(Description: A map of the C-BT Water system, depicting the movement of water from the West slope of Colorado to the reservoirs and water utility organizations along the front range)
Where Does Our Water Come From?
From snowpack high in the watersheds of the Rockies, to the taps of Spring Canyon Water & Sanitation District, our water’s journey took years of planning, ingenuity, engineering feats, natural phenomenon, and physics. Approximately 80% of Colorado’s precipitation occurs west of the Continental Divide, while more than 80% of the state’s population is located on the east. The demand for water in the front range led engineers to investigating and planning the Colorado Big Thompson Project from 1938-1956. The project required a great deal of ingenuity and time exploring the mountain peaks and valleys of Colorado’s Northern Front Range, followed by massive engineering challenges to divert water from the natural flow on the western slope to the east. Beautiful Horsetooth Reservoir provides wonderful water-based recreation but also serves as the largest of the three terminal reservoirs for the C-BT Project, storing and supporting the water demand of nearly 1 million people in Northern Colorado. The C–BT Project consists of a complex system of reservoirs, pump plants, tunnels, pipelines, and power plants. The project accumulates melting snow in the upper Colorado River Basin and delivers the water to Colorado’s eastern slope via the Alva B. Adams Tunnel. This engineering marvel completed in 1944 enables Upper Colorado River Basin water to flow beneath Rocky Mountain National Park to east slope water users. The concrete lined tunnel is 9’9” in diameter, cylindrical-shaped and runs as much as 3,800 feet beneath the surface of the continental divide. The tunnel drops 109 feet in elevation between the west and east portals enabling water to flow by gravity taking approximately two hours to flow the length of the 13.1-mile tunnel. On the Western slope, C-BT water is collected from high mountain runoff and stored in Willow Creek Reservoir, Shadow Mountain Reservoir and Grand Lake. From Grand Lake the water enters the Adams tunnel. Once water exits the tunnel’s east Portal, it descends the Front Range mountains nearly 2,600 vertical feet and passes through five power plants and four reservoirs. The hydropower generated provides a clean, renewable supply of power for northeastern Colorado and the western United States. From the tunnel it travels through the East Portal Reservoir to Mary’s Lake, Lake Estes, Pinewood Reservoir, to Flatiron Reservoir where it splits between Horsetooth Reservoir to the north, and Boulder Reservoir and Carter Lake to the south. The 13-mile Hansen Canal delivers water from Flatiron Reservoir to Horsetooth.
Treatment & Delivery
Raw water is delivered from Horsetooth Reservoir to the Soldier Canyon Filter Plant, a 60 million gallon per day conventional water treatment plant located at the northeast end of the Reservoir. Water moves through the City of Fort Collins water system to Fort Collins Loveland Water District (FCLWD), who supplies SCWSD with our treated water. In 2015, SCWSD decommissioned our filter treatment plant and entered into a 25-year Intergovernmental Agreement with FCLWD. Rising costs of ongoing compliance and changing regulations made it financially impractical to continue treating our own water. As part of the agreement, SCWSD conveyed its water shares with a right of reverted upon expiration to FCLWD to manage in exchange for receiving treated water that is purchased at a rate per 1,000 gallons. SCWSD’s water portfolio consists of 211 CB-T shares and 7.5 NPIC, a healthy portfolio for now and we are continuously monitoring future potential build out of the District.
Distribution
The water purchased from FCLWD enters our system at the Trilby Station and is pumped from this station through the 1.5 mile 8” interconnect built in 2014 over the foothills to the east of Horsetooth Reservoir. Water is pumped to 25,000 gallon tanks at Medicine Ridge via two alternating pumps at the Trilby Pump Station. Water is then pumped to the two Arrowhead tanks, one 500,000 gallons and one 200,000 gallons, by the two alternating pumps in the Medicine Ridge Pump Station. Water is pumped from the Arrowhead tanks to two 10,000 gallon tanks at Sandstone via the three alternating pumps in Arrowhead Pump Station. Different neighborhoods and subdivisions within our District boundaries receive water service via different tanks, pumps, and transmission lines. The unique and complex system required to deliver water within our challenging terrain consists in total of 18 miles of transmission lines, 6 storage tanks, and 4 booster stations with multiple pumps. The system operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the District’s 563 taps. As you can see in the map above, if this system existed within the city, services would be made available to many more homes and associated fees consequently shared between more rate payers. Unlike the C-BT project that relies heavily on gravity, it requires a large amount of power and hydraulics to move water up and over the hills of Spring Canyon Water & Sanitation District. SCWSD is a Title 32 Special District political subdivision of the State of Colorado. Special Districts are quasi-municipal corporations that provide services normally delivered by county or municipal governments. We are governed and operated in accordance with the Colorado Special Districts Act. A directly elected five-member Board governs the District that is owned by our constituents. It is our first and foremost responsibility to deliver safe clean drinking water without interruption around the clock in addition to operating the sanitary sewer collection system.