Denver Water will continue construction on the Gross Reservoir Dam expansion project, despite an Oct. 17 U.S. District Court ruling that the project’s permits violate several federal environmental laws.
Judge Christine Arguello ordered Denver Water to begin working with the coalition of environmental groups fighting to stop the dam on how to reach a remedy for the violations. In the face of remediation, the expansion project will continue “to ensure the integrity and safety of both the current project configuration and future dam,” Denver Water said in a statement.
Construction on the dam, situated on South Boulder Creek, began in April 2022 despite pending litigation from the coalition of environmental groups, including Save the Colorado, the Sierra Club, the Waterkeeper Alliance and others. When the project is completed in 2027, the reservoir will nearly triple in size behind the newly built 471-foot-tall concrete wall, drowning more than 400 acres of the surrounding forest.
Once the expansion is complete, it will divert at least 18,000 acre feet of water from the Fraser River, Williams Fork River and South Boulder Creek — enough to supply water to 72,000 households in the Denver area each year.
Federal law required Denver Water to seek permits from the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge and dump dirt and rock into nearby wetlands during the dam’s expansion. The ruling faults the Corps for not considering alternatives that are the least damaging to the environment prior to issuing the permit, which the judge found violated the Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act.
The Corps is also required to consider the likelihood that this water may cease to exist due to climate change-induced drought. “The Corps expressly declined to attempt to quantify the impacts of climate change — or even provide an educated guess, for purposes of discussion,” Arguello wrote in her decision.
This decision comes in the wake of a decades-long battle over the dam’s expansion involving Denver Water, the Army Corps of Engineers, Boulder County and environmental activists. In 2021, the county received $12.5 million from Denver Water in a settlement to mitigate the impacts of the dam’s expansion.
While Boulder doesn’t receive any of the reservoir’s water, nearby residents and county land are bearing the brunt of the damage. The expansion requires the excavation of 1.6 million tons of rock and leveling 500,000 trees.
As of now, Denver Water is required by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to complete construction on the dam by 2027. Crews will continue to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week until operations shut down for the winter.
A final ruling on the proposed remedies will be issued once an agreement has been reached or the parties submit separate briefs. The court has given a Nov. 15 deadline for those filings.
In other news...
Boulder solidifies $589.5M budget for 2025
Boulder City Council unanimously approved a budget of $589.5 million for 2025. Spending is more limited than in previous years due to rising operational costs and plateauing sales tax revenue streams, according to city manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde.
The constrained budget fails to fill in a gap left by $4.4 million of cuts in Boulder County’s 2025 budget for safety net services.. In response to revenue compressions and dried-up stimulus funds left over from the pandemic, the county slashed its funding for the Community Partnership Grant program by 36%.
The city’s budget includes $399.3 million in operating costs, a slight increase of 1.3% from the previous year. Capital investments jumped 34.7% from last year, representing $190.2 million in the 2025 budget.
Several new investments highlighted the Capital Investment Plan, with money being allocated for 144 affordable housing units across the city, rental assistance, the city’s encampment removal program aimed at ensuring safe public spaces, University Hill infrastructure improvements and nearly $1 million for arts and culture programs.
None of this money is allocated for programs who’s funding was slashed by the county’s budget cuts.
A large chunk of the city’s capital budget will be allocated for infrastructure improvements, including $64 million for utilities, and a $40 million investment into the Alpine-Balsam Western City Campus development. “When we don’t fund infrastructure, we get really expensive repairs really quickly. And I hope this will be a continued theme,” councilmember Tina Marquis said during the Thursday budget hearing.
City officials expect these budgetary restrictions to continue into the future. “As we look ahead, we recognize that we have significant unfunded and underfunded needs,” Boulder’s budget officer Charlotte Huskey said during Thursday’s meeting, “so what this means is pointing and looking to a long-term financial strategy.”
At a glance
- Boulder’s city council expressed support for multiple zoning changes during an Oct. 17 meeting to increase the city’s housing supply and incentivize affordable housing development. Potential amendments include decreasing the required amount of open space required for dwellings in mixed- and medium-density zones, as well exempting permanently affordable housing projects from the city’s site review process. City staff plan to bring a draft of the changes to council members for a vote in December or January.
- The Colorado Department of Transportation received $47 million in federal funding for safety improvements along U.S. 287 in Boulder and Larimer counties. The purse, provided through the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will help create wildlife crossings along the heavily traveled route to reduce vehicle collisions with wild animals.