Cherry Creek Valley Risk Assessment Applic

Home Browse Search

. . GRANT APPLICATION - PART 2 Cherry Creek Valley Water & Sanitation District Generally, the concern expressed by planners is that water "developed" from water efficiency is unreliable and risky. For example, water supplies are subject to hydrologic risks that, historically, have been handled by designing water systems that are capable of meeting demands during a specified drought scenario. Water conservation on the other hand is deemed risky as its on-going yield is often related to human factors. The reliability of water conservation programs is often questioned because of comments such as: "low flow faucets and shower heads will be changed", "Xeriscape will be replaced with grass" and "homeowners will override water sensors". For water efficiency measures to be integrated into water supply planning, more information is needed regarding reliability and risk associated with its various measures. Like other water sources, a determination needs to be made as to what is the "proper" level of water supply reliability for water conservation. In this regard, Denver Water is offering its distributors money for water saved. The key element for determining the amount of water saved is the "reliability" of the conservation savings. As Denver Water has explained, water provider will need to demonstrate that the water conserved is water which is available during times of drought. Clearly, like surface water rights, the more reliable the water supply the higher the cost. Similarly, what is the impact of reliability from water efficiency measures? Does the cost compare favorably with other "reliable sources"? CCV's WRRAP study will be attuned to these questions and will address them so that information developed in this study can be used to obtain credit for the Wabash Reservoir Complex under Denver Water's conserved water criteria. Coordination Plan CCV will be the project sponsor for the WRRAP project. The District has, however, been promoting interagency cooperation through the Wabash Reservoir Complex Project with other stakeholders such as water users in the lower Cherry Creek, the Platte River Greenway Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Denver Regional Council of Governments, Arapahoe County, and the Colorado Water Education Foundation. Stakeholders in Cherry Creek have been working for the past three years through the Lower Cherry Creek (LCe) Management Group to address water management issues (e.g., quantity, quality, and water conservation) in the LCC basin. Cherry Creek Valley has retained the Greenway Foundation to organize the stakeholders in Cherry Creek to provide input into the design of the outdoor lab, and work with Cherry Creek Valley in the gathering and analysis of data. The District has recently been awarded a water quality investigation grant by the DRCOG and the EPA for evaluating alternative urban runoff water quality improvement technologies at the 6