The complete case for denial.

Detailed evidence and legal analysis

Water, wetlands, wildlife and the decisions that will shape this valley.

Save Homestake’s stated position

Save Homestake opposes Whitney Reservoir and every new or expanded interbasin diversion from Homestake Valley. We call on decision-makers to deny the project and protect the valley for our children and future generations. This report presents the evidence behind that position and the questions Aurora and Colorado Springs must answer.

One central impact is clear in all four studied reservoir options: the mapped valley-floor wetland and fen complex extends across Aurora’s parcel and surrounding lands. At full pool, all four options would inundate the same 81.4 acres of valley-floor wetlands and mapped potential-fen habitat. Permanent flooding would destroy that habitat.^{CASE:15,CASE:37} The threatened landscape extends beyond that parcel through roads, access, infrastructure, altered hydrology, recreation, wildlife, cultural resources, and wilderness impacts across the surrounding public lands.

Save Homestake seeks denial of Whitney in every configuration. A conditional water right does not authorize a dam, pumping system, road, or wetland destruction. Decision-makers must test the full project against every applicable standard and the evidence.^{CASE:1,CASE:2}

Front Range growth does not create a claim on Western Slope water or justify permanently transforming this valley. Conservation, reuse, system efficiency, and durable demand limits must carry the municipal planning burden. Every proposed dam, diversion, road, and wetland impact requires its own approval.

Whitney must satisfy five core requirements:

1. A precise, current demonstration of need that distinguishes average annual supply, dependable drought yield, emergency reserves, and storage capacity.
2. A complete public-land project description, including necessary collection works, pumps, pipelines, electricity supply, Forest Service road and access changes, construction areas, recreation effects, cultural resources, wilderness impacts, and operating rules.
3. An independently reviewable comparison with feasible conservation, reuse, system optimization, different sites, and smaller or phased projects.
4. Proof that wetland, stream, wildlife, cultural, recreation, and community protections will be met, including credible and enforceable mitigation with fully disclosed failure risks.
5. Written, evidence-based findings for each applicable criterion. Conditions must secure compliance rather than postpone the essential question until after irreversible disturbance.

1. The projects and the record

Four projects and records

The utilities' March 2022 factsheet describes four Whitney storage concepts ranging from 6,850 to 20,000 acre-feet, with contemplated collection from Peterson, Fall, and Resolution creeks and pumping to existing Homestake. July 28, 2026 reporting states that Aurora had not selected a final dam configuration, storage volume, or road alignment.^{CASE:3,CASE:4}

The 1998 Eagle River joint-use framework contemplated 20,000 acre-feet of average annual yield for East Slope participants, 10,000 acre-feet of firm dry-year yield for West Slope participants, and 3,000 acre-feet of storage for Climax. Those figures measure different benefits within the broader cooperative project. Whitney's annual depletion and final combination of facilities remain undetermined and subject to local, state, and federal permitting.^CASE:5

More water through Homestake Tunnel than past Gold Park

Gold Park is the stream gauge below the existing reservoir and all five collectors; it measures water continuing down Homestake Creek. Across water years 2007-2024, the annual average exported through Homestake Tunnel to Turquoise Lake was 23,370.94 acre-feet, compared with 21,498.22 acre-feet continuing past Gold Park. Whitney would add another reservoir and collection works to this existing diversion system. [HWA:S-GP-ANNUAL; WATER:TECH-21]

Of the combined recorded export and Gold Park flow, 52.09% went through the tunnel. Gold Park lies below all five collection sites and the reservoir, within the station’s published 35.6-square-mile drainage area. The separate precipitation account uses a point-specific StreamStats boundary of about 35.9 square miles. Tributaries below the gauge belong to a different comparison.

These recorded routes show the scale of the existing export before Whitney would add another reservoir and collection works. Water continuing down the creek sustains downstream habitat and communities.

Explore storage, precipitation and the detailed water accounting

Technical water accounting

Endpoint storage change of +1,011.4987 AF and recorded evaporation accounts of 4,321.7130 AF change the partial-balance ratio to 51.7452%, about 0.34 percentage points lower. Other physical net losses, external replacement inflows, other depletions and measurement adjustments remain unbounded; the recorded evaporation account is not yet reconciled as the complete incremental physical loss.

A matched WY2007-2020 closure using the current 800-m PRISM product estimates 61,496 AF/year of rain plus snow water-equivalent precipitation. During the same years, tunnel export averaged 23,345 AF/year and Gold Park flow averaged 23,341 AF/year. The gross remainder is 14,810 AF/year. Homestake Reservoir ended 642.30 AF lower than it began, so the signed storage-adjusted remainder is 14,856 AF/year.

