LOVELAND, Colo.—As rain drizzled outside, about 300 business leaders and politicians rallied indoors Thursday to support a plan to build two reservoirs in northern Colorado.
A selection of mayors, state lawmakers and U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., told supporters at The Ranch in Loveland that the project would help the region’s economy and shield farmers’ irrigation supplies as demand for drinking water grows, especially during droughts.
The event had been billed as a barbecue, but it was raining, chilly and gray outside. “People in the water community look outside and say this is beautiful weather,” said Eric Wilkinson general manager of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District.
The district is coordinating the Northern Integrated Supply Project, which would build the Glade Reservoir northwest of Fort Collins and the Galeton Reservoir north of Greeley to serve 15 entities, from the Fort Collins-Loveland Water District to Lafayette to Morgan County.
Glade Reservoir would store up to 170,000 acre-feet of water diverted from the Cache la Poudre River. It would require about seven miles of U.S. 287 between Fort Collins and the Wyoming border to be relocated.
Galeton Reservoir would hold up to 40,000 acre-feet of diversions from the South Platte River to be exchanged with Poudre River water from two irrigation companies.
An acre-foot can serve roughly two households for a year.
The city of Fort Collins is among those that have expressed concerns with the project over the years, and the group Save the Poudre: Poudre Waterkeeper contends it would drain too much of the river. It proposes an alternative that relies heavily on water conservation and a proposal to pay farmers to fallow land on a rotating basis when needed and lease their water to cities.
Third-generation farmer Artie Elmquist of the Frederick area said he supports the project, though, and is most concerned with the time it will take to get it approved. Recent rains have made it difficult to plant corn, but that could easily change, he said. “All of us lived through the 2002 drought and remember planting in the dust, not knowing what you would have come harvest,” he said.
The 15 water project participants have paid about $10 million so far on trying to get a federal permit for it and for related studies. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to release a supplemental draft environmental impact statement on the project this year, with a final decision expected in 2012, Wilkinson said.
Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District spokesman Brian Werner estimated the rally, which included free lunch, cost around $1,500.
