Glade Reservoir Open House and Public Meeting today
Fort Collins locals and Poudre boaters, don't forget to go to the Fort Collins Hilton today to comment on the proposed Glade Reservoir project. Open house is from 4-6, with the meeting following at 6.
If anyone has more information, especially on the structure of this meeting and the upcoming meetings, please post.
Admins, can we make upcoming events for these meetings?
See y'all there.
__________________
"I get older, they stay the same age."
Fort Collins locals and Poudre boaters, don't forget to go to the Fort Collins Hilton today to comment on the proposed Glade Reservoir project. Open house is from 4-6, with the meeting following at 6.
If anyone has more information, especially on the structure of this meeting and the upcoming meetings, please post.
Admins, can we make upcoming events for these meetings?
See y'all there.
Monday Night:
Monday, June 16 2008 4pm open house and sign up to speak, 6pm comment forum
Corps of Engineers Public Hearing
Corps of Engineers Public Hearing on the Northern Integrated Supply Project. Hilton Hotel, 425 W. Prospect Dr., Fort Collins.
Tuesday night:
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 4pm open house and sign up to speak, 6pm comment forum
Corps of Engineers Public Hearing
Corps of Engineers Public Hearing on the Northern Integrated Supply Project. Fort Collins Senior Center, 1200 Raintree Drive, Fort Collins.
The main point of these evenings is to comment on the EIS. However, it is really critical to the local political process to attend these sessions to make it clear that there is strong public opposition to the project. It is my understanding that the project could impact flows above the mouth of the canyon in particular the Filter Plant run.
I've attached several documents that Save The Poudre will be handing out tonight that go over how to review the EIS and topics they believe are important talking points for tonight.
I will not be able to attend the meeting, however I have a few questions:
How will the proposed Glade reservoir effect (current and future) recreation on the Poudre? Does this project affect the long desired whitewater park on the Poudre in downtown Fort Collins? Does this project affect floating recreation and fishing recreation? How does this project propose mitigation of River recreation? Are there opportunities for the project to benefit recreation on the Poudre?
How does this project affect stream health? Does this project have an affect on temperatures, riparian regeneration, and geomorphic processes? What are the proposed mitigation measures? Are there opportunities for the project to benefit stream health?
Is the proposed project holistic? Does the proposed project balance consumptive water use with environmental needs and current and future recreation demands?
I will not be able to attend the meeting, however I have a few questions:
How will the proposed Glade reservoir effect (current and future) recreation on the Poudre? Does this project affect the long desired whitewater park on the Poudre in downtown Fort Collins? Does this project affect floating recreation and fishing recreation? How does this project propose mitigation of River recreation? Are there opportunities for the project to benefit recreation on the Poudre?
How does this project affect stream health? Does this project have an affect on temperatures, riparian regeneration, and geomorphic processes? What are the proposed mitigation measures? Are there opportunities for the project to benefit stream health?
Is the proposed project holistic? Does the proposed project balance consumptive water use with environmental needs and current and future recreation demands?
Criddle, This is how I understand it:
A bunch of pro-development, pro-business rich guys from all over the state want to take water out of the Poudre from the mouth of the canyon (10-15 miles from downtown), pump it into a huge new resevoir about the size of Horsetooth so that the Front Range can continue to explode and these guys can get richer...
Flows through the canyon I don't think will be terribly affected, but the river through downtown would be a thing of the past. There would be no water for a whitewater park, all the water going to consumers who DON'T EVEN LIVE IN COLORADO YET
I grew up in Ft. Collins, and the river corridor through town along with it's adjacent bike path was the greatest playground, still is...It would kill me to see an empty, dead riverbed where a healthy, undamned river once was...
I thought there were several disturbing parts of this "public" forum. For instance, when the mulletted, rat-tailed, out-of-town politician got up there and quoted the Lakota in defending why he thinks it's such a good idea to put a damn in our town. Or when I realized that there is no mention of water conservation in the Glade Reservoir plan, or any of the three alternatives presented in the EIS...in other words, don't worry about having to conserve water, you can just keep right on with that 'voluntary conservation' lawn practice, we'll build a damn for you instead. Or the woman from Buena Vista who got up there and said what a great idea this was, and we need to suck it up and quit delaying the project. Glad she has an interest.
But the worst part of this forum was that all of the out-of-town representatives (lots of them) from Windsor, Loveland, Dacono, Firestone, Lafayette, etc, got to speak first. They got to stand up there and talk about how important this project was to their cities and their future growth, how it was so necessary, and there is no reason to delay or study it further...and then they all left before the public comments began. So much for the "public" part of this forum. So by 10pm, only about a quarter of the locals had a chance to speak, and many had given up and left.
As far as I can tell, Fort Collins gets no benefit of this reservoir. All the rights are downstream. What we get is a relocated highway, a trashed river, and another unnatural body of water. Yay. Agriculture was mentioned several times in the meeting. "This water will save agriculture in Colorado!" Yep...at least until the sprawl continues so far that all the agricultural lands are converted for further development. This project offers short-term benefit at a great financial and ecological cost, no matter how you look at it.
Whether or not you got to speak, if you have an opinion, the comment period is open till 30 July and very important, as Linsey mentioned. The documents she posted has the relevant info and the address you need to do so.
The project is not meant to benefit Fort Collins it is meant to benefit those who own the water rights.
A quick read of the EIS indicates that all water below Poudre Park where the wild and scenic designation ends is to some degree fair game (within their water rights). The munroe canal is where the "study area" starts. I believe this is above filter plant but can't find a good map. So this project will potentially dewater Filter Plant--but commercial boating use of this section is minimal so apparently they think that is ok. In general recreation use of the river from filter plant down is dismissed. There is zero mention of the kayak park. The EIS fails to clearly convey what recreational activities will be impactected and by how much by this project.
Climate change impacts on water availabality are dismissed as being to difficult to quantify. From working on a different EIS recently, I would say this is one of the best places to attack the EIS. Make them (by writing letters and/or public comments) quantify what the cumulative impacts of climate change and this project will be on the ecological, recreational and economic values of the river.
If you write comments on the EIS, to be effective, they must address some short coming in the EIS rather than the fact that you think the project sucks. If you want to write letters about how much the project sucks send them to the newspapers and/or local politicians.
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