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? <br />? <br />? <br />? <br />? Forks, Denver Water worked to: <br />? <br />• 1. minimize water costs to its customers; <br />• 2. maximize system development and reliability; <br />3. keep its planning internal and proprietary; <br />? 4. minimize public involvement; <br />? 5. viewed Colorado courts as friendly forums within which to establish rights; <br />• 5. keep the federal government out of the picture. <br />? After Two Forks, Denver Water's objectives shi$ed markedly in the direction of: <br />? 1. incorporating conservation and re-use; <br />? 2. preserving existing water yields in face of new environmental regulations; <br />? 3. moving away from least cost most reliable construction and operation in order to <br />• integrate other values into its operations-especially environmental impacts and <br />public participation; <br />? 4. accepting federal involvement via NEPA, the Clean Water Act, and the ESA. <br />? <br />. For nearly 100 years, Denver Water had entertained a proposal to build a massive dam on <br />•_ the Eastern slope to store South Platte River water and flows that it had already been diverting <br />through the Roberts Tunnel. By the early 1980's, Two Forks plans had been drafted in detail and <br />? were seen as an answer to future water needs in the Denver metropolitan area. Sustainable flows <br />? could be tapped in the South Platte River above Denver and in the Blue River above Dillon. <br />? Capturing such flows would take the largest water project in the history of Colorado, one that <br />? would create a 31 mile-long reservoir covering a surface area of 7,300 acres in Cheeseman canyon <br />on the main stem of the South Platte River (MacDonnell 1985). In the end, Two Forks would <br />? promise to deliver 98,000 acre-feet per year to 41 cities and utilities in the Denver metropolitan <br />? area. <br />? However, there were problems. In addition to obvious negative environmental impacts <br />? that associate with high dams and slack waters, there would be loss of prime recreation area in a <br />? beautiful canyon and a pristine free flowing stretch of the South Platte. The large storage <br />? reservoir more than a million acre feet) was projected to annually yield less than 100,000 acre <br />• feet. In addition, the state of Nebraska joined environmentalists in opposing construction Two <br />• Forks on the grounds that the huge storage project would undercut the historic regime of the <br />river-i.e., flows in excess of Nebraska-Colorado compact minimums-and the loss of flood pulses <br />? would be damaging to listed species habitat in central Nebraska. <br />? <br />• The politics quickly became ferocious. Easdwest slope water interests became deeply <br />• mired in polarized conflict and sharp divisions emerged within these two major blocs. The Two <br />Forks project review eventually took 10 years and cost close to $40 million (Lockhead 2000). In <br />? 1989, after years of working amid intense wrangling of conflicting parties, the Army Corps of <br />+ Engineers had completed its environmental impact statement; the agency was ready to issue the <br />? key permit. The only necessary signature left to obtain was that to be anticipated from Director of <br />? the Environmental Protection Agency, then William K. Reilly, President George Bush's newly <br />appointed head. Over the objections of water interests in Colorado and his own agency's senior <br />? <br />? 32 <br />? <br />?