Community Advisory Working Group
The purpose of the Gross Reservoir Community Advisory Working Group is to weigh different scenarios, interests, and collective impacts from both a scientific and subjective standpoint and make recommendations to Boulder County about what the community feels is the most equitable and fair way to distribute money from the Gross Reservoir Community Impact Mitigation Fund.
- PAST – Thursday, April 6, from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. In-person and via Zoom
- PAST – Tuesday, April 25, from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. VIRTUAL only via Zoom
- PAST – Monday, May 8, from 4:30-5:30 VIRTUAL only via Zoom
- Tuesday, May 16, from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. VIRTUAL only via Zoom (meeting link)
- **Save the date** Thursday, June 1, 5:30-8:30 p.m. June 1 is being held as a date for a potential additional/final working group meeting. Details will be forwarded if/when that date is confirmed.
Members of the public are welcome to attend the working group meetings to observe and provide written comments during working group meetings. The facilitation team will capture all comments in the meeting summaries. At the request of the working group members, the meetings will be held in person when possible.
We understand that many community members are unable to attend the meetings in person for a variety of reasons, so we will continue to provide a virtual option for accessing the meetings. If you have the option, we encourage community members to attend in person for the best observational experience. The quality of the meeting webcast is limited given the interactive nature of the working group discussions and the community hall’s open environment.
Pinyon Environmental, Inc.’s report* analyzing the air, noise, and visual impacts of Denver Water’s Gross Reservoir Expansion operations is available for review and comment. Please use the Pinyon Report comment form to submit your input. Comments will be shared with the Gross Reservoir Community Advisory Working Group.
*The Pinyon report used the best available data for its findings. If your address was not included in the list of households analyzed (and you believe it should have been), please send a message to grossreservoir@bouldercounty.org to investigate the matter. Thank you.
2023 Overview
The first nine months of 2023 will be dedicated to determining the amount and distribution of the first round of funding from the $5 million Denver Water Settlement Agreement. An estimated timeline is provided below and available in PDF format here. (For most recent updates, please read the April 2023 e-newsletter.)

Brief Background Summary
In July 2020, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued an Order amending Denver Water’s hydropower license that permitted Denver Water to proceed with the Gross Reservoir Expansion Project. With this Order, Denver Water was able to claim that FERC has “complete authority” over the project and was able to avoid County review of the largest construction project in Boulder County history. In addition, Denver Water sued Boulder County to make sure the County’s local land use (1041) authority was preempted (denied) by federal regulation.
In November 2021, Boulder County reached an agreement with Denver Water to resolve the federal lawsuit by Denver Water v. Boulder County. The settlement directed Denver Water to pay more than $12.5 million to Boulder County to mitigate the impacts of the dam expansion project, including $5 million for a fund to be distributed to area residents to help mitigate noise, light, and air impacts to households near the Gross Reservoir Dam Expansion project. Read more about the settlement agreement…
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