After the denial for the rebuilding of Castlewood Canyon dam by the Colorado State Parks Board, which would have provided PWSD with approximately 24,000 acre-feet (“ac-ft”) of storage (see Part 1 in this blog series), PWSD had to go back to the drawing board to assess other potential reservoir sites in the upper Cherry Creek Basin. Mr. Bruce Lytle was requested to evaluate alternative sites; one of the more promising sites was located on Newlin Gulch, a dry tributary to Cherry Creek, located directly west of the (then) district service area, named Newlin Gulch Reservoir. A secondary reservoir site was identified in the vicinity of the Castlewood Canyon dam site, but outside of the state park, named Lake Gulch Reservoir. Based on the promising dam site on Newlin and Lake Gulches, Case No. 85CW448 was amended in 1993 to include these two reservoir sites. The locations of these reservoirs, as described in 85CW448, are shown in Figure 1.

***Figure 1:*** *Locations of potential reservoir sites identified as Newlin Gulch Reservoir (later named Rueter-Hess Reservoir) and Lake Gulch Reservoir, 1993.*

The location of the Newlin Gulch dam and reservoir was on lands owned by Ms. Rosie Rueter-Hess. Ms. Rueter’s family homesteaded the land and Rosie married a young gentleman from the adjacent Hess Ranch. Ms. Rueter-Hess ran cattle on the land and lived approximately where the current PWSD water purification facility is located. The Lake Gulch Reservoir site was an alternate, or an additional, storage location for the original application reservoir locations and multiple water rights priorities were sought for these sites, including 1985 and 1993 priorities.

With the amended application, PWSD then proceeded to adjudicate the water rights associated with both Newlin Gulch and Lake Gulch Reservoirs. Ultimately, the Water Court case was decreed on June 12, 1996 for Newlin Gulch Reservoir (85CW448A) and on April 1, 1998 for Lake Gulch Reservoir (85CW448B).

Three means were decreed to fill Newlin Gulch Reservoir, including:

Newlin Gulch Aqueduct No. 1, a series of alluvial aquifer wells on Cherry Creek that could be manifolded into a pipeline to then be pumped to the reservoir in Newlin Gulch;
Newlin Gulch Aqueduct No. 2, a surface diversion on Cherry Creek that can divert water from the stream and then pump the water to the reservoir in Newlin Gulch; and
Tributary flows from Newlin Gulch, which are native flows in Newlin Gulch that occur from time to time based on stormwater flows.

The diversions of both surface and groundwater flows from Cherry Creek were granted a 1985 priority consistent with the original Water Court application. As an alternate point of diversion for the Lake Gulch Reservoir water right, PWSD was also granted a 1985 priority based on available flow at the USGS Franktown gage, a representative of flows at Lake Gulch. Furthermore, PWSD was granted an additional 1993 water right associated with the difference in flow between the Franktown gage and Newlin Gulch Aqueduct No. 2 that can be diverted at Newlin Gulch Aqueduct No. 2.

With the adjudication of the water rights associated with Newlin Gulch Reservoir, PWSD began the process of obtaining the necessary land for building the dam and reservoir in Newlin Gulch. The land was ultimately purchased from Ms. Rueter-Hess with two important conditions:

Ms. Rueter-Hess was granted a life estate on the property, and
The reservoir would be named Rueter-Hess Reservoir; this was how the current name came to be.
But this is only the beginning of the story of how Rueter-Hess Reservoir was built and is now a vital component of PWSD’s water supply system.

Next: The path to construction of the reservoir - the focus of our next blog in this series.

If you need any help with developing new or supplemental water supplies, whether surface water or groundwater, LWS can help. Please give us a call (303-350-4090) or an email.

Bruce Lytle bruce@lytlewater.com

Chris Fehn chris@lytlewater.com

Ben Bader ben@lytlewater.com

Anna Elgqvist anna@lytlewater.com