South Platte and Metro Basin IPPs

IPP Background: SWSI 2004

The Statewide Water Supply Initiative (SWSI), first completed in 2004, was a comprehensive analysis of existing water supplies and existing and projected water demands through the year 2030. One of the major findings from SWSI was that there will be a gap in water supply by 2030 for Colorado as a whole and for nearly all of the 8 major basins (figure at right).

To address the gap, water management structural and non-structural options were identified for each basin. "Identified Projects and Processes" (IPPs) were considered to be relatively well-defined options that could reasonably be expected to be implemented by 2030 to address current or increasing water needs. A second category of options was titled "Options for Alternatives". These were options for meeting the remaining gap and were considered to have implementation issues, were more conceptual in nature or were more likely to be implemented in later years. Many of the options identified that would benefit agricultural, environmental or recreational users were categorized as Options for Alternatives because their implementation was less certain due to reasons such as a lack of suitable funding. As such, the initial IPP list for each basin tended to focus on municipal and industrial (M&I) uses.

It was determined that IPPs had the ability to meet about 80% of Colorado's municipal and industrial water needs through 2030. However, if the IPPs are not successfully implemented, Colorado would see a greater reduction in irrigated agricultural lands as municipal and industrial water providers seek permanent transfers of agricultural water rights.

General categories of SWSI 2004 M&I IPPs included:

• conservation
• growing into existing supply (new infrastructure needed to use existing supplies)
• increased reuse of existing or future consumable supplies
• rehabilitation, reoperation or enlargement of existing water supply facilities
• water transfers
• new water supply projects (later called new transbasin diversions)
• augmentation plans
• acquiring agricultural rights through development of irrigated lands or annexation requirements

IPP Background: SWSI 2010 Municipal & Industrial IPPs

SWSI 2010 updated the SWSI 2004 study. Key elements of the update were:

• an analysis of water supply demands to 2050 (SWSI 2004 was to 2030)
• a summary of environmental and recreational needs in each basin, as identified by basin roundtables
• an analysis of supply availability in the Colorado River
• implementation elements associated with identified projects, water conservation, agricultural transfers and development of new water supplies
• the development of estimated costs of implementing water supply strategies

More-detailed IPP information was gathered during SWSI 2010 than was developed for SWSI 2004. The following categories were used to describe M&I IPPs:

• agricultural water transfers
• reuse of existing fully consumable supplies
• growth into existing supplies (new infrastructure needed to use existing supplies)
• regional in-basin projects
• new transbasin projects
• firming in-basin water rights (typically with new storage)
• firming transbasin water rights (typically with new storage)

If successfully implemented, these IPPs were to meet some, but not all, of Colorado's 2050 M&I water needs (figure at right). Therefore, these projects were considered critical to meeting Colorado's future water supply needs.

IPP Background: SWSI 2010 Environmental & Recreational IPPs

A different approach was taken for environmental and recreational (E&R, also called nonconsumptive) IPPs. Each basin roundtable described focus areas that represented where Colorado's important E&R attributes are located, such as species. The focus area maps (statewide version at right) were intended to assist in identifying where E&R needs are being met, where additional future study may need to take place or where implementation projects are needed. Arkansas and Rio Grande basins chose to associate IPPs with Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) basins and other roundtables chose to associate IPPs with stream segments.The Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) was then able to preliminarily identify focus areas with and without IPPs.

The key finding of SWSI 2010 was that Colorado faces a shortage of water for meeting both consumptive and E&R needs. The key recommendation was that basin roundtables should determine and pursue projects and methods that address multiple purposes, including municipal, industrial, agricultural, environmental, recreational, risk management and compact compliance needs. This recommendation led to the creation of Basin Implementation Plans (BIPs) for each basin.

South Platte & Metro BIP and Agricultural IPPs

As indicated in the figure to the right, irrigated acreage in the South Platte Basin is projected to decline by 2050 due to reallocation of agricultural water supplies to municipal and industrial uses. However, IPPs specific to agricultural needs were not developed in the 2015 BIP. It is generally understood that reductions in yield from M&I IPPs will likely lead to much greater increases in agricultural transfers as a means to meet M&I demands. Therefore, to meet agricultural needs, M&I IPP implementation must be successful. While specific projects were not detailed for agricultural needs, multipurpose projects that also benefit agriculture will most likely involve new Colorado River supplies ( BIP, p.4-36). Additional surface storage projects that benefit agriculture, such as the Chatfield Storage Reallocation Project, would allow agricultural users to capture wet year flows and store them as drought reserve.

It is recommended that IPPs should be categorized to clearly indicate agricultural benefit.

IPPs Updated for SWSI Update and South Platte Data Platform

The SWSI Update project is currently updating the SWSI 2010 study using new data and methodologies, with expected completion in 2019. The Open Water Foundation also received a CWCB grant for the South Platte Data Platform, which is implementing data analyses and visualizations to help the South Platte and Metro Roundtables better use data resources and tell stories relevant to the South Platte Basin. As part of these projects, IPP data from SWSI 2010 were reviewed and recommendations were made regarding the standardization of data formats and the addition of new content. Some of the recommendations included the following:

• datasets should exist in a flat, Excel file format. Excel is a common tool and the datasets can be maintained with minimal skill and can be used by multiple software tools
• a unique identifier should be given for each IPP, in the format of Basin-Year-Number, such as SP-2015-0001. This allows for cross-referencing between datasets
• indicate the water body that is the primary source of water for the project, using the Geographic Names Information System ID and name. This allows for cross-referencing between datasets, such as the Source Water Route Framework
• provide the IPP's location in decimal degrees
• process the dataset with data-processing software to create a standardized dataset that is compatible with other basin IPP datasets. This then allows for statewide analysis and visualization
• establish an improved workflow to facilitate maintenance and access to IPP datasets, which includes identifying how to publish IPP datasets on the web to facilitate coordination and SWSI Update publication. The workflow for IPP dataset processing might be similar to that in the figure shown at right

OWF used these recommendations to standardize the South Platte/Metro IPP dataset. With few exceptions, OWF did not attempt to fill in missing data, such as yield or cost. The primary exception was the determination of a general location for each IPP, which OWF estimated in order to create the maps that follow.