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<br />029D <br /> <br />Final Environmental Assessment - Board of Water Works of Pueblo <br /> <br />Jtlly"2000 <br />. I <br /> <br />CHAPTER ONE <br />Introduction <br /> <br />The Board of Water Works of Pueblo, Colorado (Board) has requested permits, contracts and <br />approvals from Reclamation to: <br /> <br />. Store up to 15,000 acre-feet per year of non-project water in Pueblo Reservoir. If and when <br />storage space is available in the flood control, joint use, and/or conservation pools when <br />project water does not occupy the space in a particular year, <br /> <br />. Connect a 84" pipe to the South Outlet Works of Pueblo Dam to convey water from Pueblo <br />Reservoir to the Board's Comanche Pump Station and a 78" pipeline from the pump <br />station to the Whitlock Water Treatment Plant. <br /> <br />. Place an 84" pipeline across Reclamation property along the alignment shown on Figure 2. <br /> <br />Following release of the draft environmental assessment (EA), Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) <br />requested Reclamation consider a request to enlarge a portion of the pipeline to accommodate <br />potential future use by CSU. This modification involves an enlargement of the upper section of <br />pipeline from 72" to 84" and an enlargement of the lower section from 66" to 78" to allow <br />development of a water delivery alternative from Pueblo Reservoir to the City of Colorado <br />Springs (Colorado Springs). The proposed enlargement would allow for the potential additional <br />capacity of 105.2 cubic feet per second (cfs). CSU indicates that the shared pipeline would <br />travel from Pueblo Dam to Pueblo Boulevard along the alignment proposed by the Board where <br />the pipelines would then bifurcate. At some undetermined future date, the CSU pipeline would <br />then travel north to intersect the Fountain Valley pipeline at Wildhorse and parallel that pipeline <br />to the south side of Colorado Springs. Future plans for the CSU pipeline involve an exchange <br />of Fountain Creek wastewater effluent upstream to Pueblo Reservoir and conveying stored and <br />native Arkansas River water through the pipeline to a proposed reservoir east of Colorado <br />Springs. A notice was distributed on May 22, 2000 seeking comment on the proposed <br />modification. Connecting to the Board's pipeline and/or conveying water though it by CSU will <br />require independent compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other <br />applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations. <br /> <br />In order to mitigate the potential increase in trench depth and width, the Board and CSU have <br />committed to reduce the depth of cover over the pipeline and to use trench supports to reduce <br />the width of the disturbed area where mature trees might be adversely affected. <br /> <br />In addition, the Board has agreed to realign a portion of the upper pipeline to avoid a vegetative <br />community used as a long-term research site by Reclamation's Technical Services Center. The <br />realignment will reduce the overall length of the pipeline and disturb grassland habitat instead of <br />the saltcedar community where the biological control research is ongoing. <br /> <br />1 <br />