Northern Water announced on Friday that it will increase the 2024 quota allocation from the Colorado-Big Thompson Project to 70% from 50%.
The increase was decided after a thorough review of the predicted storage levels through the end of 2024. A wet spring and summer in 2023 reduced water demands leaving water levels higher than average years. The snowpack from this year promises to supply near- and above-normal amounts of water to local watersheds.
The practice of setting quotas has been in place since 1957. Although the amount varies due to a number of factors the average amount of water allocated is 70%. This means that those drawing water from the project have 0.70 acre-feet of water available.
Collectively, that means the project could disperse 217,000 acre-feet of water in 2024 to the 33 cities and towns, 120 agricultural irrigation companies and other water users that make up Northern Water’s 1.6 million acre-service area.
