The following appeared as a SoapBoxin The Coloradoan in December 1999

North Fork Dam Proposal: Godzilla in Concrete

It's time we set the record straight. Earlier this year the City of Greeley and the Northern Water Conservancy District proposed expanding Seaman Reservoir with a huge dam on the north fork of the Cache la Poudre River. This dam would loom over Gateway Park, five miles up the canyon, like Godzilla towering over an infant. Its reservoir would be filled mostly with water from the main stem via a large, almost constantly working pump station upstream of the dam. It would take three to five years to fill a narrow reservoir much larger and longer than Horsetooth. Below the dam the main stem would essentially disappear as a free flowing river. Many people have asked Friend Of The Poudre its view on this proposal. Friends Of The Poudre's Board of Directors approved this statement on behalf of the grassroots watershed organization:

"We intend to watch the progress of this proposal very closely. While we recognize the necessity for the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District to continue showing due diligence before the state water court for the maintenance of the district's water rights on the Poudre River, we see no compelling evidence to suggest that we should support - or remain silent any longer about - such a massive and destructive project. We call upon the water district and the City of Greeley to continue investigating non-structural alternatives to projects that involve the construction of a new dam on the Cache la Poudre River or any of its tributaries."

We have also been asked about the impact of a north fork dam on Gateway Park. We began the drive in 1986 to reopen the 377-acre Gateway Park, and we have been a leader in raising $1.3 million to open the HWY 14 gate to Gateway.

The north fork dam would be about as tall as the First National Bank tower in Fort Collins, and would dominate the view from Highway 14 nearly a mile away. It would severely degrade the value of Gateway Park as a public site for fishing, hiking, wildlife viewing, boating, environmental education and other outdoor activities. It would also have a devastating impact on almost every species of wildlife that continues to live in the lower canyon. Many of these species would be pushed out of the area, and some may not survive at all given existing constrains on their habitat. The north fork proposal is far from being set in concrete. The City of Fort Collins would almost certainly have to be a partner in this project to make it fly. A far less costly, less controversial option for Fort Collins would be to expand Halligan Reservoir further up the north fork.

The water district has said it would be 15 to 20 years before the dam could be built, with another five years construction time. That's optimistic. We've found that water developers tend to shorten time lines. Sometimes what they say will happen never does.

Case in point: In October 1985, Larry Simpson, then general manager of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, vowed to the public during a meeting at Poudre Park Community Center that the district would begin building a main stem dam within 5 years.

That was 14 years ago. Today the Poudre River continues to flow free largely due to a public that has steadfastly opposed efforts to build any more dams. The public has wisely shown, time and again, that it has a love affair with the Cache la Poudre River that will brook no new dams. The same will hold true for the north fork.

David Lauer

David Lauer is President of Friends Of The Poudre, a grassroots non-profit organization based in Fort Collins that, for the past 13 years, has been doing everything it can to keep the Cache la Poudre River flowing free.

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Fort Collins, CO 80524