Gross Reservoir Expansion Project
News and Updates
Family shares gift of a lifetime
TAP - December, 10, 2019 - "The photographs provide snapshots of the enormous effort it took to construct the dam. Hundreds of workers spent four years in the remote canyon working long hours, often in harsh weather conditions. “My dad knew everything about the dam...
Denver Water makes way for toads
TAP - Dec. 2, 2019 - "Denver Water, as part of an expansive environmental agreement with the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest, recently completed its first “toad tunnel” under Vasquez Creek Road just outside Winter Park." Read the full story here.
After decades of negotiations, restoration efforts on Colorado’s heavily diverted Fraser River are showing signs of success
The Colorado Sun - Nov. 13 - "Both Denver Water and Northern Water state that their new diversion projects are aimed to help meet increasing water demands along the Front Range and to buffer customers from future water-supply variability due to climate change." Read...
Remodeling and restoring rivers — for trout and those who hook them
TAP - October 31, 2019 - "Williams Fork is one of the real jewels of our state wildlife areas, and the project has effectively addressed some habitat shortcomings that we had observed over the past decade,” said Jon Ewert, Colorado Parks and Wildlife aquatic biologist...
Indoor ‘waterfall’ puts water to the test at CSU
TAP - October 2, 2019 - “It’s a fun job and also extremely important to the communities where these structures are built,” said Chris Thornton, director of the Colorado State University Hydraulics Laboratory. “Our job is to provide designers with information to make...
Beautiful weather and great cookout!
On Saturday, September 28 Denver Water hosted the fifth community cookout at the Gross Reservoir Expansion Project public information yurt. We enjoyed meeting new visitors to the yurt and were happy to see some returning guests to hear about the latest project...
Improving aquatic habitat on Kemp-Breeze section of Williams Fork
Colorado Parks & Wildlife - Sept. 26, 2019 - "The fish will benefit, the anglers will benefit and this state wildlife area will become an even more attractive place to spend the day outdoors catching trout." Full press release available here.
Community cookout this Saturday, Sept. 28
To celebrate another great summer of outreach and relationship building, the Gross Reservoir Expansion Project team is hosting a community cookout on Saturday, Sept. 28, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. located at the public information yurt, just up the fill from our...
Gross Dam spillway design being put to the test by CSU civil engineers
CSU College News - Sept. 24, 2019 - "CSU engineers are applying their hydraulics expertise to help verify key design and functionality aspects of the spillway, part of the public utility’s planned upgrade to Gross Dam. The reservoir impounded by Gross Dam provides...
Colorado’s tale of two seasons
TAP - September 19,2019 - "When the Gross Reservoir Expansion Project — which is in the final stages of approval after 15 years of permitting — is done, Denver Water will have more flexibility throughout its system to react to year-to-year changes in snowpack levels,...
Denver Water hires contractor for Gross Reservoir Expansion Project
HydroWorld.com – July 11, 2019 – “This is a major milestone in our 16-year effort to expand Gross Reservoir, as its original designers intended decades ago, to ensure a more reliable water supply in a future marked by greater uncertainty in weather patterns,” said...
Controversy over Denver Water’s Gross Reservoir expansion offers a glimpse into water woes in the West
Colorado Sun – July 10, 2019 – "Denver Water has a long history of securing water before there’s a crisis,” said Patty Limerick, director of the CU Boulder’s Center for the American West and former Colorado Historian. “The Gross Reservoir expansion is a perfect...
Daily Camera: Gross Reservoir expansion makes sense
June 22, 2019 - "But a dispassionate consideration of the project leads to the conclusion that Denver Water’s plan to expand Gross Reservoir is a reasonable and responsible measure, provided the utility proceeds with the utmost sensitivity to the residents who would...
Request for proposals: macroinvertebrate monitoring and sediment sampling
June 25, 2019 - Learning By Doing (LBD) is soliciting proposals from qualified firms to conduct macroinvertebrate and sediment sampling and reporting for targeted streams in the upper Colorado River basin. LBD has released two Request for Proposals (RFPs) for the...
Request for proposals: fish passage design services
April 30, 2019 - Learning By Doing is soliciting proposals from qualified firms for design services to improve fish passage at an existing rock weir diversion structure and to install a new fish screen on the adjacent diversion ditch. The project is located on the...
Carroll: A drought will come again
Denver Post – "Those still wedded to an image of the big city plundering water from the West Slope without regard to consequences are embarrassingly out of date. And after more than three decades of talking about an expansion of Gross reservoir, it’s finally time to...
Project related activities
April 18, 2019 – Denver Water will have contractor crews at the intersection of State Highway 72 and Gross Dam Road on Friday, April 19 performing geotechnical investigation activities. This work is necessary for the design of safety related roadway improvements for...
A statement from the CEO/Manager
Below is a statement from Denver Water CEO/Manager Jim Lochhead regarding the April 11 complaint filed in District Court on the zoned land use exemption: Our commitment to the community has been demonstrated from the beginning when we intentionally and explicitly...