OPINION: The Plot Thickens, as Aurora Seeks Colorado River Diversion

The plot thickens in Colorado.

Vail Daily’s David Williams breaks another story that includes quotes from an “anonymous expert” about the City of Aurora’s proposed new “Wild Horse Reservoir” and whether or not it’s trying to sneak 83,000 acre feet of water out of Eagle County, as a transmountain diversion over to the Front Range, without triggering a local Eagle County permit.

The story is here on VailDaily.com: Eagle County will ‘engage in process’ as Aurora Water’s Wild Horse Reservoir moves forward

An excerpt:

“Aurora’s PR spin is ‘no new water rights,'” the expert said. “Of course, that’s a loaded phrase because of the conditional rights and the increased diversions under existing rights that will fill Wild Horse. They’ve also told Park County that they’re not diverting any new water from Park County. That means it all has to come from the Homestake, Eagle-Ark, Fry-Ark, Busk-Ivanhoe, and Independence Pass TMDs (transmountain diversions).”

Because of that, the water expert encouraged Eagle County, and other concerned Western Slope water stakeholders, to pay much more attention to Aurora’s proposed Wild Horse project.

These entities should absolutely be parties to the NEPA evaluation of Wild Horse and should push to have the impacts of existing absolute and conditional transmountain diversions (TMDs) evaluated by NEPA and the Park County 1041 permits,” the expert said. “(Some would say) there’s even a case to make that an Eagle County 1041 permit should be required as this would result in a change to Homestake operations.

An Eagle County spokesperson responds:

Eagle County is currently evaluating the Wild Horse Reservoir project (in Park County) and will review the NEPA documents and engage in the process as it moves forward,” an Eagle County spokesperson wrote in an email to the Vail Daily this week. “We anticipate engagement on this issue in the near future.”

We brought this issue to the Vail Daily’s attention a few weeks ago. We’ve helped fight Aurora’s proposed “Whitney Reservoir” in Eagle County to a standstill due to its likely extreme negative environmental impacts on wetlands/fens in Homestake Valley, but Aurora may be trying a workaround.

The Colorado River is collapsing, the State’s negotiators are refusing forced cutbacks, and the Front Range of Colorado is trying to get every possible drop before the spigot goes dry… we encourage everyone to keep a close eye on this proposed project and many others (all listed on the Save the Colorado website, here).