The legal fight over expansion of Gross Reservoir in southwestern Boulder County kicked up another notch Friday as Denver Water filed an appeal to a December district court ruling mandating the proposed project go through the county’s review process.
The action filed to the Colorado Court of Appeals raised several issues to be addressed by the higher court, including whether Boulder District Court Judge Andrew Macdonald erred in his Dec. 27 decision by concluding Boulder County had not exceed it jurisdiction, abused its discretion or misapplied the law in determining it had regulatory control over the project.
“While we appreciate the district court’s consideration, we respectfully disagree with the conclusion and have decided to exercise our right to further review by the court of appeals,” Denver Water spokesman Travis Thompson said in a statement.
“The Gross Reservoir Expansion Project is a vital component of developing a more secure, reliable drinking water supply for a quarter of the state’s population,” he added. “In the face of the uncertainties of climate change that bring more frequent and extreme droughts and precipitation events, we’ve come together with partners on both sides of the divide to ensure the project benefits the environmental health of our entire state.”
County spokeswoman Barb Halpin said, “We’ve received notice of the appeal and will respond in accordance with the court’s requests.”
Denver Water, which serves 1.4 million customers in the Denver metro area, but none in Boulder County, had planned to start construction in 2019 on what would be the largest construction project in Boulder County history, raising Gross Dam by 131 feet to a height of 471 feet, and increasing the capacity of the reservoir by 77,000 acre-feet.
A “progress and schedule” tab on Denver Water’s website currently states that design work will continue through 2020, with completion of the project in 2025.
The courts will have a significant say on whether that goal is achieved.
Boulder County Commissioners on March 17 affirmed the county’s right to what is known as a 1041 review, which references the state House bill in 1974 allowing local governments to regulate matters of statewide interest through a local permitting process.
Denver Water answered back by filing its lawsuit on April ll in Boulder District Court, charging that commissioners had “exceeded their jurisdiction and/or abused their discretion” in their decision the previous month, and asserted that a claimed “zoned land exemption” negated its need to go through the county’s process.
Denver Water nevertheless indicated a desire to initiate the very review process it was seeking to be excused from, even while legally challenging the necessity to do so. But Boulder County said it would refuse to move forward on Denver Water’s application, deeming it a poor expenditure of taxpayer dollars when the process was the target of the ongoing lawsuit.
The Boulder County case is not the only legal hurdle facing the Gross Reservoir project.
Additionally, environmental advocacy group Save the Colorado is suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in U.S. District Court, challenging the grounds on which in July 2017 it issued a permit for the Gross Reservoir expansion.
Save the Colorado, which has intervenor status in the Denver Water case versus Boulder County, issued a statement Friday in response to Denver Water’s filing.
“Denver Water continues its antics as an aggressive, bully agency trying to ram this massive dam down the throats of Boulder County citizens,” its executive director and co-founder Gary Wockner said in a statement. “We will continue to defend Boulder County against this river-destroying project and fight Denver Water as long as it takes.”
