Filling The Gap: Front Range (2011)
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Filling The Gap: Arkansas Basin
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Reuse Strategies
Filling the Gap Report
Ten years ago, the Denver area was utilizing over 50,000 acre-feet of reusable return flow water each year. Today, utilities are pursuing even more reuse opportunities. Providers are using abandoned gravel pits for storage of reusable supply and are directly reusing effluent for non-potable irrigation. The Metropolitan Water Supply Initiative (MWSI) concluded that by 2030, reuse by Front Range cities would amount to 138,700 acre-feet of water annually, and that future plans for reuse beyond 2030 for the Denver area alone would total about 171,000 acre-feet per year.
As water treatment technology advances and reuse opportunities are maximized, it is reasonable to project that by 2050 there will be close to 200,000 acre-feet of direct and indirect reuse occurring annually on the Front Range.
“ Building and improving on the State Water Supply Initiative 2010, this well written report outlines a strategy for economically meeting Front Range municipal water demands to 2050 while protecting Front Range streamflows and avoiding further West Slope diversions. ”—Chuck Howe
Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Colorado, Boulder
Ultimate levels of reuse could potentially exceed 500,000 acre-feet per year, assuming that providers: 1) develop the full amount of reusable supplies currently included in their water supply plans; 2) obtain decrees to reuse all of their legally reusable return flows; 3) reuse to extinction all of their legally reusable supplies via substitution, non-potable reuse, and potable reuse; and 4) have sufficiently large demands for water.