As the economy recovers and development continues in northeastern El Paso County, water sufficiency issues are high priority. On Aug. 8, the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners approved a contract with Forsgren Associates Inc. for the development of a water master plan for the county.Mark Waller, District 2 representative on the BOCC, said the study is vital because the development boom in unincorporated areas of the county requires an investigation of the capacity of water resources available, along with a long-term plan for managing the resources.ìWe have a responsibility to future generations to make sure we are being good stewards of the resources we have right now,î Waller said. ìPart of that means making a plan of the resources we have so they are protected.îIn areas like Falcon, Waller said several water districts service the community, and the water they use is subsurface aquifer water. ìThis master plan will help us figure out what is in the aquifers, who has rights to the water and how development is affecting it,î he said.According to the Colorado Foundation for Water Education website, the Denver Basin aquifer system is a major source of water for an area of about 6,700 surface miles, including the Falcon area. ìIt includes four aquifers: the Dawson, Denver, Arapahoe, and Laramie-Fox Hills,î the website states. ìEach aquifer has different water quality, depths and water availability.îLeon Gomes, district manager of Paint Brush Hills Metropolitan District, said his district has wells in the Denver, Arapahoe and Laramie-Fox Hills aquifers. The board of directors accepted a water use master plan for the district in 2015 to determine the legal and physical water supply.ìThe legal supply is what we have water rights to and the physical supply is what we can actually deliver to our customers and store in tanks,î Gomes said. ìThe result of that water use master plan was that we determined our full water supply to be 1,010-acre-feet per year.îAn additional 616 homes have been approved for construction within the Paint Brush Hills district, which puts the total demand at 590-acre-feet per year (more than half the total capacity), Gomes said. To service those homes, the developer will provide three additional wells to the district, he said.ìWe are making sure we are managing our existing supply so we are not overtaxing any of our wells,î Gomes said. ìWe all know it (water) is a finite resource and we have to be mindful of that.îJim McGrady, owner of McGrady Associates and former district manager for the Woodmen Hills Metropolitan District, said water is a finite resource because the Denver Basin aquifer system is non-tributary or non-renewable.McGrady said when he was hired at WHMD around the beginning of May, it became obvious that the districtís wells were producing an alarmingly small amount of water, compared to what they should have been producing.ìOne of the wells was pumping 25 gallons per minute out of the Arapahoe aquifer,î he said. ìThat number is extremely low.îMcGrady said WHMD has a contract with Cherokee Metropolitan District to obtain 89-acre-feet of water per year from the Upper Black Squirrel alluvial aquifer, putting their total water supply at about 951-acre-feet per year. However, the current demand on that supply is in the 820-850-acre feet per year range, he said.With no end in sight to construction in the area, McGrady said he was concerned about the districtís ability to service the additional houses. ìI wanted to solve a problem that I know exists,î he said. ìI took the job with that expectation and started digging into what was actually going on out in Woodmen Hills with their water supply. It became obvious that they needed more water.îHowever, after about two months with WHMD, McGrady resigned. ìLooking back at it, I think I was starting to make people nervous,î he said. ìThe board of directors did not want to hear someone say their water situation was not as good as they thought it was. There are a lot of things they need to be doing, and doing the same old thing is not an option.îMcGrady said the district has no long-term plan on how to ensure its water supply. The best option the WHMD has devised is to drill more wells into the Denver Basin aquifer system, but McGrady said that cannot be the only option. As developments were constructed outside of the city limits, developers starting drilling wells into the aquifer system because it was the cheapest, fastest source of water, he said.ìBut over time, that supply goes down,î he said. ìYou could use the Denver Basin aquifer (system) as a bridge to the future, but that is all that system should be. It is not meant to be a single source of water. It is supposed to tide you over until you find a renewable source.îJosh Killet, WHMD board president, said the districtís water resource plan is constantly evolving to reflect the changing market. It comprises the several avenues of supplementation the district is exploring at any given time; therefore, it does not exist in the form of a single document, Killet said.ìCurrently, approximately 50 percent of Woodmen Hillsí water comes from renewable sources,î Killet said. ìWe are constantly looking for new sources and working on new deals to supplement our existing supply.îMcGrady said he wanted to help build a resource plan for the district to outline how much longer the water supply will last, along with determining other sources for water. Ideally, McGrady said he would have hired a hydrogeologist to examine the wells to get that information. ìIt is not a matter of if the Denver Basin aquifer system is going to become a liability, it is when,î he said.Gomes said PBHMD has the ability to interconnect with Meridian Service Metropolitan District to get additional water, should that become necessary. However, according to the Meridian metro district website, the 15 on-site and six off-site wells are all located within the Denver Basin aquifer system, except for two in the Upper Black Squirrel alluvial aquifer.According to the Statewide Water Supply Initiative developed by the Colorado Water Conservation Board of the Department of Natural Resources in 2010, between 2010 and 2050, ìThere will need to be a decreased reliance on nonrenewable, non-tributary groundwater as a permanent water supply. Without this, there are reliability and sustainability concerns in some areas, particularly along the Front Range.îBy 2050, the SWSI indicates that northern El Paso County and the South Metro area, just north of the county, will need to replace about 35,000-acre-feet of non-tributary groundwater with a renewable water source.Steve Berry, a spokesman with Colorado Springs Utilities, said CSU has the ability and willingness to help out neighboring districts, and does not rule out a possibility of linking up with WHMD or PBHMD in the future. But there are no immediate plans to partner with WHMD or any other metropolitan district, he said.ìThere is not enough water to supply the new houses that are being built out there (in the Falcon area),î McGrady said. ìA lot of houses are being built on a very fragile water supply.î
