Mind the gap: Greeley inches closer to acquiring more water with Windy Gap allotment contract

By Kelly Ragan

Water is top of mind for city officials as Greeley continues to grow. 

On Tuesday, Greeley City Council voted to approve an allotment contract for the Windy Gap Firming Project. That means Greeley has tentatively agreed to pitch in $60 million for its share of the construction costs.

This is an important milestone for the project, said Sean Chambers, director of the Water and Sewer Department Tuesday, one that the department and many municipalities have been working on for decades. 

“It will enhance the storage and yield on the fully consumable and reusable Windy Gap shares that the city purchased years ago,” Chambers said.   

The Windy Gap Firming Project would build Chimney Hallow Reservoir in Larimer County near Carter Lake. The reservoir is slated to provide 90,000 acre-feet of new, regional raw water storage. 

Greeley is one of 12 participants that have agreed to take part in the project. Other participants include Loveland, Longmont, Erie, Fort Lupton, Broomfield and more. 

Greeley would own 10.21% of the water rights, which calculates out to about 9,189 acre-feet of storage.

 Greeley intends to finance the project through a 30-year term pooled municipal bond, which, Chambers said, likely won’t be issued until at least 2021. 

While the Windy Gap Water Firming Project hasn’t been financed yet, but it does have all the local, state and federal permits it needs, according to the city. 

City councilmember Ed Clark pointed out the Windy Gap project is an example of how the city won’t stop working to acquire water, even as it pursues the Terry Ranch Project. 

The Terry Ranch Project is a possible new endeavor for the city as it looks for alternatives to the Milton Seaman Reservoir expansion. The Terry Ranch Project would serve as a non-tributary aquifer – which is a fancy way of saying the water would be stored underground. 

“Positioning ourselves to be ready to serve Greeley for the next 50 years obligates us to acquire more water rights and more storage for the future,” Chambers said. 

The Windy Gap project has been stopped up by a lawsuit. In 2017, environmental organizations filed a complaint against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamations and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, saying the environmental impact analysis didn’t provide enough viable alternatives, according to a report by KUNC.

Chambers said participants expect the court to make a ruling anytime now and that project participants have worked to get their affairs in order to move quickly once they can. 

Construction of the reservoir is projected to take about 4.5 years, Chambers said.