PROJ01997

• Contract/PO #: FS0065FX
• Contractor Name: Greeley and Loveland Irrigation Company
• Contract Type: Loan
• Water District: 0
• County: Larimer
• Loan Projects - Doc Type: Feasibility Study

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project constructed in New bike trail and
one year open space

Utilizes lands
available to the town

Reduced Town effort
for floodplain
management

Using the benefits and costs outlined above, a benefit-cost ratio was determined for each of the
alternatives. Reported below are the B-C ratios for each alternative. A B-C ratio of greater than
one means that the project benefits are greater that the project costs.

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

Alternative One - No Action.... ...... ........ ..... ......... ........ ...... ......... ....... ........ ....Zero *
Alternative Two - Diversion to Boxelder Creek................................................. 1.2
Alternative Three - Diversion to Wmdsor Canal (open channel option).............. 1.8
(pipe option) ........................... 1.4
Alternative Four - Reduced Flow Through Town ..............................................1.5
Preferred Alternative Five - Undetained Diversion to Boxelder Creek................ 2.2

* B-C ratio is zero because no benefits are defined.

The table above shows that the Preferred Alternative Five provides more benefit over the life of
the project than the other alternatives. This is due largely to the facts that the preferred alternative
is the longest project, in linear feet, and thus protects the most land. Furthermore, the Preferred
Alternative provides the most length of channel improvements, enhanced wetlands, bike trail and
open-space.

NON-QUANTIFIABLE BENEFITS

Projects of this scope commonly have non-quantifiable or difficult to quantifY project benefits.
These items are generally related to quality of life issues such as aesthetics, wildlife habitat and
open-space, etc. Listed on the Table below are the non-quantifiable benefits that were considered
during the analysis for this study.

A committee of Town staff, residents and members of the design team were asked to fill-in a
blank form of the project attributes and design alternatives. The list was ranked for each
alternative on a decision matrix, by each of the participants. The summary decision matrix follows
showing the average decision made for each non-quantifiable benefit.

The figures shown on the summary decision matrix show that the Undetained Diversion to
Boxelder Creek Diversion ranks favorably when compared to the other structural alternatives.
This demonstrates that leveling the playing field by considering other project attributes along with
cost can identifY a more suitable project than just considering cost alone. Furthermore,
considering the other non-quantifiable benefits has developed more community acceptance of the
preferred alternative.

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