Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Time for a TurnaroundWell, my friends, things are finally looking up, and good timing, too, since I’m sure you’re all sick of me bitching. Recent bike build, including wheels… fun! In what feels like a fairly short time, I’ve come from sitting around … Continue reading → […]
- This Raised My PulseHey, baby… wanna ride? I may be injured, but I’m not dead yet. I can still have racy thoughts. Here’s more info. In other news, UBI was an awesome success! I had a blast. I highly recommend it. Overhaul day…. … Continue reading → […]
- Time for a Turnaround
- Edgy Veggie
Opponents of Gross Reservoir expansion want Denver to conserve more water
The Gross Reservoir dam | Denver Water
Opposition to Denver’s plan to nearly triple Gross Reservoir in southwest Boulder County seems to be heating up.
To slake the thirst of its growing number of customers, Denver Water wants to raise Gross Reservoir’s dam by 125 feet, which would add 72,000 acre-feet of capacity to the reservoir’s existing 41,000 acre-feet of storage.
But for the bigger reservoir to be useful, it has to be filled with water. And that water would come from the already depleted (and, some would argue, over-appropriated) Colorado River watershed.
If the plan is approved, Denver Water would pump more water from the Fraser River — a tributary of the Colorado in Grand County — through the Moffat Tunnel and into Gross Reservoir.
At a town hall-style meeting Tuesday night in Nederland, about 40 people showed up to ask the Denver Water staffers questions. And none of them were happy, including a staff representative for Jared Polis.
U.S. Rep. Jared Polis has become “increasingly concerned” about Denver Water’s proposal to more than double the size of Gross Reservoir in southwest Boulder County.
“(Polis) is not taking a position on the Gross Reservoir expansion yet,” said Andy Schultheiss, district director for the Democratic congressman’s Boulder office. “But we’ve been studying the issue for quite some time now, and we’re increasingly concerned. … We’re going to pursue this in the next couple of weeks.” …
Schultheiss is concerned about the quality of the draft environmental impact statement prepared for the project, which he called “a piece of junk.” He also said alternatives to meeting Denver’s water demands need to be more fully explored.
The Army Corps of Engineer will decide whether to issue a permit for the project based on the impact statement.
“It seems to me that what needs to happen here is that we need to slow down and take another look at the big picture of water supply on the Front Range,” he said.
In general, people seemed to think that Denver has not done enough to conserve water, and that it should be illegal to water lawns, for example, before a plan to further drain the Colorado River is approved.
Read more about the meeting at DailyCamera.com.
