 Hello, and welcome to the backstory on all things water related to Longmont, water policy, water portfolio and the future of water in Longmont. My name is Tim Waters, and as a volunteer for Longmont Public Media, I'm your host of the backstory. The backstory gives you a chance to learn kind of what you might not read in the in the front page of the Times call or the Longmont leader or other kind of mainstream media or even on social media. This is a chance to go deep with experts on the contents on the topics in the content we deal with in telling the backstory. And in this backstory, if you had a chance to watch episode one, and if you're watching this as episode two, you might want to watch episode one, because we talked in the first episode about a number of issues in the lower Colorado basin and I'm going to ask our experts to highlight that today we're going to focus more on what all of what we talked about last week means for Longmont, both near term and long term. And the people you're going to get a chance to hear from Ken Houston is Longmont's water resources manager. Welcome Ken, Jeff Drager is director of engineering for northern water. Welcome back Jeff and Dale Radamaker deputy city manager, who has oversight of public works and natural resources which all of our water decisions policy and in future kind of roll up under his his auspices and he has shepherded it. All really well, you know for the last however many years 30 years, Dale, something like that, 38 years so. So, we didn't add up all the collective experience in this group but I know it's probably way bottom way more than 100 years of experience among you three gentlemen so thanks for coming back. And anyway, I'm just going to turn to you just what are the highlights of the first episode one, the kind of T up now where we want to go from your perspectives anything that that that resonate for you or that you think listeners ought to pay particular attention to an episode one to help make this transition into episode two. Well, for me, Tim, I think it was. It was important to sort of get grounded in the in the in the larger picture of the of the overall Colorado River and I think can and Jeff did a great job of sort of providing an overview of what that looks like and addressing issues such as you know what's the likelihood of a compact call. What's the likelihood of a potential reduction of diversions on the on the on the Colorado River and, in particular on the Colorado big Thompson or the windy gap project and so I think it's good for listeners to sort of keep that all in in mind. And I think in the current news of the day that you know right now is really focused on the lower river in the Arizona Nevada, California areas and so I think today it'll be important to really drill us back into. So what does it look like here in Longmont. Yeah. So I think from that perspective. Those two gentlemen did a great job. Ken and Jeff anything you want to highlight from last our first episode. Because Dale's kind of teed it up now to move into where do we fall into this big picture. I don't have anything to add. All right, can. I think that was really good it really summarized the real issue of lower Colorado River. It does impact us. However, there's, there's a lot of background that you have to look at to even understand why it impacts us. And I think that first session would be great for people to look at to understand even more so what we're talking about today. So Longmonters, those of you who view this that's the whole point right to build kind of the background knowledge we need to understand what does that all mean for us and our kids and our grandkids as we go into the future so think about this this episode and this two part series as about really policy portfolio in the future for Longmont so you made what reference Dale to windy gap and and that's a term that most long monitors I suspect are familiar with. But by drill a little bit deeper whoever wants to pick this up on exact when you say when the gap. What are you talking about so people understand what's the big picture here. Jeff, you want to take a lead on that as you. Yeah, sure is the operator of the project. Sure I'll give it a try. And I'll start maybe with a little bit of history. Your, your viewers probably know this but agriculture developed in the North Front range in the late 1800s, early 1900s. At that time irrigation ditches and associated reservoirs were constructed to serve those farms. In the 1930s that there really wasn't enough water available to meet the needs of those farms. And so a group of people went to the Bureau of Reclamation they got the Bureau of Reclamation to build a Colorado big Thompson project, which brings a lot of water from the Colorado River over to the North Front range. So that was a starting point in the 1960s there was a lot of growth again happening on the North Front range. There were six cities on the North Front range, Longmont being one of them that realized that maybe they didn't want to take the CBT water for all this new municipal growth. They wanted to leave some of that for agriculture so they decided to develop this windy gap project, which would divert water from the Colorado River below the CBT project and pump it up into Lake River and have that water delivered into delivered to the same customers that that CBT water delivered to through the Colorado big Thompson infrastructure so it was a pretty clever project. It was really developed in 1967 I think when the Longmont mayor filed for a water right for the windy gap project so you know I was an eight year old kid in Longmont at the time I was not aware that that was going on so I know that was happening. I, but as you mentioned people in Longmont do know that windy what windy gap is because my sister tells me it's on her tax bill every year so she's she's aware of the project