Wingfoot Water Resources

Drought Supply and Long-Term Water Storage

Water News

Greeley City Council Passes Terry Ranch Project

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KUNC | By Luke Runyon
Published March 3, 2021 at 11:46 AM MST

Greeley city council has voted in favor of acquiring a large aquifer on the Colorado-Wyoming border to supply future growth in times of drought.

The Terry Ranch project earned unanimous support from council members during a meeting Tuesday evening. The project emerged as an alternative to expanding the city’s existing Seaman Reservoir along the North Fork of the Poudre River.

Greeley mayor John Gates said the aquifer project is the cheaper, more environmentally friendly option.

“In the final analysis I found the due diligence to be extremely thorough, which lacked any fatal flaws. If there had been any fatal flaws, I can’t speak for council, but I would’ve punted this project right down the road,” Gates said.

Wingfoot Water Resources, a private investment group, is trading the aquifer for water credits it can sell to developers interested in building within Greeley’s city limits. The company is also providing Greeley with $125 million in financing to build the infrastructure needed to tap into the aquifer.

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New Terry Ranch water testing data illustrates future of potential project

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By | cmeade@greeleytribune.com | Greeley Tribune

When the city of Greeley began exploring the potential of acquiring the Terry Ranch aquifer, there were critical questions that had to be answered.

Among them: What’s the quality of the roughly 1.2 million acre feet of water stored in the underground vault? Are there metals or other minerals present that will cause problems in treatment, affecting taste and quality of the water delivered to Greeley customers? Can any metals or other minerals present be treated? What happens if the city, as it would intend fully to do, recharges the aquifer with water from other sources; could that water, of slightly different makeup than the native water, leach minerals from the walls of the aquifer while being stored underground? What happens when the water from the aquifer flows through Greeley pipes? And is this cost-effective relative to other options for the city’s future water supply?

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William Hoyt: Weighing the feasibility of the Terry Ranch project

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By | letters@greeleytribune.com |

As a geologist versed in all things water, I have followed with interest Greeley’s fascinating and innovative water system.

In the past we have looked exclusively west to obtain snowmelt runoff (surface) water for irrigation, industrial and municipal use, following Horace Greeley’s prophetic charge to “Go West…” Now, in 2021, the City of Greeley is looking to the north in Weld County at Terry Ranch to consider developing subsurface groundwater and storing water in the Upper Laramie Formation aquifer.

I have reviewed more than 200 pages of draft scientific, engineering and water quality/quantity data and plans. As a citizen of Greeley these past 40 years, and as a scientist familiar with subsurface aquifers, I consider it my duty to inform the public whether the proposed project is feasible and wise.

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Costs keep rising for proposed Fort Collins water storage project

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WRITTEN BY Kevin Duggan, Fort Collins Coloradoan

The potential cost of expanding Halligan Reservoir northwest of Fort Collins continues to rise.

Fort Collins Utilities officials say the expected cost of the project, which would include raising the height of the reservoir’s dam 25 feet, has reached $120 million.

Chances are the final project cost will fall within a range of $100 million to $150 million, depending on the scope of the project and its schedule for approval and construction, officials say.

The most recent projected cost is up from a 2017 estimate of $75 million. The anticipated price tag for the project keeps changing as city officials learn more about the costs of going through county, state and federal permitting processes, acquiring land, performing environmental mitigation, and “evolving best practices in dam design and construction,” according to a news release.

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States sign short-term Colorado River drought plan, but global warming looms over long-term solutions

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Photo: Mark Henle, The Republic WRITTEN BY Ian James, Arizona Republic

The Colorado River just got a boost that’s likely to prevent its depleted reservoirs from bottoming out, at least for the next several years.

Representatives of seven Western states and the federal government signed a landmark deal on Monday laying out potential cuts in water deliveries through 2026 to reduce the risks of the river’s reservoirs hitting critically low levels.

Yet even as they celebrated the deal’s completion on a terrace overlooking Hoover Dam and drought-stricken Lake Mead, state and federal water officials acknowledged that tougher negotiations lie ahead. Their task starting next year will be to work out new rules to re-balance the chronically overused river for years to come.

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