Title
A Resolution Authorizing Colorado Springs Utilities to Take All Actions Necessary to Abandon Certain Water Rights Associated with the Sugar Loaf Reservoir
Presenter:
Travas Deal, Chief Executive Officer, Colorado Springs Utilities
Jenny Bishop, P.E., Resource Planner IV, Water Resources Planning, Colorado Springs Utilities
Body
Summary:
Staff seeks approval of Council to abandon the remaining Sugar Loaf conditional water rights due to physical, legal, and regulatory constraints and de minimis system benefit.
Background:
The Sugar Loaf conditional water rights were acquired by the City of Colorado Springs in 1984 as part of a larger transaction primarily intended to secure a perfected 17,416 acre feet storage right in what is now Turquoise Reservoir. While that perfected right and related assets continue to play an important role in system operations, the associated conditional rights-including storage at proposed Upper Sugar Loaf Reservoir, remaining enlargement storage, and feeder canal diversions-have never been developed nor used. The physical sites intended for these rights were inundated by Turquoise Reservoir, feeder canal infrastructure was abandoned, and necessary land ownership, easements, and federal storage access were lost or transferred to third parties prior to Colorado Springs' ownership of the water rights.
A detailed evaluation of these conditional rights found that exercising them would require substantial new investment, including new diversion and conveyance infrastructure, land acquisition, federal approvals, environmental review, water court proceedings, and potential reservoir enlargement-dictated by the Fryingpan Arkansas Project framework. Analysis shows the rights would provide extremely limited and unreliable yield due to junior priority and need to use more senior and operationally critical supplies. As a result, maintaining the conditional rights no longer aligns with legal risk to maintain them, and abandonment...
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