DENVER – Western Resource Advocates (WRA), Trout Unlimited (TU) and the Colorado Environmental Coalition (CEC) today released a plan that outlines how Colorado Front Range communities can meet projected human water demands through 2050 while keeping rivers healthy.  In the new report, “Filling the Gap: Commonsense Solutions for Meeting Front Range Water Needs,” the conservation groups detail an approach that relies on low-impact water supply projects, conservation, water reuse, and agricultural-urban water cooperation to meet Colorado’s growing water demands. Colorado is currently working through the Interbasin Compact Committee (IBCC) process to determine how the state’s river basins can meet their future water needs.  The IBCC is considering a number of new storage projects, transbasin diversions, and moving of water over long distances.  The “Filling the Gap” report offers an alternative plan showing how Front Range communities in the South Platte River Basin, home to some of Colorado’s largest municipalities including Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins, can meet  future needs without new major diversions of water from other river basins.  The plan outlined in the “Filling the Gap” report is designed to be less expensive than traditional water supply approaches.

PDF copies of the report can be found at: http://www.tu.org/sites/www.tu.org/files/documents/FillingTheGap.pdf