Estimates for snow sublimation, reservoir evaporation and mapped-fen evapotranspiration together could explain 7,900-10,600 AF/year of the roughly 14,900 AF/year left after reservoir storage. Snow accounts for most of that estimate: about 7,100-9,400 AF/year. Reservoir evaporation contributes about 800-1,000 AF/year, and the mapped-fen estimate is about 55-191 AF/year. The other 4,300-6,900 AF/year could reflect evaporation and plant use elsewhere, storage changes, groundwater movement and uncertainty in the inputs.

Open the September 24 historical workbook · September 24 historical scenario ledger · annual CSV

The reservoir can hold one year’s water for later tunnel export or creek release. Its +1,011.50 AF net change across 18 years hides drawdowns of 20,630.14 AF in WY2009 and 39,421.17 AF in WY2012. Reclamation documents dam and outlet repairs in 2012-2014 and a completed refill in 2015. The full 18-year comparison stays primary; omitting WY2012-2014 yields 51.23%, while omitting the 2015 refill too yields 52.94%. DWR’s one-time September 2020 experiment released 1,666.9 AF of stored water down Homestake Creek during downstream calls, although net annual storage declined 763.78 AF. Creek releases passing Gold Park are already in its observed flow. [WATER:TECH-03, -19, -20]

The separate five-collector record for WY2014-2024 places 88.26% of capture in May-June. Water arriving during runoff helps shape the moisture and habitat available later in summer. Collector captures overlap with the later reservoir and tunnel accounts.

The Red Cliff gauge provides a second view farther downstream, after additional tributaries join Homestake Creek. In that larger 58.2-square-mile drainage, tunnel export was 43.04% of export plus recorded creek flow during WY2007-2011. The different drainage and years explain why this is a separate comparison from Gold Park.

Water methods, source accounts and reproducible calculations · Matched records and basin map

Historical legal milestones

Water rights and project approvals

Colorado evaluates diligence for a conditional right within an integrated water-supply system. In Vail Valley Consolidated Water District v. City of Aurora, the Colorado Supreme Court applied that principle to Homestake. Under the accessible 2025 statute, reasonable diligence turns on the complete statutory inquiry rather than permit status alone.^{CASE:10,CASE:11}

The current decrees and related proceedings must establish every authorized diversion point, storage location, volume, season, exchange, and use.^CASE:9

Water court governs decree compliance, legally cognizable injury, and water-right questions. Separately, the Eagle County Board of County Commissioners is the County's 1041 Permit Authority. A water decree or another agency approval does not replace this independent county approval.^{CASE:1,CASE:2,CASE:11}

2. Eagle County: the strongest established local route

Who decides and what must be proven

On October 27, commissioners approved standalone 1041 rules for Eagle County. They voted to make the rules effective immediately upon passage of a separate enacting resolution. As of November 2, 2026, passage of the separate enacting resolution and the effective date could not be verified.^{CASE:57,CASE:58,CASE:59}

Chapter VI §§6.03.10 and 6.04.01 and the October package §§211 and 401 place the burden on an applicant before the Board. The Board must deny if a standard fails. Conditions may support approval if they secure compliance with every applicable standard. The rules governing a particular Whitney filing would depend on the enacted text, transition terms and application facts.^{CASE:1,CASE:55,CASE:56,CASE:57}

What Chapter VI requires

Homestake II's legal force

In City of Colorado Springs v. Board of County Commissioners, 895 P.2d 1105 (Colo. App. 1994), the court reinstated Eagle County's denial because competent testimony supported findings of substantial wetland destruction, including rare-moss loss, and noise, dust, and tunnel disruptions degrading recreation and scenery. The cities' water rights did not guarantee approval of that design.^CASE:2

The ruling upheld the County’s use of wetland, nuisance and benefit-versus-loss criteria for that proposal. Denial of that design left the underlying water rights intact. For Whitney, findings should connect the evidence to the governing criterion and explain which losses would persist after mitigation.

What commissioners approved on October 27

The Board approved Attachment 1.2 with the revisions in Attachment 1.1. Those revisions expressly include fens in the Waterbody definition. The November 3 agenda concerns the broader land-use rewrite, a separate proceeding. The countywide 1041 vote did not approve Whitney Reservoir.^{CASE:55,CASE:56,CASE:57,CASE:59}

Where the October package leaves gaps

Sections 303(D) and 331(B) require applicants to explain the need for the project and the basis for projected demand. Article 4 omits Chapter VI’s standalone necessity and County-benefit-versus-resource-loss tests and the July draft’s least-adverse-alternative standard. These gaps matter where cities receive water and Homestake bears the loss.

