NISP Environmental Impact Analysis

Northern Water believes that NISP is the most cost-effective, least environmentally damaging alternative to help meet our region’s future water needs. Without pooling resources to build NISP, the 15 partners likely would pursue separate projects and/or dry up agricultural lands. Both are more environmentally damaging alternatives.

NISP includes several features that will protect the Poudre River and our environment:

• NISP will prevent the permanent dry-up of 25,000 acres of agricultural lands by providing municipal users with an alternative source of supply. Dry-up can have enormous impacts on river ecosystems, wetlands and local economies. The State of Colorado predicts the South Platte watershed may lose up to 225,000 acres of irrigated farmland by 2030 due to water transfers.
• NISP will honor several in-stream flow requirements on the Poudre, which will help to protect flows through Fort Collins. The project will not dry up the Poudre River. Northern Water is also pursuing opportunities to improve flows through town.
• NISP will protect habitat and recreation within Poudre Canyon. Glade Reservoir is located off-stream on undeveloped land already owned by Northern Water. The reservoir will fill using a diversion structure below the Canyon mouth that already exists, negating the need to build new structures on the Poudre River.
• Two-thirds of water stored in Glade Reservoir will come from agricultural water sharing partnerships. The reservoir will fill with water that has been diverted from the Poudre for more than a century.
• Most of NISP’s impacts to the Poudre River will be mitigated through channel improvement and habitat restoration.

Find a preliminary assessment of NISP’s impacts in Northern Water’s 2003 Phase II Alternatives Analysis.

This report also laid the groundwork for the Environmental Impact Statement process, a federally mandated requirement. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is the lead federal agency for the review process. See the Corps’ web site for additional NISP information. The Corp’s environmental review includes a reassessment of all NISP alternatives previously evaluated, along with other alternatives that arose during the review process.

In the EIS, the Corps is evaluating the potential impacts of four NISP alternatives on a host of resources, including water quality, wildlife, socioeconomic factors, hydrology, wetlands and others.

The Corps selected the alternatives to be analyzed in the EIS in Summer 2006. The Corps selected three action alternatives that are practicable, meet NISP’s Purpose and Need, and minimize environmental impacts. The Corp's is also analyzing a no action alternative. The following table describes the four alternatives.

Alternative	Key Features	Detailed map
#1: Glade Reservoir and the South Platte Water Conservation Project (SPWCP)	170,000 af Glade Reservoir and associated forebay, pump station, pipelines, Poudre Valley Canal and river diversion improvements, and relocation of seven miles of U.S. Hwy 287. 40,000 af Galeton Reservoir and associated forebay, pump station, pipeline from the South Platte River to Galeton Reservoir, and pipelines from Galeton Reservoir to the Larimer & Weld and New Cache ditches.	Preferred Alternative Map
#2: Cactus Hill Reservoir and the SPWCP	180,000 af Cactus Hill Reservoir and associated forebay, pump stations, Poudre Valley Canal and river diversion improvements, and pipelines. Same SPWCP configuration as Alternative #1.	Cactus Hill & SPWCP Map
#3: Agricultural to municipal transfers, Glade and a reduced SPWCP	Same Glade Reservoir configuration as Alternative #1. SPWCP with a smaller 20,000 af Galeton Reservoir. 12,000 af of firm yield from permanents agricultural-to-municipal transfers. Sub alternative will replace Glade with Cactus Hill and use the same Cactus Hill configuration as Alternative #2.	Ag Transfer Map
#4: No action	Evaluates how the NISP partners would meet their future water supply needs in the absence of NISP. Assumes that many of the NISP partners would rely on the transfer of agricultural water and would build new storage.

The general public has had substantial opportunities to participate in the environmental review process. In 2004 the District held informational open houses in several Front Range communities, and the Corps also held three formal public hearings on the NISP proposal. The Corps received more than 700 comments on water quality, population growth, endangered species, economics and other topics. A summary of those comments is available here. Northern Water continues to educate its constituents about NISP, and has presented the project to more than 100 organizations since 2004.

The Corps should release the draft EIS in April 2008 and will accept additional public comment then.

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