as it's as it's ongoing so the project was was built and constructed from 1981 to 1985. The pump station on the Colorado River with a small reservoir, it pumps water that's on the Colorado River below Granby dam. Really it's pumping Frazier River water essentially up into Granby reservoir, and then that water is delivered through the CBT system. Through the pumping system in the tunnel, right, or pipeline that you've got the existing. So they built a small reservoir they built a big pump station with a nine foot diameter pipe to take the water up into Lake Granby. And from there comes through the existing system that the Bureau of Reclamation built. It's a very interesting project. I think they thought at the time that they could deliver about 48,000 acre feet through this project, assuming they built their own storage. They've never delivered that amount of water for for a couple of different reasons. The project now uses existing CBT storage and tries to make use of the CBT storage. At one time they thought they were going to build their reservoir on the web slope. I think they eliminated it from the project for cost reasons back in the 1970s and never built that reservoir but I think they always knew they needed to build a new reservoir. That has worked at times but other times it has not worked very well. So when the Colorado Big Thompson project like Granby fills with their original Colorado Big Thompson water, there's no room for windy gap water. We can't take the windy gap water even though we're in priority, and that reduces the reliability of the windy gap project. And that brought us to this idea of making the windy gap project more reliable, which ultimately after we went through years of environmental studies and other engineering work focused on chimney hollow reservoir. That's what we are constructing right now we received the permits and we're moving forward with that reservoir right now. So we're going to drill down on chimney hollow just a minute. So, but just to make certain from the layman's perspective. We could be reserving firming more water storing more water that we have rights to we just don't have the capacity to store it and that's where that we get to chimney hollows. We have a couple of other sources of water and long month, Ken or Dale talked to us a bit about button rock Ralph price reservoir, or the dam and, and in the reservoir behind it where that water comes from and what it means to long month both short term and long term. Right, yes. The city of Longmont is very lucky we have a very robust water supply. The current plan and in our policy is to obtain about two thirds of our water supply on on our native basin, the same rain Creek basin, about one third from the West slope. That's that's how we get our different water supply portfolio. Longmont's primary water supply reservoir and and it's normally used in winter during low flows but our primary water supply reservoir is impounded by button rock dam. And the reservoir is Ralph price reservoir name name for former mayor Ralph price. He was in office when we started construction of that project and really help move that project forward. That's a 16,000 acre foot reservoir on the main stem of the North St. Green Creek, approximately eight miles West Alliance. A couple of good things about that is that a lot of all the water out of there. Most all the water comes out of Rocky Mountain National Park. So long months extremely fortunate to have some of the highest quality source water to start our entire storage and then ultimately our treatment and delivery processes so we have a really great source of water. And then we have a really decent storage vessel in button rock dam. We also long month also has a number of original filings what we have one filing that goes clear back to 1882. When long month first developed its very first water system. It was a direct flow water right to deliver water to our system, as well as a number of subsequent filings, direct flow filings which we use in our system. The unfortunate part part about all that is, you know long month. We're now having our 150th anniversary, you know long well was formed in 1871. And for a good portion of the summer. The water rights that are the more senior your water right, the more water you're able to have during lower flow time periods, especially mid to late summer when the, when the snow melt is done. There's less stream flow. So during the summer, it's very common that no water right senior to 1870 is in priority in our basin, and usually it's no water right senior or junior to 1865. So you were working on on just a very small margin of water rights that are in later in the summer than then during the winter time period. So that's what the value of the storage that we have on our side long month has, in addition to raw price. We own McCall Lake, which is between Longmont Lions. We also own shares in a prior couple private reservoirs, a number of private reservoirs such as Lake McIntosh. We own a little over about two thirds of that reservoir. And we also own about 85% of Union reservoir located just east of Longmont. All of those reservoirs work together to supply Longmont it's it's both summer late summer and winter water supplies, as well as all the direct flow decrees. We also have a very robust and well thought out water dedication policy, when new land comes into the city of Longmont to be developed. We also require the water that is historical to that property to be dedicated to the city for service to that property so the very water right that was irrigating crops, prior to annexation of the land will now be used to provide water service to the developed portion. We serve Longmont very well, and especially because a lot of the water rights that irrigate the land around Longmont, or the most senior water rights in the basin. So, you see, when this area