City utilities officials told the Boulder City Council at a study session that the city’s current water portfolio is in a strong position today but faces significant long‑term uncertainties that warrant a formal integrated water supply plan.

At the Oct. 5 study session, Joe Tadeuchi, director of the city’s utilities department, introduced a technical presentation by Crystal Mori, senior water resources engineer, that covered Colorado water law, Boulder’s three supply sources, modeled future supply‑demand scenarios to 2050 and a menu of policy options. “I think there’s some really positive news in the work in the presentation we have done and that it demonstrates that we have a really good supply situation,” Tadeuchi said.

The presentation laid out that Boulder draws roughly two‑thirds of its municipal supply from the two Boulder Creek watersheds (North Boulder Creek and South/Bridal) and roughly one‑third from transbasin supplies originating in the Colorado River headwaters and delivered by Northern Water. Crystal Mori said current treated municipal demand is about 17,000 acre‑feet per year and that, on average, Boulder leases roughly 5,000 acre‑feet per year for agricultural use when municipal demand is lower.

Why it matters: Colorado water is allocated under interstate compacts and basin law that create tight limits on new supplies. The Colorado Water Plan and basin projections show a large regional shortfall in some futures; staff showed South Platte Basin projections of a 500,000–800,000 acre‑feet per year gap by 2050 cited in the state planning literature. That scale is many times Boulder’s current demand and frames the trade‑offs the city will need to consider.

Key findings and numbers presented to council: the city’s 2009 source water plan remains the governing local document but staff recommended updating it to a new integrated water supply plan that explicitly models uncertainty. The utilities team ran four 2050 scenarios (optimistic, continued trends, stressed, severe) that include climate‑driven streamflow changes ranging from about +10% to about ‑30% and two demand drivers (irrigation need increases, and stronger conservation uptake). The model includes a 10% factor of safety to account for outages and unmodeled risks. Under three of the four scenarios, supply met municipal demands at today’s population; under the severe scenario the city would face material gaps.

Staff emphasized that dealing with future gaps can range from “stretch” measures (deeper conservation, retiming existing supplies, automation) to “partner” and “compete” strategies that would require acquiring new supplies or building new projects. Staff cited Panama Reservoir as an example: an ongoing partnership project proposed to expand a northeast reservoir with an estimated cost of about $90 million and potential yield up to 2,000 acre‑feet (Boulder’s municipal demand is roughly 17,000 acre‑feet for scale).

Council reaction and next steps: after questions from multiple council members about public education, irrigation ditch seepage, and data centers, staff asked whether council supports adding an integrated water supply plan to the work plan; several members voiced support for moving forward. Staff said more detailed scope, financing and timing would be developed as part of the work plan item; no formal council vote was taken at the study session.

What staff will do next: if council confirms the direction, utilities staff plan to develop a scoped integrated water supply plan that will include community engagement, scenario‑based analysis, potential conservation and supply options, and a financial strategy to estimate costs and possible funding sources. Staff noted regional dependencies (Colorado River policy, Northern Water decisions) that are outside Boulder’s control and will be treated as assumptions to test in scenario runs.

A note on attribution: direct quotes in this article come from city staff present at the study session. The technical presentation and council questions were the basis for the figures and program descriptions above.