Laserfiche WebLink
<br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />alphabet soup of federal regulation meant that utilities were initially set adrift in <br />uncharted regulatory waters. The I 970s' controversy over building Foothills Treatment <br />Plant and Strontia Springs Dam signaled the end of Denver Water making decisions with <br />little public or regulatory scrutiny. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />The ink had scarcely dried on the new federal laws when the resulting regulations were <br />being tested on the proposed Foothills and Strontia projects. Federal regulators from the <br />Forest Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Land Management, and the <br />Environmental Protection Agency intervened to determine if the intended activity was to <br />be permitted and, if so, how it was to proceed. The ensuing confusion carried over to <br />state agencies with a role in the new federal legislation. The regulatory chess game <br />ended after a half dozen years with a negotiated settlement, complete with court <br />approval, in late 1978 and early 1979. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />After the protracted and costly delays, Foothills and Strontia were constructed and placed <br />on line in 1983. But the negotiated settlement also carried some interesting conditions <br />for Denver Water's future. Denver had to agree that before building any future supply <br />facilities, it would conduct a systemwide environmental impact study to evaluate general <br />system options and alternatives for future water supply and demand. Denver also had to <br />commit to implementing a water conservation program intended to reach certain targeted <br />levels over the next two decades. To determine whether the levels were reached, the EPA <br />would monitor the conservation efforts. And finally, a Citizens Advisory Committee to <br />the Denver Water Board was mandated and created to bring public involvement into <br />Denver Water policy and planning deliberations. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />All of these conditions marked a major departure from the traditional water utility <br />pattern. Denver had normally pursued the least cost structural alternative. Now it would <br />have to consider a variety of alternatives, including non-structural variables such as <br />conservation and environmental impact, before proceeding with a project. Water <br />conservation would have to become an integral part of Denver's new supply equation, <br />not just a contingency in times of drought. <br /> <br />In large measure, Denver became a water utility test case for the new regulatory <br />environment. Nowhere else had federal agencies conducted a system-wide <br />environmental impact statement. Nowhere else had the newly created EPA, with no <br />experience in water issues, taken on responsibility for ensuring that a local water utility <br />was satisfactorily implementing conservation measures. Nowhere else had federal <br />agencies so deeply and firmly involved themselves in a local water utility's future supply <br />and demand planning. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />For Denver Water, as well as for other Metro Denver area water entities, the 1980s were <br />marked by a determined effort to fit the proposed Two Forks Dam and Reservoir Project <br />into niches within the new federal regulations. The effort began in 1981 when Denver <br />approached the Army Corps of Engineers to outline a "scope of work" for the system- <br />wide environmental impact study of Denver's total water system. It continued in 1982 <br />with an agreement between Denver and 44 other Denver-area water suppliers to help <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />5 <br />