The Boulder County Commissioners will hold a public meeting on Thursday, June 29, to review recommendations from county staff (meeting memo) and the Gross Reservoir Mitigation Impact Fund Community Advisory Working Group (Report) to determine the amount of funding for Phase 1* distributions from the Gross Reservoir Community Impact Mitigation Fund,
Members of the public are invited to attend the meeting in person (in Boulder) or observe the meeting remotely via Zoom.
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What: Boulder County Commissioners' Meeting to determine funding for Phase 1 from the Gross Reservoir Community Impact Mitigation Fund
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Who would be most interested?: Boulder County residents who live in the vicinity of Gross Reservoir
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When: Thursday, June 29 at 3 p.m.
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Where: The meeting will be held in a hybrid format where attendees can join through Zoom or in person at the Boulder County Courthouse:
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In-person: Commissioners' Hearing Room, 3rd Floor, 1325 Pearl Street, Boulder (map and directions) (We can provide parking passes to cover any fees in the City of Boulder parking garages (locations). Unfortunately, we do not have a way to reimburse parking at street meters.)
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Virtually: Zoom Attendee Link: https://boco.org/BOCC-GrossReservoir or Call-in information: 1-833-568-8864, Webinar ID: 161 585 4
Written comments can be emailed to grossreservoir@bouldercounty.org and will be shared with the County Commissioners prior to the June 29 meeting.
The Updated DRAFT Pinyon spreadsheet includes rankings to one decimal point for air, noise, and total rankings, as requested by the Gross Reservoir Community Working Group. The spreadsheet is not considered a final report. The rankings are subject to change based on Boulder County staff and Working Group recommendations and decisions made by the Board of County Commissioners on June 29. (View the full Pinyon Environmental Analysis report prior to the one-decimal ranking change.)
Note: Visual impacts for direct line-of-sight and lighting impacts are still being verified by Boulder County for accuracy. If you think your visual ranking is incorrect (ranking numbers are based on distance from a lighting source or location/view), please complete the Visual/Lighting Impacts Survey.
For anyone unable to attend the meeting, a video recording will be posted on the Boulder County Open Meeting Portal by early next week.
Background
The Denver Water v. Boulder County Settlement Agreement, signed in November 2021, established a $5 million Gross Reservoir Community Impact Mitigation Fund. The Fund is designed to provide direct payments to eligible property owners who are--or are expected to be--adversely impacted by Denver Water’s Gross Reservoir Expansion Project.
From April to June 2023, Boulder County convened a community working group to weigh different scenarios, interests, and collective impacts from both a scientific and subjective standpoint in order to make recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners about a fair distribution process for distributing money from the Gross Reservoir Community Impact Mitigation Fund.
The Working Groups recommendations are summarized in the Boulder County Gross Reservoir Community Advisory Working Group Report.
On June 29, the Board of County Commissioners will determine how (and how much) to distribute for the first round of payments from the $5 million "Reduce Impacts to Residents" section of the Settlement Agreement.
* Because Denver Water's operational plan for tree removal around Gross Reservoir will not be available until 2024, the Boulder County Commissioners decided that tree removal impacts will not be considered in the first phase of funding (i.e., money from the full $5 million mitigation fund will be held back for a future round of funding once the tree removal impacts are better known.).
As a result, there will be two phases of funding. Phase 1 will distribute funding based on ongoing impacts from the full 7-year Gross Dam Expansion Project. Phase 2 will distribute funding based on impacts from the 2-year tree removal operations, specifically. The Working Group focused on developing recommendations on the methodology to distribute Phase 1 funding. They also developed recommendations on how much funding to retain for Phase 2 of funding distributions.
More about the June 29 Meeting
The Board's deliberations on June 29 will focus on determining the total distribution amount and funding methodology for Phase 1 of the Gross Reservoir Community Impact Mitigation Fund. Public testimony will not be taken during the meeting, as the purpose of the meeting is to learn and ask questions of county staff and the Working Group members who will be making recommendations based on community input and feedback on impacts to individual households.
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