WSP03264

• File Number: 8449.913
• Description: Foothills/Windy Gap Project
• State: CO
• Basin: South Platte
• Date: 1/1/1977
• Author: Denver
• Title: Final Analysis - Foothills Project
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

probably require the Tunnel to be continuously out of opera-
tion a minimum of 2 to 2 1/2 years (See Exhibit 7). Under
Denver's agreement with Aurora, Denver would be obligated to
provide Aurora with an alternate supply during that period
at a very signficant cost to Denver (See Exhibit 7). None
of that cost is included in the United States Bureau of
Reclamation estimate of the cost for the modification of the
Rampart Tunnel.

We have been made aware of no considerations which make
the concept of the use of Aurora's Rampart Tunnel No.2
clearly preferable to the driving of the proposal conduit
No. 26. No one has suggested that its use would be a
superior choice from an environmental or operating stand-
point. United States Bureau of Reclamation's estimate of
the construction is 2.8 million dollars less than its esti-
mate of the cost of Conduit No. 26; yet that estimate is
admittedly based on assumptions which those professionals
who have carefully studied the tunnel refute. A corrected
cost estimate which would account for the factors misunder-
stood or ignored by the United States Bureau of Reclamation
cannot help but show a true value clearly in excess of the
Conduit No. 26 estimate.

When corrected cost considerations are added to the
difficulties inherent in modifying the tunnel, it must be
clear that no responsible public decision-maker would choose
to develop a system using that tunnel to feed water to the
Foothills Treatment Plant.

SALL DIVERSION STRUCTURES

Common to two of the suggested alternatives
(Upstream and Rampart-Sherman alternatives) is the idea of
using a small, 50-foot high, diversion structure instead of
the Strontia Springs Dam. To provide sufficient elevation
for delivery of water, it would be located approximately
10,000 feet upstream from the proposed Strontia Springs site
and would impound only 97-acre feet of water behind it.'

Strive as they might, the United States Bureau of
Reclamation could not successfully make the small diversion
structures perform the same functions that the proposed
Strontia Springs Dam and Reservoir were designed to perform.
The USBR recognized this when it'described six of the short-
comings of using such structures.

Since the purpose of the USBR memorandum was not to
draw any conclusions as to the most desirable project con-
figuration, it is perhaps understandable that there is no
statement concerning how totally unacceptable such structures
would be for use in a municipal waterworks utility plant.

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