Colorado Water Plan Prepares To Drain Front Range Rivers?

For Immediate Release
April 23, 2018
Contact: Gary Wockner, Save The Colorado/Save The Poudre, 970-218-8310

Colorado Water Plan Prepares To Drain Northern Front Range Rivers?

Front Range, CO: Today, Save The Colorado is sounding a statewide alarm about an apparent effort by the Colorado Water Conservation Board to launch a large-scale “Water Development” strategy to identify to new dam and diversion projects on Front Range rivers. The CWCB sent out an email at 1:59pm on Friday April 20, 2018, announcing “workshops” aimed at “Water providers and stakeholders in the South Platte River basin interested in a regional water management and storage project.” The email, with flyer (posted here), goes on to say that the “South Platte/Metro Basin Implementation Plan” says the “projects will need to be developed.” The workshops, both in May, are scheduled at the state’s two biggest water agencies — Denver Water and the Northern Water.

The “implementation plans” were developed during the “Colorado Water Plan” process, with the South Platte/Metro Basin Roundtable being the center of extreme controversy around the state. The Roundtable and its Implementation Plan identified a spider’s web of dam and pipeline projects, diverting water from rivers all over the state and sending that water to the Denver/Northern Colorado metroplex. This new Front Range “Water Development” strategy seems to be the first salvo in the next wave of dam proposals.

“The Colorado Water Plan was extremely controversial and too heavily focused on draining and destroying rivers, not protecting and restoring them,” said Gary Wockner of Save The Colorado and Save The Poudre. “We will continue our vigilance as this process moves forward and we will fight to protect the rivers across the state.”

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