Exceptions and public notice

Under §§105(C) and 201, the exception for a subdivision, planned unit development or special use requires that review and approval occur through the specified county process and that the Director determine adverse impacts will be or have been adequately mitigated through county regulations and other state or federal permits. This exception starts when the 2026 land-use regulations take effect or July 1, 2027, whichever comes first.^CASE:56

For a finding of no significant impact, §204 requires publication within 21 days after the determination. The Board has 28 days after publication to decide whether to reconsider. Review then goes to the next meeting that can be properly noticed. Section 601 separately requires the activity order to be published and a sign posted at least 21 days before construction.^CASE:55

3. Wetlands and fens: all modeled options destroy living habitat

Confirmed groundwater-fed fens

CNHP’s September 12, 2011 surveys near Gold Park confirmed two fens with 92 cm and 88 cm of peat, saturated soils, established wetland vegetation and no recorded disturbance or noxious weeds. These observations document healthy, functioning fen ecosystems at the surveyed sites in 2011. Their deep peat and groundwater supply are part of the living Homestake landscape worth protecting. CNHP 2011, printed pp.92–99 · Field measurements and condition records.

CNHP’s current Fens2025V2 map identifies 15 Confirmed Fen polygons in the Homestake Creek watershed. Those polygons lie outside the stored A–D modeled full pools. The reservoir-overlap figures retain the September 18 inventory. The map’s Potential fens control combines September and October mapping and retains each feature’s source classification. Current CNHP mapping and source-version comparison.

The mapped valley-floor wetland and fen complex extends across Aurora’s parcel and surrounding lands. Using the September 18, 2026 inventory, our full-pool models of the four potential dam sites overlap 81.4 acres of mapped wetlands and potential fens. Permanent flooding would replace the affected wetland habitat with reservoir habitat.^{CASE:3,CASE:15}

Fens are groundwater-supported, peat-forming systems. Their functions depend on water delivery, chemistry, saturation, peat structure and the surrounding landscape. EPA reports that natural fen formation can require up to 10,000 years; federal compensatory-mitigation rules identify fens as difficult to replace.^{CASE:14,CASE:37}

Any proposed fen mitigation must demonstrate durable functional replacement for this specific system and impact, including far more than short-term plant survival.^CASE:15

Water, carbon and refuges in a changing climate

Homestake's fens, wet meadows, willow margins, ponds and streams support several functions together. The studies below explain those functions at their named locations. Their significance for Homestake is the value of retaining the water, soils and connections that make them possible.

Cool water and dry-season resilience

Groundwater exchange can supply cool patches where aquatic organisms escape summer heat. An eight-year Oregon study found that natural and artificial beaver dams moderated daily temperature extremes and created local cool-water refuges. Shading by streamside plants also limits solar heating. Protecting a varied network of flowing water, groundwater connections and cover preserves thermal choices as streams warm. Weber et al., 2017 · CNHP, wetland functions

Wetland water is stored in saturated soils, shallow groundwater, ponds and floodplain sediments. In Rocky Mountain National Park, beaver dams moderated summer water-table decline across adjoining land. A Canadian Rocky Mountain fen shifted between transmitting, storing and releasing water through a dry season. These functions can sustain wet habitat after peak runoff. Many fens are groundwater-discharge environments; the direction and timing of exchange determine how water reaches the creek. Retained ecological water and extra downstream discharge are separate water-budget outcomes. Westbrook et al., 2006 · Streich and Westbrook, 2020 · Nash et al., 2018

Floods, sediment and water quality

Vegetation, pond storage and multiple flow paths can slow runoff and delay flood peaks. Wetland roots stabilize soil and banks, while ponds retain sediment, including material arriving after fire. Research in Colorado and Wyoming documented post-fire sediment accumulation in beaver ponds. The response depends on available storage and the event. Westbrook et al., 2020 · Dunn et al., 2024

Living soils also process nutrients. At Colorado's East River, field measurements and modeling linked a beaver dam to stronger subsurface exchange and nitrate removal. Wetlands can retain particle-bound phosphorus, while oxygen and water chemistry influence whether particular metals are held or released. In North Saint Vrain Creek, connected beaver habitat retained water, carbon and nutrients during high flows and released them as flows declined. Water quality includes the timing and chemical form of what travels downstream. Dewey et al., 2022 · CNHP · Briggs et al., 2019 · Wegener et al., 2017

