By Laura Snider
Camera Staff Writer
According to Colorado Trout Unlimited, if both the Windy Gap Firming Project and a proposed expansion of the Gross Reservoir -- which feeds Denver residents with water from the Colorado watershed -- are approved, as much as 70 percent of the upper Colorado River's native water flow will be removed on average.
"It's not happening in isolation," said Erica Stock, outreach director for Colorado Trout Unlimited.
In particular, Stock said her organization wants to make sure that Northern Water uses an accurate historical baseline of the Colorado River's flow to determine impacts and that it uses an "adaptive management" strategy, which would allow the mitigation measures to be changed if ecological effects are worse than anticipated.
