Legal battle continues over the fate of Gross Reservoir Dam Expansion Project
Denver Water received a two-week stay and plans to appeal the work stoppage, but it's unclear how long the legal battle will take.
Previous: Denver Water: Gross Reservoir Expansion Project ruling should 'raise alarm bells'
Denver Water has already spent $450 million on the project and employs about 350 people.
Project Manager Jeff Martin says the project is urgently needed to sustain a water supply for Denver Water's 1.5 million customers.
Martin says they were granted all required local, state and federal permits to move ahead and started construction three years ago under an order from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to complete the project by 2027.
'Over 350 people have dedicated their time, resources and passion to building what's behind us so Denver and the communities around Denver can have a bright and vibrant future, so we can have a reliable, clean water supply all the time to our tap,' Martin said.
But a district court judge said the project violated federal environmental laws and that Denver Water took a risk starting construction while there were legal concerns.
Environmental groups say the project is negatively impacting the area around the reservoir in Boulder County and will have a negative environmental impact down the Colorado River.
List: Over $200M worth of HHS grant money was terminated in Colorado
'What happens in Denver doesn't stay in Denver. It has impacts across the southwest United States, and so that's one of the reasons why we dug in our heels against this project,' said Gary Wockner, director of the group Save the Colorado.
'The judge is requiring that more analysis happen of the alternatives so that Denver Water can meet its needs in other ways as opposed to a massive dam and reservoir expansion that further drains the Colorado River,' Wockner said.
But Denver Water says it's already been through 15 years of analysis with the Army Corps of Engineers and others.
'Those are the experts that analyzed those impacts, and they were found to be quite mitigatable. We provided the mitigation for it, and then Denver Water went well beyond that and provided enhancements. We provided enhancements for the Upper Colorado River. We provided agreements on how we would draw out of there,' Martin said.
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