Keep accumulated carbon in functioning soils

Saturation limits oxygen entering peat and helps preserve accumulated organic carbon. Drainage changes both carbon and the physical soil system: four Colorado fen restoration sites showed altered peat properties, with disturbed surface soil still different from reference peat at the site rewetted 20 years earlier. Carbon also accumulates in floodplain soils outside mapped fen boundaries. Schimelpfenig et al., 2014 · Sutfin and Wohl, 2017

Protecting Homestake’s fens preserves established carbon stores and the hydrology that sustains them. Carbon uptake varies with water tables, vegetation and temperature. Millar et al., 2017 · Wickland et al., 2001

Refuges through heat, drought and fire

Across the Cameron Peak, East Troublesome and Mullen megafires, beaver-dammed river corridors had lower burn severity. Wet patches can retain living structure within a burned landscape, complementing their sediment-retention role during recovery. Warming and earlier snowmelt increase the importance of maintaining the water that supports such habitat. A Colorado fen study found winter drought altered summer vegetation and evaporation even with near-normal summer precipitation, connecting winter water supply to summer conditions. Fairfax et al., 2024 · Blanken, 2014

A food web that crosses the water's edge

In Colorado's Kimball Creek, a greater share of beaver-pool habitat was associated with more aquatic insect biomass emerging per length of stream. Adult insects move that food resource onto land. Different pond and flowing-water communities contribute to a varied habitat mosaic. Water also shapes amphibian breeding opportunity, winter fish refuge, willow structure used by birds, and forage and cover for mammals. Dewey et al., 2025 · Hossack et al., 2015 · Lindstrom and Hubert, 2004 · Baril et al., 2011

Fen chemistry and saturation support distinct plant and moss communities. A San Juan Mountains survey recorded 20 fen communities across 182 sites. A Colorado experiment with streamside bluebells showed that water availability changed floral traits, seed set and pollinator visitation. Peat itself preserves environmental history: a Colorado fen record reconstructs hydroclimate and ecosystem change since the last glacial maximum. Intact wetlands therefore hold biodiversity, living reference systems and natural archives alongside their value for community science and learning. Chimner et al., 2010 · Gallagher and Campbell, 2017 · Todd et al., 2025

The conservation case is cumulative: changing groundwater or seasonal flow can affect peat, plants, beaver habitat, food supplies and refuges together. Flooding the valley floor also replaces a mosaic of shallow and flowing habitats with managed open water. Protecting Homestake means keeping those functioning connections intact.

Why fen transplantation cannot preserve Homestake

Whitney would destroy an intact fen. At one of four restored Colorado fens, disturbed surface peat still differed from reference peat 20 years after restoration. The loss here includes peat structure, water regime and ecological relationships built over time.^CASE:42

Groundwater supply, peat structure, habitat and recovery time determine whether a replacement wetland performs the functions lost. The Colorado restoration research shows that rewetted peat can retain differences from reference peat decades later.

Damming Homestake Creek and exporting its water would alter downstream flow volume and timing. Flow volume and timing shape sediment transport, temperature, floodplain connectivity, aquatic communities and hydraulically connected wetlands. Where altered hydrology dewaters and oxidizes peat, the degradation is lasting on a human timescale. Mitigation cannot reverse destruction of the original system. Federal project-effects standard

The functions flooding would replace

• The affected landscape includes wetlands, fen-supporting groundwater and habitat beyond the reservoir edge.
• Peat depth, vegetation, water chemistry and seasonal saturation describe different parts of a functioning fen.
• Dam cutoff works, tunnels, trenches and road embankments can intercept groundwater; reservoir levels can change its exchange with adjoining land.
• Federal mitigation rules place avoidance before minimization and compensation.
• Recovery time matters: a replacement wetland cannot immediately reproduce the peat structure and ecological relationships built over centuries.

Downstream wetlands: Whitney to the Eagle River

Below Whitney, Homestake Creek continues through the Blodgett reach, past Hornsilver Campground and into the Eagle River near Red Cliff. The map follows this wetland corridor through the Eagle River confluence. Taking more water out of Homestake threatens connected habitat far beyond the land a reservoir would flood.

