![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/04\/Henderson1-1024x684.jpg\")
Lindsay Fendt\/Aspen Journalism<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
The group used a $350,000 grant from the Colorado Water Conservation
\nBoard and the South Platte Basin and Metro Basin roundtables to complete the
\nyear-long study, which was released in March. The group members hope the
\nproject could help close a water-supply gap of as much as 540,000 acre-feet
\nthat the state is projecting for the South Platte River basin by 2050.<\/p>\n
Since the 1930s, Front Range water planners have looked west
\nto bolster their water supplies. An elaborate series of reservoirs, underground
\ntunnels and pipelines now conveys about 400,000 acre-feet of water annually
\nfrom the Colorado River headwaters to the South Platte basin.<\/p>\n
Water is diverted from the Colorado, Fraser, Blue, Eagle,
\nFryingpan and Roaring Fork rivers in Grand, Summit, Eagle and Pitkin counties
\nand sent under the Continental Divide to the South Platte basin.<\/p>\n
Large projects on the South Platte were previously written
\noff due to the high costs of water treatment, but as the cost and controversy
\nsurrounding transmountain diversions have grown, a project such as SPROWG \u2014
\nwhich would have seemed expensive decades ago \u2014 is now on par with most other
\nsupplies of water. Depending on which concept configuration is used and whether
\nthe water will need to be treated, building the project would cost between $1.2
\nbillion and $3.4 billion to build.<\/p>\n
Each of SPROWG\u2019s storage concepts would capture stormwater
\nand native South Platte water during wet years. While the project would not be
\nused to store water from existing or future transmountain diversions, it would
\ncapture water from the Colorado River that made its way back to the river as a
\nreturn flow after being used elsewhere within the basin. <\/p>\n
“SPROWG
\nis not intended to store supplies from an existing
\nor new transmountain diversion project (though it will provide a means to utilize unused reusable
\nreturn flows from transmountain diversions),\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
Once
\nwater is transferred over the mountains to the Front Range, it can legally be
\nused to extinction, meaning that it can return to the river as runoff, be
\nrecaptured and be used again perpetually. By decree, certain volumes of
\nColorado River water can only be reused within a certain area, something the
\nSPROWG project would need to ensure. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf
\nthey are going to take the water in the first place, they should make sure they
\nare reusing that water to the full extent possible,\u201d said
\nAndy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation
\nDistrict, which was formed in 1937 to protect Western Slope water.<\/p>\n
Although the SPROWG project does not require more water from
\nthe Western Slope, it is not considered a replacement supply for any of the
\nexisting water that the region takes from the Colorado River system. Despite the continued need of existing transmountain
\ndiversions, Mueller sees the project as an acknowledgement by at least some on
\nthe Front Range that the Colorado River is no longer a feasible option for
\nfuture water supplies. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think there are a number of operators of Front Range
\nsystems that recognize that the Colorado River system has hit its limit,\u201d he
\nsaid. <\/p>\n
While Western Slope water managers interviewed for this story were all generally supportive of the project, the Colorado Basin Roundtable, which represents different water districts and users within the basin, has not yet taken a formal opinion on it. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/04\/IrrigationDitch-1024x684.jpg\")
Lindsay Fendt\/Aspen Journalism<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Conceptual project <\/strong><\/p>\n The concepts outlined in the report are still far from a \u201cIt just seems like something that we need to do, organizing The report analyzed four possible storage and pipeline Three of the four project alternatives include an The idea to design a basinwide water project came from That study found that the state was sending an average of The SPROWG project would be designed to capture some of this water while remaining within the confines of the compact. The report suggested that water could be reused rather than the basin continuing to rely on either Western Slope or agricultural water.<\/p>\n In recent decades, agriculture along the South Platte has \u201cThis is probably the only other option on the table,\u201d said The report also shows that the cost of the water from the Whether or not cities will need additional South Platte Even if the SPROWG concept were built, it would need to work The recovery program, which secured additional water and Aspen Journalism is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization covering water and rivers in collaboration with Swift Communications newspapers. For more, go to aspenjournalism.org.<\/em><\/p>\n DENVER \u2014 A multibillion-dollar reservoir and pipeline project may one day pull more than 50,000 acre-feet of water per year from the South Platte River before it reaches Nebraska. That\u2019s more than 16 million gallons of water, enough to fill 25,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The possible project is laid out in a new report from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-13 03:43:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KIFT - The LIFT FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nfully formed project, as no steps have been taken toward permitting, acquiring
\nland or even identifying a user for the water. But SPROWG members hope that the
\nanalysis could be the first step toward a basinwide water project, a
\ncooperative effort not typical of other large water projects. <\/p>\n
\nthe basin and helping the basin function as efficiently as possible,\u201d said Matt
\nLindburg, SPROWG\u2019s senior engineering consultant. \u201cIt will definitely be a
\nproject and concept that folks want to pursue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nconfigurations that would collect agricultural water returned to the lower
\nSouth Platte as runoff from the region\u2019s farms, and then pump it back to the
\nDenver metro area.<\/p>\n
\napproximately 80-mile pump-and-pipeline system that would move water from a
\nreservoir in Balzac, northeast of Denver, uphill to the metro area. The pipeline
\nwould allow the metro area to reuse some water that it already returned to the
\nriver as runoff or through water-treatment plants. The conceptual reservoirs
\ncould store between 220,000 and 409,000 acre-feet of water.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nconclusions in the South Platte Storage Study, a 2018 analysis of basin-water
\nsupplies that was funded by the Colorado legislature. <\/p>\n
\n293,000 acre-feet more water down the South Platte and into Nebraska than what
\nis required by the South Platte River Compact, an agreement between the two
\nstates that governs how much water Colorado is able to take from the river. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/04\/South-Platte-I-25-1024x684.jpg\")
Lindsay Fendt\/Aspen Journalism<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\nbeen the other main source of water for growing municipalities. Municipal
\ngovernments buy out farms with senior water rights and dry up the fields,
\nsending the water to the cities. <\/p>\n
\nJoe Frank, general manager of the Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District.
\n\u201cWe want to do as much as we can to minimize the pressure on those other
\nsources of water.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nprojects would be consistent with other projects in the region \u2014 between
\n$18,400 and $22,600 per acre-foot for untreated water and between $33,600 and
\n$43,200 for treated water.<\/p>\n
\nwater in the future, some of it is already spoken for. In March, 600,000 cranes
\n\u2014 80% of the world population \u2014 will visit an 80-mile stretch of the mainstem
\nof the Platte River in Nebraska, where the birds fatten up on grain before a
\nlong migration north. Water flowing in the river makes this spectacle possible.\n<\/p>\n
\nwithin the confines of the Platte River Recovery Program, which was created to
\nhelp protect these cranes and other endangered species on the river. <\/p>\n
\nland for habitat, has led to a dramatic increase in the population of
\nendangered birds during migration season in Nebraska. SPROWG\u2019s designers say
\nthey would work within the program, timing reservoir releases and saving water
\nfor specific ecological needs, but the report does not include a full
\nenvironmental analysis.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/04\/AJ-Final-Logo-copy.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n