was developed, settled in the early 1860s and grew, it grew, it settled in the Longmont area, grew out from there. So, we have some of the most senior water rights in the basin, which, which is very, very advantageous to us, especially during periods of drought, where we some of our water rights won't get called out, where's other water rights are. So that's really a very the very portfolio that we have how we get our water. And why the, the West slope water is especially important, because it provides us one a secondary source of water, you know, sometimes it's dry on this side went on the West side. So, water droughts tend to cover all of Colorado but, but it is possible to have more water on one side or the other, but it also gives us a second source of water, kind of resiliency in our system that is really envy of many people because many, many water providers only have one water source so having to do water sources. And this Ralph price in our predecessors that they had the vision to do and the, and the courage to do this, I'm certain it took when they made those decisions, it took some political will to make those commitments number one. Number two, every time I listen to you I learned something, and I've heard you a number of times but every time there's there's there's deeper insight so I appreciate what you what how you kind of put together that part of the portfolio I know there's more to talk about in the following when we get to chimney hollows. Just a bit of a commercial here unrelated to water rights but I'm, but related to water quality. We have a team putting together a management plan for button for Ralph price reservoir that has to do with numbers of visitors and dogs unleashes and people cleaning up after themselves and a variety of issues that for some people may be controversial. But I hope listeners will understand that that you made a comment about the quality that water that comes out of Rocky Mountain National Park we are so fortunate. It gets treated certainly when it gets into our water treatment system, but maintaining the quality that water before it gets to the treatment system is is as important as what happens when it gets here. It's very mindful of what what might wash into the water in in Ralph price price reservoir before it goes through button rock dam on its way to our water treatment facility fair. Yeah, so when we if I could, if I could jump in there this year you know the Cameron peak fire up in West of four columns is causing those same issues and four columns and greedy are taking their water out of horse tooth reservoir or most of their water because of water quality issues because of the fire so even though there's enough water the quality is important now. So long monitors. Think about that when you hear more about this management plan and, and you want to walk your dogs off leash, and they don't get cleaned up after not that you would do that, but some people do. So, we're very, very concerned about what washes in to Ralph price reservoir. So let's now talk about the rest of the story in terms of the portfolio. Jeff, Jeff made a comment, a little bit ago that we are now underway constructing chimney hollows reservoir. As I recall it was on the ballot in 2017 that long monitors approved servicing debt, selling bonds to be able to participate in the chimney hollows firming project that was the language language that was used so deal do you want to pick it up. The first time I really learned about this I'm sitting in the city council chamber and I'm watching Dale Raddamaker make a presentation on, there was a proposal there was a fair amount of science. Not a lot of science behind that proposal and the estimates of what what Longmont would need, even given what we knew then about climate change. Let's bring this up today what got started on August 6, there was a groundbreaking. Why the lag between 2017 and August 6 people ought to know that, and then kind of where are we in terms of participation and what's the timeline look like. And what does it do for overall portfolio as chimney hollows comes online. And, you know, back in, even before 2017 there was a lot of work going on, both, both by Northern water in pursuing the project itself and certainly by the city in completing and then updating our raw water master planning. And that's a, that's a fairly time intensive and rigorous analysis of the city's water supply. Ken has always headed that up and so when he starts shaking his head. I'll know when I'm going too far but you know the purpose of the raw water plan is to not just look at our water supply today, but to look at it into the future. And to look at it in several, several different lenses, one being a growing city, a city that will not be the same population as it is today as we approach 100,000, but certainly going beyond that. To the range of 120, 125,000, if not more, because right now, you know the city is looking at densifying the city for a number of reasons to meet a variety of city objectives and so our charge our challenge is to make sure that we have a water supply to be able to serve that that vision of the community and the council. And so we updated that document what it showed us then was that all things considered equal, we would need around 6000 or so acre feet of storage space in the in the windy gap chimney hollow project. That changed a bit when in vision. Longmont was completed. We're wearing some of that densification was sort of brought into the picture. And so the analysis that we then went into was to look at what what would the additional water demand be associated with those additional residents right that additional densification. And this was that, you know 6000 to 6500 acre feet would probably still get us by other things that are considered obviously are things like climate change, drought. The general water water policies of