Metro Roundtable
Water Supply Reserve Fund Grant – Preliminary Proposal
Version: 7/6/2018

Project Title: South Platte Basin Regional Water Development Concept
Project Location: The South Platte Basin Regional Water Development Concept’s
infrastructure components would be located strategically throughout the South Platte
Basin to address specific storage, conveyance, exchange enhancement, and treatment
needs and opportunities within geographic areas encompassed by both Metro and
South Platte BRTs. Precise infrastructure component locations will be determined
through work for which WSRF grant support is sought, and likely will include locations
ranging from the Denver metro area to as far downstream as the Colo-Neb state line.
Activities for which WSRF funding is sought will seek to engage Water Users and
Stakeholders from throughout the Basin.
Metro RT Topic Areas: Conceptual In-basin Projects, Municipal and Industrial
Conservation and Reuse, Environment and Recreation, Implementation of IP&P’s,
Education and Outreach
Basin Implementation Plan Alignment: The South Platte/Metro Basin
Implementation Plan (BIP) indicates in its Executive Summary that, to address the
Basin’s projected water supply gaps, water users in the basin should:
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continue to maximize implementation of IPPs (Section S.5.1)
maintain leadership in conservation and reuse (Section S.5.2)
maximize use and effectiveness of native South Platte supplies (Section S.5.3)
minimize traditional agricultural “buy and dry” and maximize use of Alternative
Transfer Methods (ATMs) (Section S.5.4)
protect and enhance environmental and recreational attributes (Section S.5.5)
promote multi-purpose storage projects that enhance South Platte Basin
solutions, manage the risk of increased demands and reduced supplies due to
climate change (Section S.5.8),
support research of new technologies and strategies (Section S.5.10).

