Another community in Northern Colorado has decided to pull back from participation in a proposed massive water project whose costs continue to escalate.
City Council members in Evans last week decided not to participate in water agreements for 2026 related to the planned Northern Integrated Supply Project, or NISP, a planned $2.69 billion infrastructure project north of Fort Collins.
Evans joins the town of Eaton and the Fort Collins-Loveland Water District — which had a more than 20% share in NISP — in backing away from the project. The 12 remaining participants are Windsor, Left Hand Water District, Erie, Central Weld County Water District, Fort Lupton, Fort Morgan, Morgan County Quality Water, Severance, Lafayette, Firestone, Frederick and Dacono.
On a 4-1 vote on Oct. 7, the Evans council authorized Mayor Mark Clark to notify the project’s developer, the Berthoud-based Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, also known as Northern Water, of the city’s decision.
In a letter to Northern Water general manager Brad Wind, Clark wrote that “the City of Evans has been a good-faith participant in NISP for more than 20 years. Throughout this time, we have relied on the knowledge and expertise of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District to advance the project through the complex regulatory and environmental processes required. We value the long-standing collaboration and the shared vision of ensuring water security for Northern Colorado communities.
“Nevertheless, the escalating project costs have grown beyond what is sustainable for our community. The scale of these rising costs represents an unacceptable burden on Evans’ water utility ratepayers. Moving forward under such financial strain would have a detrimental effect on the City’s financial stability and our ability to manage future infrastructure and service needs.
“The City of Evans remains committed to responsible water resource planning and stewardship; however, at this time, the financial trajectory of NISP no longer aligns with the fiscal responsibilities we owe to our residents and customers.”
While Evans can no longer participate, Clark wrote, “we remain open to future opportunities for regional collaboration on sustainable and cost-effective water solutions.”
The project is to be made up of two new reservoirs: Glade Reservoir, northwest of Fort Collins, and Galeton Reservoir, northeast of Greeley. Once complete, NISP was expected to provide 40,000 acre-feet of new water to those subscribing cities and water district customers. An acre-foot of water generally can serve two families of about four people per year, according to state government water materials.
The projected cost of the project in 2003 was $350 million, but in the 22 years that have followed, the estimate has increased 671% to nearly $2.7 billion as of August.
According to an Evans staff report, between 2016 and 2025, project costs increased from $590 million to $2 billion, “which represents an annualized growth rate of about 18.4% per year during that nine-year period.”
The staff report cited rises in the costs of construction and materials, as well as higher-than-estimated costs of moving U.S. 287 to accommodate the enlarged Glade Reservoir. Then there were costs and delays resulting from continued litigation, culminating in a $100 million mitigation settlement with the Save the Poudre citizen group.
“Participants were being asked to absorb open-ended risk exposure, creating uncertainty and upward pressure on bids,” the report said, adding that “Northern Colorado is experiencing booming demand for infrastructure, which has driven up competition for contractors, materials, and labor.”
On Tuesday at a BizWest CEO Roundtable in Windsor, Wind emphasized that the project would still be built.
“Our board feels strongly that if we’re shy of the 40,000 shares being subscribed, it’s still important to build the project as envisioned,” he said. “How we do that, time will tell. You just don’t downsize these kinds of projects and save that much money. If you build a dam, you’ve got to build the dam. Shaving 5 feet off the top doesn’t really reduce the cost of the project.
“So that’s where our board is, and we hope to get there in the next couple months in terms of understanding that,” Wind said. “And then there’s a feedback loop. As we get information in and see how much might be unsubscribed, we’ll try to find a home for all those units moving forward.”
Wind said Northern Water now is “in a new mode of recalculation. That really comes down to how communities subscribe to the interest in the project.
“We’ve got communities, no surprise, that are stepping back for good reason, in my opinion, and really reevaluating the affordability of the project,” he said. “Some are seeking to downsize, again recalculating, Others have given us the signal that they’re going to move on to other supplies and NISP is not part of the future.
“That’s quite a process of sub-optimization,” he said. “You’ve got to allow communities to kind of recalculate their need, and they’re using some assumptions that we provide to them. They’re using some other assumptions that they get expertise in.”
The bottom line for those communities, Wind said, is asking “what can we afford? It’s maybe not what we prefer or desire, it’s what we can afford. I have all the respect for that. So they’re in that mode now with the idea of coming back to Northern Water in the next couple months, understanding where they want to be. And at that point you see who’s subscribing or desires to subscribe at various levels, and if there are any unsubscribed portions of the project, where might that interest lie?”
This article was first published by BizWest, an independent news organization, and is published under a license agreement. © 2025 BizWest Media LLC.
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