C150396 Increase Approval Letter

Home Browse Search

Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District Agenda Item 28b November 19-20,2014 Board Meeting(Updated November 21, 2014) Page 2 of 5 Background The District, in partnership with the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), operates and maintains the Colorado-Big Thompson (C-BT) Project facilities including 700 miles of transmission lines, 95 miles of canals, 35 miles of tunnels, seven hydropower plants, and 12 reservoirs including Granby Dam and Reservoir. On average, the C-BT Project collects and delivers more than 210,000 acre feet (AF) of water annually. Most of the water is collected in the upper Colorado River basin, west of the Continental Divide. Water is delivered to the East Slope via a 13-mile tunnel beneath Rocky Mountain National Park. Northern Water's service area includes 640,000 acres of irrigated farm land and 860,000 people located in portions of Boulder, Broomfield, Larimer, Weld, Morgan, Washington, Logan and Sedgwick counties. The District is planning on adding an additional hydropower plant to the system by constructing a plant at the base of Granby Dam in Grand County. Lake Granby, located five miles northeast of the Town of Granby, is the largest storage reservoir in the C-BT Project. It was constructed between 1942 and 1949 and has a capacity of 539,758 AF. The Colorado River flows from Shadow Mountain Reservoir into Lake Granby and exits the lake at Granby Dam. The Granby Dam is a 225-foot earthfill dam. The outlet consists of a pressurized tunnel leading to a gate chamber that regulates discharges into a non- pressurized tunnel. The non-pressurized tunnel discharges to the Colorado River downstream of the dam. The C-BT Project has minimum streamflow obligations below Lake Granby ranging from 20 cubic feet per second (cfs) during the winter to 75 cfs during the summer. During times when Lake Granby is near maximum water surface levels, the valves can release up to 440 cfs. The District proposes to install a hydropower station that will use the minimum streamflow obligations and a portion of additional releases to generate power through a 1.2-megawatt facility. The proposed Project will utilize the existing outlet flows from Granby Dam to the Colorado River and will act as a run-of-river plant, meaning the plant operations will not change existing flows or dam releases. Project and Permitting Update The Project is being performed under Reclamation's Lease of Power Privilege (LOPP) process that allows for the development of new hydropower at existing Reclamation facilities. The process is similar to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission process but is administered by Reclamation. A preliminary LOPP was granted by Reclamation in September 2011. The environmental permitting process is presently underway and is led by Reclamation. Reclamation will grant a Categorical Exclusion for the Project since the area was previously disturbed, is not changing project operations, and is not changing the water release location back to the Colorado River. The Categorical Exclusion and the LOPP from Reclamation is anticipated by the end of 2014. The 30-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Mountain Parks Electric, Inc. is expected by the end of 2014. TABLE 1: PROJECT COST Design Engineering $ 530,000 Project Management (District) $200,000 Construction Management Engineering $30,000 Mountain Parks Electric Interconnection $340,000 Construction $ 3,938,000 LOPP Review $55,000 Contingency $ 576,340 TOTAL PROJECT COST $5,669,340 Design and Schedule: Final engineering is nearly complete. The turbine equipment will be ordered by the end of 2014 pending funding approval. Construction will occur in the summer/fall of 2015 and the plant is expected to be operational by May 2016.