Long-term planning is a key element in being able to provide water for customers now and into the future.
Our City of Fort Collins predecessors planned well, and we are fortunate to have a vast portfolio of water rights and flexible water sources. With this in mind, we continue to plan with an eye toward climate impacts, water supply fluctuation and population growth.
Expand the sections below to learn more about the City’s water sources and planning.
If you are a Fort Collins Utilities water customer, your water comes from:
The C-BT Project brings water from the upper Colorado River to people across Colorado’s Front Range. Utilities’ C-BT water is stored in Horsetooth Reservoir. Northern Water manages the C-BT Project and determines how much water we receive each year. The decision is influenced by snowpack, storage reserves, and system-wide demands.
The Poudre River is part of the South Platte River basin, and Utilities’ owns valuable senior water rights on the Poudre. The amount of usable water in the Poudre River is highly variable and dependent on snowpack, runoff duration, and water quality condition, which can be influenced by fires in the watershed above Poudre Canyon.
The Michigan Ditch and Joe Wright Reservoir system brings water from the Michigan River (part of the North Platte River basin) into the Poudre River and Joe Wright Reservoir. Joe Wright Reservoir holds about 7,100 acre-feet of storage and is Utilities’ only raw water storage that connects to the City’s water treatment facility.
Another way the City is preparing for the future is the Halligan Water Supply Project. The project will increase Halligan Reservoir’s capacity, providing approximately 8,200 acre-feet of water storage for Fort Collins Utilities. The increased storage capacity will:
The Water Supply and Demand Management Policy helps the City manage its water supply system. The policy states, "The reliability and capacity of the City's water supply system should be maintained to meet the planning level demand during at least a 1-in-50 drought event in the Cache la Poudre River Basin." In other words, we plan so there is enough water even during a severe drought—one that only happens about once every 50 years.
allwrd@fortcollins.gov