The South Platte Basin Regional Water Development Concept (hereinafter “Regional
Concept”) would help to achieve these broad BIP objectives by expanding upon the
conceptual in-basin multi-purpose project descriptions offered in Section 4.6.2 of the
BIP. The Regional Concept has been developed to the point where more detailed
analyses of its potential to help achieve these BIP objectives is warranted. WSRF
funds are sought to support this next level of more detailed analysis.
Project Sponsors: South Metro Water Supply Authority (SMWSA), Denver Water
(DW), Aurora Water (AW), Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (NCWCD), St.
Vrain-Lefthand Water Conservancy District (SVLHWCD), North Sterling Irrigation
District (NDID), and Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District (LSPWCD). This
group has been working together for over two years through an informal collaboration
dubbed the South Platte Regional Opportunities Working Group, or SPROWG.
SPROWG members continue to collaborate. Recently, they also have begun to
facilitate development of a Project “Task Force,” currently comprised of over 30 other
individuals representing a broad swath of South Platte Basin water users and
stakeholders. SPROWG members are doing this because they recently determined
that transitioning their small informal collaboration to a larger, more inclusive effort
would benefit future work on the Regional Concept by bringing more ideas and
perspectives to bear and by expanding the circle of individuals and organizations
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 knowledgeable about the project. While too early in its deliberations to be listed as a
“project sponsor,” the Task Force represents a mechanism that can help to ensure
preparation of high quality WSRF-funded work products with good dissemination
potential.
Project Overview: In its present form, the Regional Concept is the result of work
completed since the BIP’s April 2015 publication by an informal collaboration of water
resource professionals working for organizations with responsibility for meeting a
substantial share of the Basin’s municipal and agricultural water supply needs.
Dubbed the South Platte Regional Opportunities Working Group (SPROWG), its
members formulated in 2016-17 several different versions of a conceptual in-basin
regional project, building on ideas broadly outlined in BIP Section 4.6.2. Subsequently,
SPROWG members commissioned reconnaissance-level hydrological modeling to
determine, for comparative purposes, each version’s yield potential. Based on
modeling completed to date, it appears that a regional, multi-party, multi-purpose
water supply project may be technically feasible and capable of addressing a
meaningful portion of the projected water supply “gap” in the South Platte Basin
through 2060. Specifically, such a project appears capable of meeting 100 percent of
raw water needs associated with modeled municipal demands within two sub-regions
of the South Platte Basin (I-25 corridor and parts of Denver metro area), above and
beyond those demands that will be met by projects currently in the permitting process.
As modeled, the project also could meet some agricultural demands in Districts 1 and
2 in the South Platte Basin. In total, analysis indicates that about 54,600 acre-feet of
modeled municipal and agricultural water demands could be met 100 percent of the
time.
This work-to-date has indicated to SPROWG members and their colleagues that the
Regional Concept could contribute meaningfully to efforts to reduce the Basin’s future
water supply gap while also advancing the BIP objectives listed above. This initial
work also has affirmed for SPROWG members that further analysis is warranted to
refine understanding of the Regional Concept and lay additional groundwork for its
possible implementation at some future point in time.
The proposed activities for which WSRF funds are sought would help to refine present
understanding of the Regional Concept, including how it would function; who or what
kind of organization might finance, construct and operate it; who might benefit from it;
how these benefits might be communicated broadly and understandably; and the
precise degree to which it will advance the goals and objectives of the BIP and
Colorado’s Water Plan.
Project Urgency: Long lead times to secure required permits for water storage and
conveyance facilities naturally demand early and focused action to analyze project
feasibility. Even then, these long lead times can be pressured further by
administrative and legal delays, the effects of which can be negatively compounded
by spikes in growth and associated future water demand such as the South Platte
Basin currently is experiencing.
Updated South Platte Basin growth projections and associated water demands will be
forthcoming by the end of 2018 through the Colorado Water Conservation Board’s
ongoing effort to refresh Statewide Water Supply Initiative (SWSI) data. But this data
is unlikely to be sufficiently granular to make robust determinations about the future
needs of those municipal water users in the Basin likely to be the Regional Concept’s
most probable beneficiaries. Furthermore, SWSI information is unlikely to offer
detailed information regarding the degree to which specific agricultural irrigation ditch
supplies fall short of crop consumptive use requirements, nor will SWSI provide
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 information on the infrastructure and operational options to redress these ditchspecific shortages. Large gaps continue to exist in our understanding of the water
supply needs associated with particular environmental and recreational attributes that
occur within specific areas within the Basin, let alone how these needs might be met,
and SWSI isn’t likely to illuminate these needs to any great degree.
In short, refining our understanding of municipal, agricultural, environmental, and
recreational water supply needs, and how they might be addressed through the
Regional Concept, is a predicate to other work that must also be completed to position
water users and stakeholders in the South Platte Basin to move the Regional Concept
steps closer to reality. This additional work includes making determinations about the
organizational/institutional structure best suited to own and operate the Regional
Concept, assessing water quality treatment options and costs, and developing detailed
cost estimates to inform further planning efforts. Urgency surrounds this entire
portfolio in light of long project lead times and rapid growth.
Project Tasks: The Activities for which WSRF funds are sought encompass ten main
tasks that will be described in detail in a full proposal, should one be solicited. For this
pre-proposal summary, tasks have been grouped together to comprise the following
four broad objectives for the work that’s envisioned to be performed with WSRF
support:
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refine understanding of the water supply benefits the South Platte Basin
Regional Water Development Project could produce (both consumptive and nonconsumptive), and at what cost;

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refine understanding of the manner in which these benefits might be allocated;

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develop options for an organizational or institutional structure best suited to
support development and operation of such a regional water development
concept, and

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form and facilitate the activities of a broad-based, roundtable-sanctioned Task
Force to inform and help sustain efforts during this next phase of analysis and to
expand public outreach and education efforts.

Project Costs: Total Project Budget – $390,000 cash plus a still-to-be-determined
amount of in-kind matching contributions
Allocation of Funding:

Grant Request

Cash Match

In-kind Match

Metro Roundtable = $77,500 (20%)

Project Sponsors = $40,000 (10%)

Projects Sponsors & others = TBD

SP Roundtable = $77,500 (20%)
CWCB WSRF = $195,000 (50%)

Fiscal Agent:
TBD; Contact: TBD; Email – TBD; Phone -- TBD
Project Staffing:
 Project management and project administration duties will be performed by a
qualified Fiscal Agent, to be determined (TBD) in advance of submittal of full
proposal.
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Project Sponsors and others, such as Project Task Force members, will perform
technical review of all work products.
Upon execution of grant award contract, Fiscal Agent will work with Project
Sponsors and others, such as Project Task Force members, to conduct a
transparent competitive process to procure services from a qualified consulting
firm or team of firms. Once selected, the lead consulting firm will perform
project management and project administration duties in concert with Fiscal
Agent and will complete all technical elements of the work.

Project Timeline: Q1 2019 – Q3 2019
Monitoring and Measurement of Success: Measurement of success will be based
on development of the following deliverables within budget:
 Technical Memoranda on all Tasks, to be specified in final proposal
 Final Report
 Participation as warranted in public meetings and other forms of public
communication about the Project

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