# Glade Reservoir on Poudre



## SKeen (Feb 23, 2009)

Hey Noco boaters: I just read a new article on the proposed Glade reservoir. 

Save the Poudre plans anti-NISP ballot initiative

It left me feeling more confused than enlightened on the real deal. I did some more reading on savethepoudre.org and tend to trust the point of view shared by those folks.

I am generally opposed in terms of conservation and also in (selfish?) interests as a frequent river user.

Does anyone want to share more details on their point of view of how this will effect the overall river ecosystem as well as recreactional use in the canyon?

Or feel free to redirect to another thread on the matter if you like to do that. Thanks, and keep lovin' the Poudre.


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## gwheyduke (Jul 3, 2008)

I've got the Save the Poudre poster hanging in my garage, but as I understand it, they are no long proposing to take any water at the Monroe Canal, and won't divert water until after the filter plant run. This means there will be significantly less water through town, but no change to the volume of water in the canyon. 

I'm getting this from Northern's website/map which shows the mitigation they've agreed to, as well as their diversion point. 
ArcGIS Web Application

I work in Water resources and the whole project really speaks to the supply problems facing the Front Range. While conservation is definitely an option, I think we need more storage if people want places for their kids to live. That or towns continue to buy and dry historic farms, which isn't a great option either.


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## BrianK (Feb 3, 2005)

The latest numbers I've seen show current proposal will reduce the flows below the canyon by up to 70%. There are already a ton of diversions at the end of the canyon and through town, so this will reduce those flows to basically nothing. 

From a recreation perspective the latest proposal shouldn't have a huge effect on kayakers/rafters. It will affect in town recreation, but that's mostly tubers. 

Ecologically there are a number of studies that show that dewatering a river has profound effects throughout the entire river system. 

Also aesthetically, for my tastes, it's nicer to have a river flowing through town than a dry ditch. 

Save the Poudre has a lot of other resources on why this is a bad idea. 

The bigger issue for me is that reservoirs don't change the total supply of water. We have a finite amount of water. This is a temporary solution. If northern Colorado is going to continue to grow the solution is to find a better way to allocate the limited water resources we have, and not just put a bandaid on a problem. (I recognize that overhauling our prior appropriation system is unlikely, but IMO that's what we need.) Otherwise we're going to have a new dam proposal - or proposals like the Million/Yampa project that was thankfully rejected - every few years.


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## jaffy (Feb 4, 2004)

BrianK said:


> From a recreation perspective the latest proposal shouldn't have a huge effect on kayakers/rafters. It will affect in town recreation, but that's mostly tubers.


Except for the new whitewater park that's supposed to be finished this Fall I believe. That would suck to finally get a whitewater park, and then have the flows reduced to a trickle.

I'm not an expert or even really very informed, but it seems obvious that although another reservoir may improve the ability to capture some additional water in high flow years for use in low flow years, it's not a good option to do that. If we want to store more water, I'd rather see us pump it back into the aquifer. We really should limit drawing from the aquifers to what we put back into it anyway before we end up in California's shoes.

For reducing water use I think we need to:

1. Have less people (stop incentivizing reproducing)
2. Stop subsidizing water use and let market forces go to work. I'd guess this would reduce agriculture and/or force us to grow crops more suited to arid land, and encourage homeowners to switch to more low water landscapes.

Of course, none of that is politically feasible, but it's what I think we should do.


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## BrianK (Feb 3, 2005)

You're right it will kill the viability of the new play park which is another reason to be against the project.


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