the city, you know things like continuing with the raw water policy and requiring water to come in with new development and so on. At the same time, the Longmont Water Board, their charge is to is to look very closely at the water supply needs at the city. The water board at the time. Their recommendation to the council was to be around 10,000 acre feet of water. And that is what was taken to the voters back in 2017 was a proposal to participate in the project up to that 10,000 acre. That 10,000 acre foot level. And it was about a $36 million bond issuance. It passed with with actually pretty pretty hefty support, you know long month long month residents and community members have historically stepped up to the plate to make sure that they continue to enjoy, you know, clean, reliable water. And so, the council that came into office. It was either 17 or 18 modified that that a commitment level to about 8,000 feet. And so, I'm sure Jeff and folks at northern we're wondering well long wonder you ever going to decide your, your participation level. But we take it serious down here and we involve the community we involve the council, and making those determinations. The last what I call sort of a tweak in our participation amount was to was to arrive at about 7500 acre feet of participation level. A lot of that was driven by the economics of the project. So the cost increases that we were experiencing at the time. So long month approached it from many angles. One of them being affordability and what could we afford with our current rate structure, as well as our current capital program. And I think we've arrived at the at the right level. We believe staff that it is sufficient to meet the needs of the city. I believe out to the build out of the city as we currently anticipate it right. That too can change. I don't have that perfect crystal ball to know what what what our future leaders of the community going to want in the next 20 to 30 years and so it depends now participation at this level. We believe our analysis tells us will provide the city with an adequate water supply to serve that that population up up into that 120,000 range. So can you can correct me now on anything I may have gotten wrong because you're much closer to the information than I am. That was an excellent summary. I really think it'll be valuable to people. The only thing I would add is that this does quickly devolve into some pretty technical numbers and evaluations and anybody who wants to go beyond, you know, the excellent presentation. They'll give us feel free to go to the city long months website and just search for future water demand evaluation. And we have the entire study on our website. All the numbers you'll ever want to back up everything we've talked about and get additional information. Yeah, that's great. Thanks. Thanks to both of you. As I understand in vision long month. My recollection is that the projected population at the time it was developed was 116,000. And then with more diversity or more density, it might get to 125 or 30, you know, but it's in that range. But the water supply is sufficient for that range, which I think is, yeah, is for even. Yeah. There's a lot of variability. You know, water supply is the one area of engineering that is really at the whim of mother nature. And in this case, what we know and understand about climate change is also an evolving science, and then evolving body of information. That we have sufficient. I call it factor safety built into our planning efforts. So as to get us through that, if we were to experience some of the, the more sort of dire predictions of what may impact us from climate change. I think the other thing to say though to is that long month community members in my time have also been incredibly responsible. When asked to cut back, or reduce their water use. They have come through with, you know, five star rating, they have always responded and and and come to the table again to say, you know what, we acknowledge we're living in the great American desert. And there may be times where we need to, again, cut back. And that's why water conservation is now and always will be critical to the long term sustainability of this community, and probably also its environmental health. Because that to the extent we're able to not divert the water into the city into tabs. Be be used for other uses, whether it be recreation, or environmental needs and those kinds of things and so I think going forward. Long months going to be in an excellent position to be able to address a wide range of water, both opportunities and obligations in the coming years. And that is a part of that not so subtle message to not interpret any of this in terms of supply to misinterpret that as G you could you just have free reign to do whatever we still have to conserve and we talked last in this first episode that we are actually there is conservation underway right now we see per capita use dropping over the last number of years which is a good thing. And we anticipate continuing to see that I know the city is doing a number of things to help residents in their conservation efforts from audits of their homes and businesses to providing efficient fixtures there's a whole, whole collection of things the city does, once the once the water starts to flow to make best use of it. I think I want to I want to I don't want to miss the opportunity to reinforce what what Ken said about and land annexed into the city brings with it the city has been absolutely clear and consistent about expecting the water rights traditional water rights to go with that land. So, when people are concerned about whether or not land that's annexed, and that what it might mean in terms of growth whether or not it's paying its way. In this case, it does bring water we're not going to annex land and develop land where there's not water to support that annexation and development that clear is that consistent or accurate. Yeah. Adele you mentioned, I think it was in that way was the November 17 ballot when the voters approved selling those bonds, and part of the way we're servicing the debt on those bonds is with water rates. Correct. And I think the city is anticipating. We're now I think moving to the into the third year of a three year rate increase is that am I remembering that correctly. The multi year rate increase and I know the first two years were 9% increases and I believe now going into the 2022 year budget. It's it's anticipated to be about a 7% increase. 