engineers - would come this year, allowing them to begin storing water at the recreation area as early as next year.

Now it is likely to be 2012 or 2013 before the 20,600 acre feet of new storage is available, said Tom Browning, who is overseeing the project for the Colorado Water Conservation Board.

Water users have put $721,000 into the study effort and will pay about $100 million if the project is approved.

"It's a significant delay," Browning said.

"But there is still a tremendous amount of support for the project."

Conceived in 1999, the idea was to make the flood-control reservoir work a bit harder, shrinking slightly the amount of space needed to capture floodwaters and using it instead to store urban and agricultural water.

It was seen as a low-cost way to create storage without the environmental damage that new reservoirs can cause.

After the drought began in 2002 and water shortages began appearing along the Front Range, the project shifted into high-gear.

To date, the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the Corps of Engineers have spent $3.4 million to study the potential effects on the environment and recreation.

Originally, $2 million was expected to be spent on the studies, Browning said.

Now the tab is likely to push past the $4 million mark.

Last year, the federal money that had been earmarked to help fund the studies was cut in half.

"You never know everything up front," said Eric Laux, who is managing the project for the Corps.

"And you don't always get the appropriations that you need to keep everything on track. . . . You do the best that you can."

Browning said that after Hurricane Katrina, competition for federal dollars to conduct studies increased sharply, as did the Corps' concerns that any unexplored flood dangers be closely examined.

"I've been concerned that the process is taking so long," said Tom Cech, who represents some of the water-strapped farmers who hope to store water in the reservoir. "But the Corps has to be very diligent.

"They've never done this with a flood-control reservoir in a major metropolitan area.

"This is an innovative process, and that's been part of the problem."

Highlands Ranch has contracted for the largest amount of storage space in the project.

It, and other Douglas County communities, have pushed to find ways to store surface water supplies because the groundwater wells they have used for decades are producing less water.

"I'm very impatient with how long this is taking," said Rick McLoud, water resources manager for Centennial Water and Sanitation District, which serves Highlands Ranch.

"It's extremely important to the South Metro area because we're overly dependent on (non-renewable) groundwater.

"This is one project that we need to develop renewable surface water supplies. It's extremely valuable to us."

Others who have been working on the effort said that the delays are tolerable, given the benefits that the project will bring to metro Denver.

Those include updated recreation facilities at Chatfield and higher flows in the South Platte as it passes through Denver.

"This is a unique and rare opportunity," said Jeff Shoemaker, executive director of the Greenway Foundation, which is part of an advisory group working on the project.

Shoemaker said that the delays "are challenging news."

"But ultimately, this project is good news," he said.

smithj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5474

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