Evergreen MD 2003 WCPlan

• Project Type: Water Conservation Plan
• Project Name: Evergreen Metropolitan District Water & Wastewater Water Conservation Plan
• Title: Water Conservation Plan
• Date: 5/22/2003
• County: Jefferson
• Water Conservation - Doc Type: Complete Plan

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Outside Water Use by Non-District Residents

This concerned numerous homes along upper Bear Creek that continued to use water from
shallow wells along Bear Creek to irrigate lush lawns on an everyday basis, This caused a lot of
concern in the community, which was adhering to an every third day watering schedule and / or a
complete ban on outside lawn irrigation, The District will in the future attempt to include these
non-district residences in any public awareness plans regarding the drought and water
conservation measures, possibly an open letter requesting their cooperation in future drought
responses, The District has no regulatory authority over wells in the Evergreen area, and only
the State Water Engineer has jurisdiction over these matters, '

Town of Morrison

The Town of Morrison made a public service advisory announcement asking its' water
customers to drink only bottled water, The rational for this in the Town was that Bear Creek
flows had dropped so low as to be predominately wastewater effluent at the Town of Morrison
water intake, Town officials were fearful that the Town's older water treatment plant may not be
able to treat the water to State and Federal Drinking water standards, and to be on the safe side
made an advisory announcement to the community to drink only bottled water until the stream
flow increased to above 20 cfs, Even though the Town of Morrison viewed this advisory, as
protective measure for its community from possible higher concentrations of contaminants, the
Evergreen Districts wastewater treatment facilities were well within their compliance numbers
for their NPDES discharge permits for Bear Creek wastewater treatment facilities established by
the State Health Department. In actuality during the summer of 2002, the Town of Morrison
water treatment plant was able to treat the water it received from Bear Creek to State Drinking
Water Standards,

However this situation was viewed in the Evergreen area mountain community differently, the
perception was that Evergreen was taking all of the water in Bear Creek and leaving nothing for
the downstream communities on Bear Creek, During this period, return flows to Bear Creek
from Evergreen's use of water in Evergreen Lake, especially in July and August when Bear
Creek flow stopped completely, provided a constant flow below Evergreen in Bear Creek of 1.0
cfs, The Town of Morrison's peak demand with irrigation is 0.3 cfs, which was more than met
by return flows to Bear Creek.

The Drying up of Bear Creek

The third perception was that Evergreen was responsible for drying up Bear Creek and therefore.
killing fish in Bear Creek,

This perception was widely held and espoused by local fishery enthusiasts, As flows into
Evergreen Lake diminished below what the District was diverting for it's municipal water use,
and the District enforced the outside watering ban provisions of it's Drought Responses, water
levels in Evergreen Lake continued to drop, Once informed, the Evergreen Community was
extremely successful in it's drought response water usage reductions, Specifically there was a
40% reduction in water use with Level3's mandatory every third day outdoor watering, and a
60% reduction in water use with Level 4' s total outdoor watering ban in effect. The risk will
always exist that in a drought such as 2002, that there won't be enough water flowing down Bear
Creek to meet the minimal municipal needs of the District. When this condition occurs, as was

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