Federal judge halts further work on Denver Water's Gross Reservoir expansion: "Impossible to reconcile"

A recent decision by a U.S. District Court judge means the half-billion-dollar Gross Reservoir expansion project northwest of Denver is, at least for now, on hold.

The project to raise the level of the dam by 131 feet and nearly triple the capacity of the Denver Water-operated reservoir in Boulder County is 60% complete. It would have become the highest dam in the state. But in an Order on Remedies following an October court decision, Judge Christine Arguello, ordered a permanent injunction prohibiting enlargement of the Gross Reservoir. That includes the planned removal of an estimated 500,000 trees, water diversion from the headwaters of the Colorado River near Winter Park and impacts to wildlife.

"Most of the time, we weren't sure we had a chance, but we didn't give up, and it turned out to be a really good thing," said Gross Reservoir area resident Beverly Kurtz.

Some locals have been opposing the project for 20 years. They have been joined by several environmental groups and filed a lawsuit in 2018 against Denver Water, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the project; and the Department of Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Their primary objections were to drawing water from the headwaters of the Colorado River on the other side of the Continental Divide through the Moffat Water Tunnel, clearing the trees as part of the project to enlarge the reservoir, and effects on wildlife, including elk habitat.

"The judge basically accepted the position that we put forward, which is that the project should be stopped," said Gary Wockner, director of the environmental group Save the Colorado. "And the ratepayers should be very concerned that their utility took this massive, financially risky gamble. And now they're in this deep trouble."

"It's impossible to reconcile the judge's order with what is clearly in the broader public interest," Denver Water said in a statement. Additionally, Denver Water said in the statement:

"We view this decision as a radical remedy that should raise alarm bells with the public, not only because of its impacts to water security in an era of longer, deeper droughts, catastrophic wildfire and extreme weather, but because it serves as an egregious example of how difficult it has become to build critical infrastructure in the face of relentless litigation and a broken permitting process."

Denver Water said that it was granted all local, state, and federal permits to move ahead with the project.

But the judge was not sympathetic, calling Denver Water's allegations that stoppage would incur cost, delay and result in hardship to the need to address droughts, "largely self-inflicted."

"They got the permits they needed," said Kurtz. "But then this lawsuit was pending, and they decided to go ahead and roll the dice because quite frankly, they're very, very arrogant."

The decision means that the additional dam construction scheduled to start up again this month will not, but the parties to the lawsuit will meet in hearings in the coming weeks to plan out how to make the dam safe but do no additional expansion work.

Denver Water will have to restart the permitting process, but it plans to appeal the recent ruling.