With construction now in the homestretch, crews at Chimney Hollow Reservoir have reached another major milestone.
In early December, work wrapped up on the Carter Lake interconnect, a pipeline that will bring more Colorado River water to municipalities in Boulder, Larimer, Broomfield and Weld counties.
“For the past 70 years, water has been pumped from Flatiron Reservoir into Carter Lake,” said Jeff Stahla, public information officer for Northern Water conservancy district. “What was just built is basically a connection from Chimney Hollow into that pipe that carries water from Flatiron. So when we say it’s an interconnect, it’s connecting a pipe to a pipe, although technically it’s a pressure conduit.”
Now in its fourth year of construction, Chimney Hollow lies just to the west of Carter Lake in southwest Larimer County. When completed, the reservoir will span 2.5 miles covering 740 acres, making it slightly smaller than its neighbor to the east. It will also be surrounded by 2,000 acres of open space available for public recreation.
Chimney Hollow will eventually store up to 90,000 acre-feet of water transported from the Colorado River through the Windy Gap Firming Project, an initiative by 12 Northern Colorado communities facing growing demand for water, including Loveland. Each year, the partners will receive a combined 30,000 acre feet from the new reservoir.
The recently completed interconnect will allow water stored in Chimney Hollow to flow into Carter Lake for distribution to communities to the east and south, such as Longmont, Berthoud, Erie, Louisville, Lafayette, and Superior. Water bound for Loveland and communities north of Carter Lake will travel through Flatiron Reservoir and into Green Ridge Glade Reservoir via a gravity-fed pipeline over U.S. 34.
Work on the interconnect began in October and finished in early December, requiring a temporary halt to water flow into Carter Lake. This interruption caused visibly lower water levels in the lake, which have since been restored.
“For people who noticed that Carter Lake seemed lower than usual, that was correct,” Stahla said.
Work on Chimney Hollow got underway in fall 2021 with a four-year timeline. According to Stahla, other recent project milestones include the completion of the 40-foot saddle dam on the south side of the reservoir, a small but key part of the project.
“That increases the capacity of the reservoir by about 30%,” Stahla said. “It’s a small dam, but it has a big impact on how much water we can store.”
Meanwhile, work is continuing on Chimney Hollow’s 350-foot main dam, which will be one of the tallest in Colorado. Both it and the valve house, a concrete structure containing the equipment used to regulate the flow of water in and out of the reservoir, will be completed right on schedule in the summer of 2025.
“We have to give credit to the contractor, Barnard (Construction) and their subcontractors,” Stahla said. “It’s been kind of remarkable how much teamwork is going on out there.”
For more information about the Chimney Hollow project or to schedule a tour, visit northernwater.org/CHRP.
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