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.

From the Daily Camera:

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.

A man makes an (illegal) jump into Gross Reservoir over the summer | DailyCamera.com

Denver is thirsty — and only getting thirstier.

By 2030, in fact, Denver will be short about 11 billion gallons of water to quench the thirst of Denver residents (and their lawns…)

So Denver is proposing a plan to pump more water from the headwaters of the Colorado River over the Continental Divide to Gross Reservoir in southwest Boulder County.  And to do that, Denver wants to almost triple the size of Gross Reservoir.

From the Daily Camera:

The draft environmental impact statement for the project, which would fill the newly enlarged reservoir with more water from tributaries of the Colorado River near Granby, was released this month.

A public hearing will be held Tuesday in Boulder to collect comments on the environmental impact statement. …

Denver Water plans to make up almost half of its projected water shortfall in 2030 with water conservation methods, which is laudable, according to Drew Peternell, director of Trout Unlimited’s Colorado Water Project.

“I think Denver deserves credit for good conservation,” he said. “But more can be done.”

Peternell said Denver Water should look at other ways to meet its growing demand — including more water-reuse projects and agriculture water-sharing arrangements — before sucking more water out of tributaries to the Colorado Rivers, including the Fraser.

Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.

A dead fish lies on the bank of Boulder Creek just west of 28th Street last month | Paul Aiken

The 263 dead fish found scattered on the banks of Boulder Creek last month were killed by a combination of high temperatures and low water flows.

Sections of Boulder Creek were just a trickle on Aug. 20 — with water flowing by the Millennium Harvest House at only 1 cubic foot per second — because of high demand by area water uses. And the high temps pulled the oxygen out of the streamflow that was left.

From today’s Daily Camera:

Carol Ellinghouse, water resources coordinator for the city of Boulder, said a natural — but dramatic — decrease of about 20 cfs was measured in Boulder Creek’s flow at Boulder Falls on Aug. 20.

She called the drop an unusual “natural phenomenon” but couldn’t say specifically what might have caused it. Officials traveled upstream of Barker Dam in Nederland to see if there had been any illegal diversions of water but found none, she said.

Ellinghouse said the state water commissioner for Boulder Creek, who controls how much water is diverted by rights holders along the waterway, was unable to react quickly enough to the sudden drop in stream flow Aug. 20 to prevent the fish kill.

“It was a very dramatic drop,” she said. “He assumed there was a larger influx of water into the river.”

Read the full story at DailyCamera.com or learn more about fish kills in Boulder after the jump.

Fish kills in Boulder Creek are not all that common since the city of Boulder donated some of its senior water rights to the creek’s in-stream flow more than a decade ago, which essentially ensures that water won’t drop below a certain level in the stream.

But in South Boulder Creek, which flows from Gross Reservoir through Eldorado State Park, fish kills are much more common — there are no effective in-stream water rights for that creek. The cities of Boulder and Lafayette, however, are working to change that as part of a negotiation to expand the reservoir. Read more about plans to protect South Boulder Creek at BigGreenBoulder.com.

Read more posts about water resources on BigGreenBoulder:

Build more dam, save more fish

Front Range thirst for Colo. River water leads to increasingly bizarre plans

Denver is planning to nearly triple the size of Gross Reservoir in southern Boulder County.

The city of Denver wants to build a bigger dam in southern Boulder County, nearly tripling the size of its reservoir.

And environmentalists have something to say about it: They want to know if Denver would mind making that dam even a little bit bigger.

It’s an odd request from a group like Trout Unlimited, which has partnered with the cities of Boulder and Lafayette to try and negotiate the bigger dam, but it actually represents a calculated effort to make the best out of a bad situation.

Denver — thirstier now than ever – is trying to push through a plan to expand Gross Reservoir by 72,000 acre feet, which would require making the current dam 125 feet taller. The water to fill the new reservoir would be pumped from the other side of the continental divide, sucking more water out of the tributaries that feed the now-not-so-mighty Colorado River.

The Colorado office of Trout Unlimited, based in Boulder, thinks this is a terrible idea, but they’ve come to accept the reality — there may be no stopping the project. But there may still be an opportunity for a small victory to be had in the Gross Reservoir expansion.

Environmentalists are asking Denver to consider adding an extra 5,000 acre feet of water to the reservoir, creating a bank of water that could be used to guarantee that South Boulder Creek, which flows from the dam at Gross Reservoir through the stunning cliffs in Eldorado Canyon State Park.

Most winters,  South Boulder Creek completely dries up as Denver draws down the water in the reservoir, causing devastating fish kills and compromising the stream’s ecological integrity.

Read more about this project in a story by Boulder Daily Camera reporter Laura Snider after the jump, or check out a story from the Denver Post that details this new trend here.

Cities, environmentalists to help South Boulder Creek

Gross Reservoir expansion could restore stream flows

Laura Snider, Daily Camera: Sunday, August 9, 2009

South Boulder Creek used to be a vibrant stream, swelling and shrinking with the sun and the snowmelt. 

Now, the stream’s flow is controlled by the dam that creates Gross Reservoir, and in the winter, it’s not uncommon to see South Boulder Creek dry up completely — and quickly — sometimes scattering the stream bed with the bodies of dead fish.

For more than a decade, water lawyers, conservationists and anglers have been wading through the complex maze of Colorado’s water rights system, trying to figure out how to restore the ecological health of South Boulder Creek, which flows through both Walker Ranch open space and Eldorado State Park.

And they may have finally found an answer, one that could make South Boulder Creek the silver lining of another river’s plight.

“It’s a stream that needs help,” said Drew Peternell, a water lawyer working on the Colorado Water Project for Trout Unlimited, a national conservation organization. “For a long time Trout Unlimited has been trying to restore flows in South Boulder Creek.”

Gross Reservoir is filled largely with water that was pulled from the Fraser River — a tributary to the Colorado — and then pumped through Moffat Tunnel to quench Denver’s thirst. As the city has grown, so has its demand for water, and now Denver has asked for permission to nearly triple the size of Gross Reservoir, pumping even more water from the Fraser.

Trout Unlimited opposes the expansion, arguing that the project would further drain the already over-taxed Colorado River. But if the project goes through — and most people expect it will — Trout Unlimited wants to see some victory for the fish.

Both Boulder and Lafayette have also joined with Trout Unlimited in the negotiations over the expansion, asking Denver Water to add another 5,000 acre-feet to the planned 72,000-acre-foot expansion of Gross Reservoir. The idea would be to release the extra water into South Boulder Creek in the winter, ensuring that the stream never dries up.

“This is something that is under serious consideration,” said David Little, Denver Water’s director of planning. “But as you might imagine, money is an issue.”

Adding the extra volume in the reservoir could cost about $8 million, and while Denver, Boulder and Lafayette have all said they’re willing to throw some money into the pot, Denver Water is still looking at a shortfall.

“We’re all very excited about the possibility,” Little said. “We hope that this money thing doesn’t get in the way.”

Denver Water expects to release a draft environmental impact statement on the Gross Reservoir expansion this fall, when the public will be invited to comment on the project.