Denver Water Statement Regarding The April 3, 2025, Court Remedy Order On Gross Reservoir Expansion Project

By TAP Staff

Editor’s note: On April 6, 2025, Judge Arguello granted a temporary 14-day stay on the order to stop construction on the Gross Reservoir Expansion Project.

Denver Water is gravely concerned about this ruling and its ramifications for the future of metro Denver and its water supply. We plan to appeal and seek an immediate stay of this order that leaves a critical project that is 60% complete on hold and puts at risk our ability to efficiently provide a safe, secure and reliable water supply to 1.5 million people. Denver Water will do everything in its power to see this project through to completion.

It’s impossible to reconcile the judge’s order with what is clearly in the broader public interest.

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. In this case, the order is even more appalling with the project so deep into construction. 

Denver Water will abide by the judge’s order and temporarily halt construction on the dam pending a hearing with the judge and will rapidly appeal the decision. Work for the spring season was scheduled to begin April 10, and the final part of the dam raise was to be completed this year. Leaving the project incomplete creates ongoing safety and water supply issues, as Denver Water cannot fill the reservoir to capacity during construction and, as we have testified to the judge, the original gravity dam has been deconstructed and its foundation excavated, exposing steep rock slopes that depend on bolts to temporarily shore them up. These are among the issues that we will address with the judge in an upcoming hearing.  

This order is also exacting a significant human cost, as it comes just as Denver Water and its contractors were preparing for spring construction season. With an extended freeze on construction, hundreds of men and women will be thrown out of work, many with specific skillsets who relocated to the region to work on this specific project. It also required enormous effort over years from Denver Water and its contractors to build the workforce for this complex project. All of that now stands in jeopardy, causing immediate harm to our valued workers, their families, the dozens of business partners, and our local economy. 

It’s crucial to understand that Denver Water was granted all required local, state and federal permits to move ahead with the project after a regulatory oversight process stretching over nearly two decades, dating to 2002. Further, Denver Water has committed more than $30 million to over 60 environmental mitigation and enhancement projects on the Front Range and West Slope. The utility proceeded with construction on the expansion in 2022, under an order from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to complete the project by 2027.

On top of that legally binding FERC order, Denver Water has an enormous sense of urgency surrounding the project, considering increasingly variable weather and water supply patterns, how close we have come to falling short of water on the north side of our system in years past, our harrowing experiences with the threats and impacts of wildfire in our collection area and the need for system flexibility to ensure we can provide a critical public resource under crisis conditions. 

To be clear, these are not theoretical matters. Denver has seen the impact of drought and catastrophic wildfire before. The starkest example came in 2002, when extended drought and fast-moving wildfire struck the region in dramatic fashion. Denver Water came very close to being unable to provide our northern customers with safe, clean drinking water – an absolute human health and safety priority, and the responsibility of this utility, as the region’s water provider.  

Denver Water is also missing opportunities to store additional, critical water supplies. Had the expansion been complete in 2013, for example, Denver Water could have easily filled Gross Reservoir, including storing additional storm water during the catastrophic flooding that year. In 2015, water flowed out of state because existing Denver Water reservoirs were full and there was no place to capture and store it. In the hot, dry 2018 summer, we would have been able to provide extra water to the Fraser River or Williams Fork River basin to help enhance the conditions of these dry rivers. 

The expansion of Gross Reservoir is intended to protect the people who rely on us, now and in the future. The Gross Reservoir expansion reduces the significant pressure on our southern system, which delivers 80% of our water supply, depends heavily on the South Platte River and has seen a series of wildfires that threaten water delivery, water quality and water treatment. In both 1996 and 2002, sediment loads from deluges following the Buffalo Creek and Hayman fires created impacts to our southern system that challenged our ability to ensure water supply to our customers; we are still addressing these impacts to this very day. 

Denver Water is responsible for providing a safe and secure water supply for 1.5 million people in Denver and portions of the surrounding metro area and has understood the urgency of the Gross Reservoir expansion since the 1990s, when the environmental community recommended expansion of the reservoir as part of a plan to address future supply and water security. 

To repeat: The utility began working on permitting for this project in 2002, more than 20 years ago. The project has been analyzed and permitted in various forms by no fewer than seven state and federal environmental agencies, and Denver Water has consulted extensively with environmental organizations, nonprofits, the public and other stakeholders to identify efforts to enhance and reasonably restore resources on both the West Slope and Front Range. Denver Water is operating under a legally mandated deadline for project completion in 2027 from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is not part of this current lawsuit. 

Throughout the permitting process, Denver Water has been driven by these values: the need to do this expansion the right way and the safe way, by involving the community; upholding the highest environmental standards; providing a sustainable, high-quality water supply to our customers; and protecting and managing the water and natural environment that define Colorado. In keeping with these values, Denver Water designed and implemented the project to provide a net environmental benefit to impacted local watersheds. 

Denver Water looks forward to working with the agencies and the courts to move this critical project toward completion.