Colorado Currents|Online, Summer 2009 - Update

Clean Water Action is helping to lead the fight to protect water quality in the Cache la Poudre River and Colorado River basins. Multiple dam and reservoir projects are planned that will severely impact water quality and river health in both basins.

In the Colorado River basin, a large project called the "Windy Gap Firming Project" will drain more water out of the Colorado River and pipe it over to the Front Range to supply water for sprawling growth. The U.S. EPA "objected" to the project and stated that the project might violate the Clean Water Act. Clean Water Action is helping to lead a coalition of groups that have inserted comments into the Army Corps' EIS process - we are calling for more water conservation in cities, less sprawl, and no impacts on the already beleaguered Colorado River.

In the Cache la Poudre River basin, Clean Water Action is leading an effort to provide comments to the City of Fort Collins about its proposed expansion of the Halligan Reservoir. Clean Water Action is calling for more water conservation, less sprawl, and an "instream flow program" that provides permanent legal protections for the Poudre River. Also in the Poudre River basin, Clean Water Action is a partner in the large effort to stop the Northern Integrated Supply Project and its massive new Glade Reservoir. Clean Water Action is partnering with 15 regional, state, and national groups to provide an official alternative to the project, called the "Healthy Rivers Alternative" that provides water to cities and protects the Poudre River.