23 I believe steps down again. Yeah, maybe into the 5% range increase but we did look at a multi year plan which we always try to do. In this case it was a five year rate plan for water. You know, I'd love to be able to sit here and say, we would, we will never need another rate increase. I would love to be able to say that I am not sure if that's a true statement though, nor should it be a reasonable expectation. Like most things in our world. Things continue to get more expensive. Right now, we are dealing with significant increases in commodities like water pipeline. Upwards of 100% increase in the price of pipelines to get water pipe, along with delivery delays. And so, you know the economy right now, I believe is still recovering. Resetting itself, if you will, post pandemic. Of course, I don't know if I should say post pandemic, I know I'm still in the middle of it but we are experiencing that. And so on the one hand, we can't control that. We also know we need to keep renewing this water system. We cannot ignore it, we cannot let it simply deteriorate. Or the community will not have a safe and reliable supply of water and so it is a difficult situation and I know. I'm sure many of the folks listening today are, are wondering how they're going to pay those utility bills going forward. And so, I know Council, you have made it a strong priority for us also to provide robust programs to, to assist those in the community, who are challenged due to their income to be able to afford and pay these utility costs and so it's a complicated mix of ensuring reliability, ensuring high quality, and then also ensuring affordability, and that challenge will never end. So it will continue. So just to do my summary of that. We moved in 2017, exactly the plan that's now being implemented. Yes, and as difficult as it is for folks that the rate increases were part of that plan that was what was presented laid out at the time. They're, they're increasing but they're increasing in a slower rate. Now as we move through 2023. But it is the whole objective, both that and the investments that we're making an infrastructure to maintain the asset is what residents would expect of city leaders to ensure the viability the sustainability the quality of the system for generations to come right and it's it's a little bit like, how do you swallow an elephant or eat an elephant right you got to do it a bite at a time and that's kind of what we're doing because what we don't want to have to do is swallow a whole elephant at one time because we failed right to pay attention to what what those needs and those costs we're going to be going forward. What's the, we broke ground on August 6 on chimney hollows what's the anticipated time when we get a chance to go and do the ribbon cutting or whatever, whatever you do when what a dams completed. It's a chimney hollow reservoir is a four year construction process so it'll take four years to build the dam. So sometime in 2025 we think will be complete with building the reservoir. We can start filling it with water at that time. We think it'll take probably several years to fill the reservoir depending on the hydrology and, and what's going on so it's a little ways out there before that reservoir is entirely full but it does so it does take some time. And that in that filling the reservoir is really based on rain rainfall on the West slope right I mean it's in the wet years that there's, there are is an abundance of water that you can, that you can pump in the chimney hollows, without shorting anybody else downstream what there allotment is right. Yes. And Jeff is it is it correct that in any given year we can divert. What's the maximum amount that we can divert through windy gap in any given year. The maximum amount is 90,000 acre feet which is actually the size of chimney hollow reservoir. There you go. We've never brought that much through the Adams tunnel but we've brought. We pumped 60,000 we brought probably 40 plus thousand through in a given year but we could bring more I mean the reservoir could feel quicker than than three years, depending on the hydrology and this situation in the Colorado big Thompson project. We need all Colorado and to be doing rain dances of some kind to generate more moisture on both both East and West slopes. But that but the 90,000 acre feet, we will own or, or will have paid for 7500 of those 90,000 acre feet and have water supply, given the unknowns about climate change to serve as a city of 125,000 plus if we have build up takes us beyond 125,000. Well man, I hope. I hope we get a lot of viewers on this program because it's a wealth of information that people honestly this there won't be many opportunities maybe ever to get you three in a conversation like this for this period of time to help bring people the public along with an understanding of what are the policies, what's the portfolio and what's the future of Longmont or water in Longmont so thank you again for what you do every day. The community is indebted to you, your decades of service your expertise. Thank you for the time you've dedicated to these two segments and long monitors. That's your backstory on everything water related in Longmont Colorado. Thank you. Thank you.