Thornton on Monday renewed its pleas for Larimer County’s approval of 10 miles of crucial water pipeline, while opponents begged Larimer commissioners to defend the land and water for their residents rather than OK a conduit benefiting people in Adams County.
The first Larimer County Commissioners hearing on Thornton’s renewed request for a building permit for a key segment of its water pipeline under the state’s 1041 Regulations was dominated by critics. They said Thornton should put its water down the Cache la Poudre River channel and avoid digging up areas of rural Larimer County.
But developers also spoke up to urge approval of the redrawn 10-mile segment, saying their plans for affordable housing and other development important to the economic health of the Front Range have been stalled by Thornton’s inability to access water it has long owned in the Poudre.
Denying the 1041 permit, an access approval required by state law, would “massively impact Colorado’s economy,” said Hines development managing director Chad Murphy. “Thornton absolutely needs this water.” Hines developed the Parterre master-planned community in Thornton.
The Larimer County commissioners extended the hearing to May 6 to allow for commenters deterred by Monday’s Passover celebrations, and will deliberate after taking more public testimony. In 2018, a different set of commissioners heard Thornton’s first 1041 application for a longer pipeline segment and rejected it in 2019. Larimer County has since revised and expanded its criteria for 1041 land use approvals.
Thornton’s presentation about the shortened and rerouted emphasized an extensive series of listening sessions with Larimer County residents and neighbors affected by the pipeline dig. Thornton chopped the route that takes the pipeline east past Interstate 25 and toward Weld County segments, softened the impact of the initial pumping station, and plans for minimal road closures and other guarantees of local access.
“We listened to the community first, and that’s what informed the design of this project,” Thornton interim city manager Brett Henry said.
Thornton spent decades buying up farmland and water rights in Larimer and Weld counties to accommodate future city growth. The pipeline plan outlines potential to add 100,000 residents in coming decades, on top of its current 147,000 people.
The water shares Thornton controls already come out of the Poudre River near Ted’s Place northwest of Fort Collins. Thornton proposes taking water at the same spot, through a new pumping station, and along the new pipeline until it reaches the Weld County border and meets up with the north-south sections Weld County is already constructing. The line heads south from there toward Adams County.
Larimer County’s land use staff has recommended the commissioners approve the new 1041 application, with dozens of modifications they say Thornton appears amenable to.
While some Larimer County river advocates say Thornton originally studied putting its water down the Poudre in Larimer County instead of building a new pipeline, Thornton says it has always rejected that idea because of the pollutants the clean mountain water would pick up in the urban waterway. Cleaning up that water to drinking water standards would take hundreds of millions of dollars, Thornton says.
Still, Thornton’s opponents called on the Larimer commissioners to “pause” the 1041 approval, noting the presentations on the pipeline are more than 3,000 pages long and need to be studied carefully for potential conflicts with county land use standards.
“They’re saying this is not about the Poudre River,” said Gary Wockner, a founder of Save the Poudre and a frequent litigant against dam and river alteration projects across Colorado. “This is absolutely about the Poudre River.” Wockner asked the commissioners for “a pause, a timeout, to give voice to the community’s concerns.”
“They say they’ve reached out to the community and that’s just not true,” said resident Warren Lemerich, who said Thornton officials do not respond to his queries. “The riparian corridor could be greatly improved just by letting the water run through it.”
The 1041 process, named after the legislature bill that created it, gives local jurisdictions the right to review other agencies’ building projects across their land. Local governments aren’t supposed to use 1041 to just say no. But the original bill’s language gives them the power to modify projects through the permitting process.
Thornton for years appealed the initial Larimer County 1041 rejection, but eventually gave up before a possible Colorado Supreme Court appeal, saying it would redraw pipeline plans with more neighbor input.