Great news — Downtown FoCo Poudre River Whitewater Park permit near the goal post!

For Immediate Release May 14, 2018 Contact: Gary Wockner, Save The Poudre, 970-218-8310 To Avoid Federal Permit, Thornton Continues to Drain the Poudre River and Proposes Massive Water Pipeline that would Wreak Havoc on NoCO Neighborhoods, Even Though "Poudre River Option" is $50 Million - $150 Million Cheaper Fort Collins, CO: Through a Colorado Open Records Act, it has been revealed that the City of Thornton has long been analyzing the "Poudre River Option" (see map here) for their Thornton Water Supply Project. That analysis indicates that the Poudre River Option could be $50 million - $150 million cheaper than a "Pipeline Option", but Thornton is almost solely choosing the Pipeline Option to avoid permitting processes, especially a federal permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The short summary presentation (posted here, dated June 3, 2014) was prepared by City of Thornton staff for the Thornton Planning Commission and the Thornton City Council back in June of 2014. The presentation contains several slides about the permitting process and the City's discussions with the Army Corps of Engineers about how to avoid the Corps permit process. The Cache la Poudre River through Fort Collins is already severely depleted, with 63% if its water drained out by farms and cities before the river reaches downtown Fort Collins. Thornton's diversion already occurs, but the amount of water -- up to 20,000 acre feet (over 6 billion gallons/year) -- proposed for the Project could be sent down the Poudre River through Fort Collins and diverted into the Thornton Pipeline downstream near Windsor, thus vitally replenishing the Poudre River through Fort Collins. In addition, the water could be sent down the river during the peak flow months of June/July/August when the water would make the river healthier for people and the environment. "Thornton has the opportunity to do the right thing. In fact, we've been talking to Thornton about this for nearly 10 years," said Gary Wockner, Director of Save The Poudre. "Running this water through Fort Collins would not only save Thornton a lot of money, it would make the river cleaner and healthier for people who recreate in the river as well as support the wetlands and riparian forest through Fort Collins." Thornton has applied for a "1041 permit" from Larimer County to run the water through a proposed massive pipeline under and along Douglas Road north of Fort Collins, through other neighborhoods north and east of Fort Collins, and down through neighborhoods near Windsor. The Larimer County Planning Commission is considering the permit on Wednesday, May 16th. If the Planning Commission approves the pipeline, the final permit authority goes to the Larimer County Commissioners at a meeting currently scheduled for July 9th. "Thornton should collaborate instead of continuing to drain the Poudre River through Fort Collins and wreaking havoc on neighborhoods," said Wockner. "Why won't Thornton collaborate? The people of Fort Collins would embrace Thornton as a good neighbor if Thornton did the right thing here." Over the last several years, Save…

For Immediate Release March 6, 2019 Contact: Gary Wockner, Save The Poudre, 970-218-8310 Dam To Nowhere? Massive Northern Colorado Dam Project Must Now Buy "100 Or More Farms" Fort Collins, CO: Last week, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (Northern Water) revealed that they would have to buy "100 or more farms" containing 25,000 acre feet of water to supply the proposed Northern Integrated Supply Project (NISP) and its huge proposed Glade Reservoir. For sixteen years, and through three iterations of federally required Environmental Impact Statements, Northern Water has claimed that farmers in Larimer and Weld County would willingly "exchange" 25,000 acre feet of water for NISP. But on Thursday, Northern Water completely changed their story, announcing that it bought its first farm, and proclaiming in the Loveland Reporter Herald: "We need to tie up 25,000 acre-feet of water however we can do it," Warner said, adding, "We're not using eminent domain or anything." To obtain the 25,000 acre-feet, he estimated it would take about a decade and 100 or more farms, depending on their size. The massive farm-buying scheme continues to reveal the highly speculative and completely unpredictable nature of the NISP, as well as the continued escalation of cost. In the first Environmental Impact Statement in 2008, NISP was estimated to cost $350 million; in the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) in 2018, NISP was estimated to cost $1.1 billion. Further, in the FEIS, NISP said the cost to buy water for their proposed alternative was "0" (zero).  Now, NISP proposes to buy 25,000 acre feet of water with an estimated cost of at least $275 million or more just to have the water to make the project feasible. As of last week, NISP announced that it had so-far bought one 28-acre farm yielding "30 acre feet of water" for $330,000, at the same time that the price of farmland and water continues to skyrocket across northern Colorado over the last decade. "Everything we said over a decade ago was correct and true," said Gary Wockner of Save The Poudre. "We said NISP was a billion-dollar boondoggle that would drain the Poudre River and require massive purchases of farm water to fill Glade Reservoir, and to a point, NISP is now well over a billion dollars, would further drain the Poudre River, and is now trying to buy 100 or more farms to fill Glade Reservoir." The new farm-buying scheme raises huge legal issues for the permits NISP needs from the Army Corps of Engineers, the State of Colorado, and Larimer County, all of which were predicated on the farmers "willingly exchanging" their water instead of NISP having to buy it. "This new scheme completely changes the permitting requirements," said Wockner. "In the coming weeks, we will be communicating with Army Corps about the necessity of a 'Supplemental EIS' that examines the new impacts of this scheme on flows in the Poudre River, the cost of the project, and the impact on northern Colorado farms and open space."…