By Travas Deal, CEO, Colorado Springs Utilities
Today, Colorado Springs’ water system can reliably meet a demand of 95,000 acre-feet a year. The city is using an average of about 70,000 acre-feet a year. When a new area is annexed, the utility needs of the annexation become part of Colorado Springs Utilities’ future planning. This can affect the amount of additional water supplies that may be needed to serve an expanded city footprint.
Springs Utilities’ integrated water resource plan considers the water needs of the city over a 50-year planning horizon. This plan incorporates factors such as known risks to current supplies, population growth and changes in regulations, among many other factors, to estimate future demand. What Colorado Springs will look like that far out is unknown — that’s for the city’s leaders to determine. Springs Utilities’ role is to be ready to provide utility services to all customers inside city boundaries.
It’s estimated that up to 34,000 acre-feet of additional water supplies may be needed to meet forecasted future demand and mitigate risks to the city’s Colorado River Basin supplies. Contrary to recent claims, those supplies won’t come solely from Springs Utilities’ agricultural water-sharing program in the Lower Arkansas Valley.
The utility’s long-term plan details a diversified approach that also includes additional conservation savings, reuse and efficiency projects and increased reservoir storage. This strategy is designed to maximize the city’s current water supplies while limiting development of additional water supplies in the Arkansas River Basin to the minimum amount needed.
The success of this plan relies heavily on collaboration. As part of a broader system of municipalities as well as environmental, recreational and agricultural groups in the Arkansas River Basin, it’s imperative that all groups work together to efficiently use a limited water supply to meet competing interests in the basin.
Lower Arkansas River farmers expressed concerns during the Jan. 28 Colorado Springs City Council hearing on the Karman Line annexation. Springs Utilities has dedicated years to gaining a better understanding of the needs of agriculture and local communities in the basin. With the belief that success should be achieved equally, those learnings were translated into a water-sharing program that ensures local economies and values are preserved.
Water-sharing partnerships with farmers focus on investments in proven, more efficient irrigation methods that sustain crop productivity and — importantly — tie the remaining water to farms in perpetuity.
- Springs Utilities learned from past mistakes and listened to what farmers, local ditch boards and local governments needed, then worked with them to find ways to implement it. A good example is the Bent County-Colorado Springs Intergovernmental Agreement, which limits the amount of water supply that may be developed in that county. This agreement limits the total number of irrigated acres that may be dried up and provides up-front and ongoing financial payments to support their community needs.
- When water is available for leasing, farmers are prioritized. For example, 20,000 acre-feet of water was leased back to agriculture in 2024.
- Springs Utilities participates in a regional water-quality group made up of agricultural and municipal water users throughout the Arkansas River Basin. The group is a collaborative effort to understand complex water-quality problems and identify the most impactful way to improve them.
In April 2024, City Council reaffirmed its commitment to the Arkansas River Basin water principles to preserve water for present and future generations of municipal and agriculture communities, with a strong stance against the city of Aurora exporting water from the basin. Put simply, more is accomplished by working together in the basin, than apart.
