Meeting Water Resource Demands in Central Colorado: The Fryingpan-Arkansas Project

As the population in Central Colorado is exploding, the water demand in the region is also rapidly increasing. Existing water storage facilities are no longer sufficient to provide for the nearly 400,000 people in the water service area. Increasing the water storage volume has become an urgent, and quite compex issue. Focused on in this discussion are the current water storage plan, impacts of a new dam and reservoir on the region, and alternatives to creating a new dam. The current water and diversion plan called the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, is a project that diverts nearly 70,000 acre-feet of water from the Fryingpan River to the Arkansas River each year. As this plan will not be able to accommodate future water storage needs, several possible options for creating more storage space are being explored. Constructing a new dam and reservoir seems to be an obvious solution, although the consequences of such a project on the environment, the local economy, and the water rights are severe. Expanding an existing reservoir is quite possibly the next most viable option. Other possibilities, such as using drained aquifers as groundwater storage or developing a strategy for maximizing existing storage facilities, remain as potential solutions. Work continues in exploring viable solutions to the current and future water problem, although conservation appears to be the most practical option.