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Foothills Treatment Plant Nearly thirty years before Foothills Treatment Plant began delivering water to the Denver area, consulting engineers studying Denver's future water development zeroed in on the present Foothills site northeast of Roxborough State Park for a new treatment plant. A 200-acre plant site was purchased in 1956 and surveys made to locate a diversion dam and tunnel to bring South Platte River water to the proposed plant. Following a 1962 application for the dam and tunnel, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approved the filing in 1967 and granted rights-of-way to the Denver Water Department. Further studies in the '60s and early '70s by the Water Department and consulting engineers considered possible alternatives; sizing of the dam, tunnel and treatment facilities, and costs involved. The present 490- acre plant site was acquired through additional purchases of property. By 1973 Foothills Project consultants were hired to prepare a project Environmental Assessment and to design all phases. In late 1973 Denver voters approved a $160 million bond issue to help finance a $368 million, 12-year capital improvements program. This included $70.2 million to partly finance Foothills construction. Initial construction-an access road in the canyon to the dam site-was halted early in 1974 when the Denver Water Board's right-of-way was questioned under new federal environmental regulations. Following an Environmental Assessment, three Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) were prepared by federal agencies acting under new laws. These agencies issued necessary rights-of-way for work on federal lands in the spring of 1978. Although no federal money was involved, the impact studies were required because part of the project lies on a few dozen acres of federal land in the South Platte Canyon. Most of the project land is owned by the D.enver Water Board, including all of the plant site and 215 acres at the reservoir site. When environmental objections again threatened issuance of a dredge and fill permit, Rep. Tim Wirth (D- Colo) called upon the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct an in-depth technical study to determine the need for the treatment facilities and further evaluate alternatives to proposed construction. Late in 197B the many parties involved in the extended Foothills dispute, including state and federal agencies and environmental groups, were brought together by Wirth. They met in lengthly night meetings to settle the tangled legal issues and adopt mitigations. Federal authorities, finding a justified need and no better alternatives, issued the final permit. Construction of the plant, dam, tunnel and conduit as originally planned and designed got underway the summer of 1979. Foothills was to have been completed in 1977 at an estimated cost of $100 million. Rising inflation during the long delay helped drive costs to an estimated $182 million.