The Genesee Water & Sanitation District voted unanimously to move ahead with building a controversial dam in Bear Creek Canyon, choosing to ignore Jefferson County Planning Commission opposition.
As a special district, the Genesee district board has the authority under a 20-year-old state law to reverse the county’s decision after going through the site-approval process.
Designs for the 100-foot-high and 500-foot-long dam and 125-acre-foot reservoir have been submitted to the state engineer’s office. District officials said work could begin this spring.
“That’s what our constituents asked us to do,” said Stewart McNab, president of the district’s board.
Last year, Genesee voters approved an $8 million bond issue to create the district’s first water-storage facility.
On Nov. 2, the planning commission rejected the project, siding with canyon critics who said the dam between Kittredge and Idledale just north of Colorado 74 would ruin the area’s natural scenery.
Other concerns include questions about whether there was adequate review of alternative sites, the reservoir’s large size, potential for dam failure and conflict with the county’s open-space plans.
Opponents, who mostly live in the downstream communities of Evergreen, Kittredge, Idledale and Morrison, say the fight is not over, despite Tuesday night’s board vote.
“We won the last round; they won this round. And now we have to win the final and decisive round in the court of public opinion,” said Ron Riley of the group Move Genesee Dam. “The instant they voted, it stopped being a canyon vs. Genesee issue, and it became a Front Range vs. Genesee issue.”
At the heart of the dispute is a 1985 state law that requires special districts such as those that provide water, sanitation, fire or recreation to take site-approval plans such as Genesee’s through the planning process but also allows them to override the county decision.
Actions being considered by several foothills groups include a request for an injunction, a challenge to the state law, linking up with environmental and recreational groups, and what they call “political measures.”
The dam and reservoir, which McNab estimated would be finished and filled by 2007, would store water for about 1,400 households plus offices, a school, churches, restaurants and retail stores in the affluent Genesee foothills community south of Interstate 70 and north of Bear Creek.
Colorado Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, whose district includes the Jefferson County foothills, sent a letter to the board in which she offered to mediate the dispute.
The board took no action on the offer.
Staff writer Ann Schrader can be reached at 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com.
