| Alternatives - Conservation >> Cheaper, Faster, Smarter, Sustainable |
| • Glade Reservoir is enormously expensive, and it isn’t needed. We can provide all of the water proposed to be stored in Glade, and more, at a lower financial and environmental cost, through straightforward and proven conservation techniques, improved demand management and water use efficiency by municipal and industrial users, and with very modest improvements in agricultural water use efficiency. These include: |
| • Tiered water rates that reward conservation with lower costs to customers who conserve. |
| • Comprehensive public education and awareness programs about quick-payback water conservation measures. |
| • Rebate/retrofit programs for low-water use landscaping, low-water-use toilets, shower heads, washing machines and dishwashers. |
| • Water fallowing contracts between municipal, industrial, and agricultural users, with investments in agricultural water conservation and water use efficiency in return for use of agricultural water. |
| • Use Growth-Displaced Water Transfers, i.e., transfer water rights from lands developed by growing communities to the communities needing water. |
| • Landscape irrigation monitoring and improvement programs to reduce water wasted in excessive irrigation. |
| • Repairing leaks in ditches and pipelines, lining ditches along all reaches, and using closed pipelines wherever possible. |
| • Use of gray-water systems and interfacing gray-water systems with water recycling systems wherever possible. |
| For more information, please refer to a new report by Western Resource Advocates, Trout Unlimited and the Colorado Environmental Coalition. Facing Our Future: A Balanced Water Solution for Colorado presents an objective approach for increasing the Front Range's water supply faster with less harm to the environment and much less controversy than water projects have faced in the past. In addition, Smart Savings: Water Conservation Measures that Make Cents, also by WRA, provides water utility managers and the public with information that can be utilized to gauge the likely effectiveness of a variety of water conservation measures. |
| The Healthy Rivers Alternative in a Nutshell |
| SaveThePoudre and others looked closely at the applicants "preferred alternative" as outlined in the draft EIS. We found the projections of regional population growth -- and attendant supposed water needs -- to be highly inflated, and suspect. Using our own carefully collected data, we significantly revised the regional growth projections downwards as compared to NISP DEIS. Starting with these more realistic population estimates and using real-world examples of modest water conservation, we next revised the water conservation savings that could be achieved. Together, our revised estimates of population growth and consumption let us realistically project true regional water needs. Using these more realistic data, our analysis suggests that the actual water needs of the participant communities are significantly lower than portrayed in the DEIS. |
| Knowing the true water needs, SaveThePoudre designed a water supply and storage option that does not drain the Poudre River or require Glade Reservoir. In many ways, what we have outlined is similar to the draft EIS's 'No Action' alternative, just more realistically portrayed. Looked at in a new light, the No Action Alternative, coupled with our Healthy Rivers Alternative paradigm, allowed us to create an alternative that is considerably cheaper than NISP and protects what is left of the Poudre River. One key to our alternative's cost effectiveness is a 'pay-as-you-go' financing rather than the enormous costs of a huge upfront debt-ridden project. |
| In short, the Healthy Rivers Alternative costs less than NISP, better protects agriculture in northern Colorado, much better protects the Cache la Poudre River, and is truly the least environmentally damaging practicable alternative (LEDPA) that is required by the Clean Water Act. For more on the Healthy Rivers Alternative, please see http://savethepoudre.org/eis_documents.html. |
| Alternatives - When and If Storage is Actually Needed |
SaveThePoudre recognizes that, in the future, some additional water storage options may be necessary. However, we believe that storage would be far better achieved by utilizing the following mechanisms, in order:
1. Existing Reservoirs and Gravel Pits
2. Expansion/Dredging of Existing Reservoirs and Gravel Pits
3. New Gravel Pits
4. Potential Aquifer Storage |
| We can and we will better protect Colorado's water resources! |
