An agreement to provide additional water to northeast Colorado is near completion, with just two issues that have to be addressed.
Peter Fleming, the general counsel to the Colorado River District, said the intergovernmental agreement for the Windy Gap Firming Project was in its final form with two “preconditions” to be met.
The Windy Gap project, in Grand County, would provide additional water from the Colorado River to the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District for 10 cities and two water districts.
One precondition for the river district’s execution of the agreement is that the federal government makes a satisfactory finding that the project can be operated with no impact to other beneficiaries of Colorado River water — including Western Slope beneficiaries of the Colorado Big Thompson Project.
The second condition is that the federal government adopts an enforceable provision recognizing that if the river district does not challenge the Windy Gap project permitting decision, it does not waive any legal rights regarding federal decisions involving the same or similar legal issues.
The project has to be approved and permitted by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Fleming said he anticipates the conditions will be satisfied in the context of the bureau’s final record of decision on the project, which is expected in the first part of 2014.