The inventory follows whole wetland and pond complexes linked to Homestake Creek. Beaver ponds, side channels and shared shallow groundwater carry the creek’s influence across the valley floor. Lower creek levels can also increase drainage from adjoining wetlands supplied partly by springs or seasonal creeks. Across the Whitney-to-Eagle assessment, 36 linked complexes contain 362.1 unique acres of mapped wetland and potential-fen habitat. One 49.2-acre complex crosses the upstream assessment endpoint and is retained whole. The lower reach from Blodgett to the Eagle River confluence contains 137.0 of those acres. These are mapped habitat acres; drying varies with flow, pond levels and groundwater.

The lower-creek records use NWIC mapping with 1983 source imagery. The map retains each source wetland and potential-fen category, together with its inventory date and verification status. Whole-complex calculation and sources.

How the map and overlap were made: plain explanation, calculation method and original records.

The damage does not stop at the dam

Reduced flows can lower shallow water tables and shorten the periods when the creek replenishes connected wetlands and side channels. That can leave wetland soils drier, stress willows and other water-dependent vegetation, and shrink the wet habitat that supports wildlife. The timing matters: capturing spring runoff and reducing water during dry periods can harm different parts of the same system. National Research Council, Riparian Areas (2002), pp. 149–150.

Fens depend on sustained groundwater that keeps their peat saturated. Where altered creek levels or construction disrupt that supply, wetland plants can change and exposed peat can decompose, releasing stored carbon. Protecting a fen means protecting the water that keeps it alive, including the connections outside its mapped boundary. CNHP / Forest Service, Inventory of Fens in White River National Forest (2025), executive summary and pp. 1, 36.

The downstream case for denial

Existing withdrawals already affect the creek before a proposed Whitney reservoir would operate. Changes to seasonal flow can propagate through shallow groundwater, wetland saturation and aquatic habitat toward Blodgett and Red Cliff. Save Homestake asks the Board to deny a project whose significant downstream degradation remains after mitigation and enforceable conditions.

Chapter VI §6.04.01(15)–(18) addresses surface water, groundwater, wetlands and habitat. Appendix A identifies factors to consider. Sections 307 and 406 of the October 27 package connect the downstream flow record, groundwater and aquatic habitat to enforceable watershed standards on a Board permit application.^{CASE:1,CASE:55,CASE:56} Read the downstream evidence.

Loss of a pond-channel-willow complex within the inundation area removes established habitat. Beyond the flood line, changes to connected creek and groundwater supplies can constrain beavers and weaken the wetland habitat they maintain. Existing diversion, drought and vegetation pressures can act on the same functions. The full-pool models cover 85.4-134.8 mapped acres. The wider Whitney-to-Eagle assessment maps 362.1 acres in 36 wetland complexes connected to Homestake Creek, extending to the Eagle River confluence near Red Cliff. Water, willow and beaver feedbacks

The moral choice: where should the sacrifice end?

A legal right to take water does not settle whether developing it is morally defensible. The allocation system took shape in an era of conquest, extraction and competition, before modern understanding of ecological interdependence. Its inherited priorities deserve examination under present conditions. A decree cannot create snowpack, streamflow or ecological capacity. Colorado Judicial Branch water history · Reclamation's Pine River history.

The water in a living creek is already sustaining wetlands, wildlife and downstream communities. Those are existing uses and relationships. An undeveloped entitlement is a proposed future use of water that already has value. When exported water does not return to its source watershed, 100 percent of that exported volume is consumed from its flows of origin. Reusing it in the receiving basin does not restore the source flow. Aurora describes its imported Homestake supply as reusable to extinction in the South Platte basin. Aurora's Prairie Waters explanation.

Within a basin, water can support successive habitats and uses; some uses return water downstream and others consume a portion. Export removes the transferred water from that chain. Its consequences extend beyond Whitney into the donor creeks, collection works and connected Eagle and Colorado rivers. The wider public includes downstream communities, Tribal Nations, agriculture, recreation, ecosystems and future generations. USGS water-use definitions.

Future growth elsewhere should not carry automatic moral priority over existing lives and places. The question is who benefits, who sacrifices, and why permanent loss is justified. Homestake already gives up substantial water. That existing sacrifice is a reason to set a limit, not an unlimited precedent for taking more.

Conservation, reuse, efficiency and growth choices belong at the center of planning in receiving communities. A finite river cannot carry an unlimited obligation to expansion. Save Homestake's position is that remaining wild creeks should be protected as living places, rather than treated as unfinished water-supply projects. Future generations deserve the water, habitat and choices we cannot recreate once they are lost.