The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District hopes to divert as much of its 30,000 acre-feet of water as possible from the Colorado River every year to the East Slope. Northern proposes building a reservoir near Carter Lake for storing Windy Gap water to serve cities like Loveland, Greeley, Fort Lupton, Broomfield and Longmont.
With about 60 percent of the upper Colorado already being diverted by Northern and Denver Water, this project would take another 20 percent of a river struggling to survive. When you dry up the rivers, you dry up a majority of our tourism industry and our economy. You dry up the reason anglers, rafters, kayakers, birders and picnickers spend their vacations in Colorado. You dry up critical riparian habitat, which makes up 2 percent of Colorado land yet supports 98 percent of its wildlife.
