BOARD00597

• Board Meeting Date: 3/29/1999
• Description: South Platte Conjunctive Use Project - Overview of Project Status
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

South Park Conjunctive Use Project

'Community Bulletin
Fall 1998

SPCUP Studies Complete

(Editor's Note: This article is a brief technical overview of several reports recently co"!pleted on the South Park Co~-
junctive Use Project, If you would like to read the reports in their entirety, they are available at the Falrplay and Bai-
ley libraries or by calling Mike McHugh, Project Manager, at [phone].)

About the South Park Conjunctive Use Project

The City of Aurora has completed several engineering
and modeling reports on the South Park Conjunctive Use
Project (SPCUP), These reports were required to sup-
port the applications for water rights pending in District
I Water Court, The various studies demonstrated that the
project is technically and economically feasible, and that
the project can be constructed in a reasonable amount of
time,

The SPCUP is designed as a sustainable source of raw
water for Aurora, The project concept is to divert sur-
face water, in priority, from a series of streams in the
Tarryall Basin and deliver it to recharge areas where the
water will percolate into the South Park Aquifers, The
South Park Aquifers contain approximately 16 million
acre-feet of water, one million acre-feet of which under-
lie the Sportsmen's Ranch, As a comparison, Blue Mesa
Reservoir, the largest surface reservoir in Colorado, has
a capacity of 940,800 acre-feet.

Water would be stored in those aq-
uifers underground for use by
Aurora ill times of increased de-
mand, Typically, the surface water
will be available for recharge in wet-
ter years and the demand for the wa-
ter will o<:cur in normal or dry years,
Sustainability will be achieved by
balancing the amount of water with-
drawn from the aquifer with the
amount of water recharged into the
aquifer once storage capacity is cre-
ated,

Surface water would flow through
recharge facilities consisting of sur-
face storage reservoirs and recharge
basins and percolate into the Upper
and Lower South Park Aquifers,

Water would be subsequently pumped from this under-
ground system through a series of wells and delivered to
Park Gulch and Tarryall Creek for ultimate delivery to
Aurora,

Modeling Scenario

Computer modeling is a frequently used tool to support
decision making in water resource projects, In the present
case, the models were used to forecast probable effects,
including the pumping and recharge of the aquifers, on
streams, local well owners, and users, In the future, these
models will also be used to develop an effective monitor-
ing program to protect senior water rights, Colorado Wa-
ter Law requires that this project will not cause injury to
existing senior water rights, Terms and conditions will be
devised to ensure no injury to others,

-

The City of Aurora staff and their
consultants developed an opera-
tional scenario that represents
how the project might operate in
the future when fully developed,
The project is expected to be
fully developed by approximately
2020 when Aurora's projected
population reaches approximately
356,000, The operational scenario
was developed using a program
that models the operation of the
Aurora's entire raw water supply
system, including,the proposed
SPCUP system, The model esti-
mated the monthly amounts of
water that would be delivered
from the SPCUP system to
Aurora during a 94-year opera-
tional study, Results indicated
, that longcterm pumping of the

Elkhorn Thrust Fault Investigation Site

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