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A Milestone Reached For Northern Colorado's Windy Gap Project

Northern Water
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Used With Permission
Signing of the Windy Gap Firming Project Carriage Contract and Record of Decision. L to r Mike Applegate, President , Northern Water Board of Directors, Mike Ryan, Great Plains Regional Director, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Bill Brown, Vice-President, Mun

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has signed a record of decision and carriage contract for the Windy Gap Firming Projectaccording to the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District. The project, if constructed, would create the 90,000 acre-foot Chimney Hollow Reservoir southwest of Loveland.

The record of decision states that the proposed Chimney Hollow Reservoir siteis the preferred location for holding water transported from the Western Slope via the Colorado Big Thompson Water Project. The proposed reservoir would feed 10 municipalities across Northern Colorado including Greeley, Loveland and Fort Lupton.

Northern Water's Brian Werner said this is an important step in a long process bringing, what he calls, water stability to Northern Colorado users.

"We have two steps remaining next year [2015], we need a state water quality certification and then a wetlands permit from the Army Corps of Engineers," Werner said. "Once those steps happen we move forward with design, that's probably a year, year and a half. And then we can start going out to bid and onto construction."

Werner said a 2017 or 2018 ground breaking on the project is likely.

Project managers said the Windy Gap Firming Project could provide 26,000 acre-feet of additional yearly water to Northern Colorado cities if constructed. Currently that additional water is lost in years of high run-off since there's no place to hold it. During low run-off years, water is unavailable because the Windy Gap Project holds junior water rights.

"This makes reliable a water supply to a number of Northern Colorado communities that haven't had the reliability factor with their Windy Gap water supplies. So it gives them another comfort level in terms of future water supplies," Werner said.

"With the drought throughout the Colorado River basin and always on people's minds, this is a huge step in terms of finding and putting together a future water supply for these communities."

The federal permitting process for the project began in 2003, and the Bureau of Reclamation issued a final Environmental Impact Statement in 2011. A fish and wildlife mitigation plan was also approved at that time by the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission.

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