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Pueblo West staff: new analysis shows capacity for roughly 1,000 more taps; board asked to adopt 200-per-year allocation
Summary
Water staff told the Pueblo West Metropolitan District board that new modeling — helped by the Wild Horse pipeline and conservation gains — shows the district could support about 1,000 additional taps. Staff proposed allocating 200 taps per year for 2026–2029 and returning to the board once further analyses are complete.
Elisa Velasquez, Pueblo West’s water resource manager, told the board Dec. 5 that a new tap analysis found the district could support roughly 1,000 additional water taps as a result of the Wild Horse pipeline coming online and continued conservation efforts. "The research shows we could support about 1,000 more taps with our current water resources," Velasquez said.
Staff recommended allocating 200 taps per year for 2026 through 2029 and then requesting another full analysis in 2030. For 2026, Velasquez said the district has about 190 taps available when carryover is included. "So we propose allocating 200 taps per year, for the next 4 years," she said.
Deputy director Jeffrey De Herrera walked the board through the district’s water-rights portfolio and reuse estimates, explaining which supplies staff treated as firm yield and which they excluded from conservative planning. He noted that reuse from septic-return flows and the Wild Horse pipeline materially improved the district’s yield but that some sources — including certain Pueblo Reservoir storage accounts and Colorado Canal shares — are not counted as firm supply for planning because they can be subject to spill or have zero firm yield in dry years.
Board members pressed staff on several operational details: how the Pueblo Board of Water Works lease (about 1,500 acre-feet, with the lease expiring in 2028) is treated in planning, the estimated firm yield of Twin Lakes shares, and the district’s ability to bring wells back online if quality improvements are made. Staff said the Hill Ranch revegetation work should make additional water available by 2028–2029 and that reuse and pipeline supplies are significant contributors to the improved outlook.
The board discussed storage options in Pueblo Reservoir and the limits of non-firm storage. Staff cautioned that while acquiring additional reservoir accounts could meet on-paper storage goals, those accounts are vulnerable to spill in wet years and therefore do not fully substitute for firm, reliable storage in drought planning.
Board direction: staff will proceed with the recommended 200-per-year allocation proposal for 2026–2029, share supporting documents and the underlying analyses with the board, and provide updated modeling and a plan for monitoring and reporting taps and water-resource status going forward.
Next steps: staff said they can request a new tap analysis as soon as next year if additional data become available and will return with refined projections and any proposed changes to the rules and regulations that govern tap allocations.
