Rueter-Hess Reservoir History: Part 3 - The Water Right was the Easy Part Compared to the Necessary Permitting for the Dam
The adjudication of the water rights for Rueter-Hess Reservoir included both surface and alluvial groundwater diversion rights on Cherry Creek and a surface water capture right on Newlin Gulch. Since Rueter-Hess Reservoir was to be constructed across a natural stream channel in Newlin Gulch, even though it is an ephemeral channel that only flows in response to storm events, the construction of a dam was considered a dredge and fill operation in “waters of the United States.”
Because of the potential effects on waters of the United States, the Parker Water and Sanitation District (PWSD) was required to initiate an application to the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for a Section 404 permit under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that would allow dredge and fill operations, i.e., the construction of the dam, after an environmental review of the effects of these actions. The required work under NEPA was initiated in October 1999 with a USACE scoping meeting, after PWSD made application for a Section 404 permit. Without going into the gory details of the extent of the analyses and steps necessary to get a Section 404 permit, the following were some of the milestones in the process.
January 10, 2000: Notice of intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for Rueter-Hess Reservoir;
February 2-3, 2000: Public Scoping Meetings;
May 2000: Issuance of the Public Scoping Summary;
February 22, 2002: Public release of the Draft EIS;
March 12, 2002: Public hearing on the Draft EIS and Section 404 permit;
July 8, 2003: Final EIS was filed with the EPA; and
February 18, 2004: Final Section 404 Record of Decision and permit were issued.
As part of the scoping for the project, it was required that the purpose and need of the project be demonstrated. The purpose of the project according to the public scoping for the application was:
“to provide a safe, adequate, and sustainable municipal water supply that is capable of meeting the peak demands for the area within the District’s currently zoned boundary for the next 50 years.”
The need for the project, as defined in the public scoping documents, was:
“to have an adequate, safe, affordable, and sustainable water supply system for the area within the District's currently zoned boundary. The water supply system needs to be capable of capturing, reusing, and storing seasonal high flows in Cherry Creek and must also be capable of capturing and reusing AWT [advanced wastewater treatment] return flows currently discharged into Cherry Creek. The water system needs to provide adequate storage to ensure it has the capability to meet peak seasonal demands and help conserve groundwater by maximum utilization of surface and AWT return flows in Cherry Creek. The current projected build-out for the water distribution and supply system is for 23,840 single-family equivalents (SFEs), or approximately 85,000 residents, within the next 50 years.”
Since PWSD was the only proponent of the project at the time of the application to the USACE, all of the hydrologic analyses were designed to assess the need for storage, based solely on PWSD’s projected future demands as described in the need for the project, and the sources of water available for storage in Rueter-Hess Reservoir. These sources included not only available in-priority water supplies from Cherry Creek and Newlin Gulch, but also Denver Basin aquifer water, reusable return flows from PWSD’s two water reclamation facilities, and reusable lawn irrigation return flows that could be pumped directly into the reservoir. Extensive reservoir modeling, as well as modeling of Cherry Creek to evaluate impacts to the riparian habitat due to reductions in surface and groundwater flows, were completed to demonstrate the lack of negative environmental effects.
Construction of Rueter-Hess Reservoir (Credit: Jackie Shumaker Photography).
Since PWSD was the sole applicant in the NEPA process, only PWSD’s future water demands could be used as the basis for purpose and need for a dam and reservoir on Newlin Gulch. Based on the analyses developed by Mr. Bruce Lytle at the time of the application, PWSD’s need was for a 16,200 ac-ft reservoir storage capacity.
While it may seem like four-and-a-half years is a long time to have to go through a NEPA permitting process, but it actually was a streamlined process compared to other similar projects along the Front Range that have taken much longer to obtain final, non-appealable permits. It should also be noted that, while the Section 404 permit was pending, PWSD also had to obtain many additional permits for other aspects of the dam construction. These permits were obtained in parallel with the EIS process.
The February 2004 Section 404 permit was only able to be obtained with a very important decision that PWSD made to expedite the issuance of the permit. That very important decision was crucial to obtaining the Section 404 permit, but also stands out as a vitally important decision even today, as it is now helping to guide an even larger renewable and sustainable water supply project to support a PWSD service area that has more than doubled since the time of the 2004 Section 404 permit. That part of the story is coming next!
Stay tuned!
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
