El Paso County has launched an effort that will encourage smaller water providers to plan for an uncertain future.
The county is home to a patchwork of more than 20 water providers, many of them reliant on finite amounts of groundwater, said Craig Dossey, executive director of the county’s Development Services Department.
In addition to Colorado Springs Utilities, which provides water for well over half of the county’s population, residents are also served by private wells, water districts and other municipal providers in areas including Monument and Fountain.
Last week, county commissioners approved a roughly $272,000 contract with Englewood-based engineering firm Forsgren Associates, Inc., to develop a water master plan. The document, expected to be finished by the end of 2018, will map providers’ water sources and infrastructure, clear the way for water to be considered earlier in the county’s development review process and make forward-thinking recommendations, Dossey said.
As the region’s population increases, so does the demand for water, a dwindling resource in the arid high desert of Colorado’s Front Range and plains. Small, rural districts can’t rely indefinitely on overdrawn aquifers.
Nor can they afford massively expensive pipeline projects, such as Utilities’ $825 million Southern Delivery System, or to buy rights to water west of the Continental Divide, where most of the state’s supply is found.
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