Getting water to you
Aurora is the state leader in water conservation and innovative water solutions. We have to be. Aurora is the third largest city in Colorado, yet it’s not located by a major water source. We must rely on a complex system and multiple strategies to ensure our community has the water it needs.
Most of Aurora’s water travels long distances to get to your tap. We store that water in multiple reservoirs and release it as needed. Our successful conservation and reuse efforts have helped us to stretch our limited and valuable water supplies. Our customers have embraced the conservation ethic by cutting individual water use 36 percent since 2000. Aurora was an early adopter of using reclaimed water for irrigating parks and golf courses, and was the first city in Colorado to implement water reuse for drinking water with our Prairie Waters system.
In order to protect our community against droughts and to enhance the reliability of our aging water system, Aurora Water needs to store more water in the mid-2020s for delivery to our customers. Colorado’s extreme weather patterns are producing more intense droughts followed by very wet years. Reservoirs are our water savings accounts. We bank “extra” water in wet years, as well as the water we save through conservation, to use in dry times.
A new reservoir
To increase storage capacity, we are evaluating a proposed new reservoir located in Park County. Named Wild Horse Reservoir, the site is west of Aurora’s Spinney Mountain Reservoir. The area is mostly undeveloped and unpopulated high plains grassland and does not have a stream or river running through it.
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The reservoir would be filled with water Aurora currently transports through the Otero pipeline. It would then travel to Spinney Mountain Reservoir before making its way to Aurora.
There are a number of significant benefits of this project and location:
- Enhances reliability: Wild Horse Reservoir will provide critical and needed storage for our existing system, which is working well but is getting old. Wild Horse will help provide uninterrupted water delivery when other older reservoirs need to be taken off line for routine maintenance, repairs or emergencies.
- Cost effective: Due to the geography and proximity to existing infrastructure, the project is very cost effective.
- No new water needed for reservoir: The reservoir would be filled using water Aurora already owns the rights to -- no new water rights are being sought for this project.
- Few environmental impacts: The area is high plains grassland with very few trees. Because it is not located on a river or stream and would be filled with water already flowing through an existing pipe, it would not dam or impact any existing rivers or streams.
What’s next
Currently, Aurora Water is in the planning stages and evaluating the size of the reservoir to prepare for the permitting and environmental reviews needed to advance the project. While a large portion of the land needed for the reservoir has already been purchased, additional undeveloped land will be acquired as needed. We are committed to working with property owners in a fair and consistent manner.
For more information, contact us at WildHorseReservoir@auroragov.org