Organizing for Endangered and Threatened Species Habitat Draft

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2. focused on expansion needed to sustain future urban and industrial growth; 3. historically discharged, used repeatedly, and returned to streams in the South Platte basin making the river flows greater and more steady than pre-settlement flows. The greater Denver area has grown rapidly since World War II, but beginning in the 1970's the cities of the Front Range-from Ft. Collins on the North to Loveland, Longmont, Boulder, to Colorado Springs and Pueblo on the South-experienced extraordinary growth that clustered in dozens of towns and cities strung like beads on and near the north-south Interstate 25 string. The front range has become the heart of the ski/outdoor "mountain-chic" lifestyle so attractive to the high-technology personnel. But, to serve the burgeoning demand, there are only a few water supply options available to the population centers as they competitively seek to expand their respective tax bases by attracting the next "big box" retail outlet, and post-industrial information intensive enterprise: 1. further dry up agriculture to move water to lawns, gardens, fountains, golf courses; 2. seek additional or enlarged transmountain water diversions; 3. water conservation and re-use; 4. deplete aquifers, especially largely non-renewable Denver basin supplies. The greater Denver metropolitan area has added about 510,000 residents during the 1990's, and it is projected to add another 1 million to its 2.3 million population by 2020 (Brown 1997). Flows vary widely on the South Platte reach by reach and between diversions, due to differences in land and water use. Upstream from Denver, the South Platte is regulated by large water supply/flood control reservoirs. Near Denver, most of the South Platte flow is diverted to city pipelines and returns to the river via wastewater treatment facilities. These municipal and industrial returns are supplemented by northern Colorado river tributary flows as the South Platte wends its way northeast to exit the state near Julesberg, Colorado, beyond which it flows into western Nebraska. Colorado Nexus: Denver Water The Denver Board of Water Commissioners (Denver Water), historically, did not rely on federal funding to capture and deliver its water supply. As a young city, Denver used its resources to purchase land, litigate rights, and develop the Moffat and Roberts Tunnel collection systems that brought to the city and its suburbs west slope water captured in several reservoirs including its jewel, the Dillon Reservoir. By the 1960's, Denver considered itself as the premier water provider of the greater Denver metropolitan area (Cox 1967) (Lockhead 2000). Denver Water had become a large bureaucracy operating 31 pumping stations, 32 storage reservoirs, several water treatment plants, and a billion dollar capital expenditure program (Gottlieb 1982). By the early 1970's, Denver was no longer untouched by federal environmental law. By the time the Foothills water treatment plant was proposed, many environmental laws were in place, and a strong opposition to the project emerged from the Environmental Protection Agency and environmentalists. As Denver Water proceeded with its plans for Foothills and the Strontia Springs Dam, it had to confront the uncomfortable realities presented by the federal Clean Water 20