J. Craig Green, PE

6408F Silver Mesa Drive

Highlands Ranch, Colorado 80130

720-344-4232

Qualifications and Experience

South Platte River Basin – Project Sample

• CENTENNIAL WATER AND SANITATION DISTRICT AUGMENTATION PLAN – Preparation and successful implementation of a comprehensive augmentation plan for the water district serving Highlands Ranch in the south metro Denver area. Project included hydrology of South Platte River, review of water court decrees, field staking of alternate points of diversion and development of an accounting system. Detailed negotiations with objectors to the plan resulted in a water court decree without litigation. The plan included a variety of senior, junior and groundwater rights, the appropriation of new water exchanges, and a water budget analysis for an ultimate buildout demand exceeding 20,000 acre feet per year.
• ENGLEWOOD/CENTENNIAL WATER AGREEMENT – Revision of a 20-year old water supply agreement between the City of Englewood and the Centennial Water and Sanitation District required comprehensive negotiations over a five year period. The unique plan that resulted includes several performance criteria and three price categories for Englewood to lease its surplus water to Centennial. Depending on the history of water delivery amounts over the previous 10 years, this innovative agreement calculates the dividing points between high, medium and low priced water categories each year. Water that was most dependably delivered over the previous 10 years is placed in the high price category, and a 10-year average of total deliveries is used to determine the allocation of medium and low priced water.
• COORS AUGMENTATION PLAN – As an employee of Wright Water Engineers in the 1970’s, Mr. Green was the project engineer for the Adolph Coors Company augmentation plan. This project involved a detailed historical use study from 1928 through 1973, and included over 200 separate water rights purchases made by Coors in the 20 years previous to the water court filing. After the 1969 Water Rights Adjudication and Determination Act, this was the first large scale augmentation plan in Colorado, and set several major precedents. The development of depletion factors for different months and different hydrological conditions and the application of multiple year moving averages to replicate historical use were innovations that are still being applied on Clear Creek and in the South Platte River basin today. Intensive negotiations with objectors resulted in a comprehensive settlement of issues on Clear Creek, and a prima facie (uncontested) court case to present a formal legal record.
• CONSOLIDATED MUTUAL WATER COMPANY – This private water company serves much of Lakewood, with Clear Creek water rights and treatment facilities at Maple Grove Reservoir. A comprehensive water rights appraisal was completed for Consolidated’s entire water rights portfolio, and was then updated at a later time. In addition, the appraisal of the storage space in Fairmount Reservoir, a 1000 acre foot off channel reservoir near Golden, Colorado, was completed as a separate project. This resulted in an analysis of previous reservoir storage sales, reservoir construction projects, and a comparison of dry year yields with and without additional storage.
• CLINE RANCH PROJECT – Several years of engineering work for the Centennial Water and Sanitation District, water provider for Highlands Ranch, was used to support a new water decree transferring water rights from South Park to the District’s diversion points in the vicinity of Chatfield Reservoir southwest of Denver. This study included a comprehensive analysis of historical water rights practices from four irrigation ditches, including diversions, return flows, consumptive use and determination of depletions. Specific terms and conditions were developed to prevent injury to other water rights, including a seven cubic feet per second (cfs) instream flow water right owned by the Colorado Water Conservation Board on Tarryall Creek through the Cline Ranch. Extensive field work over several years documented the historical irrigation patterns and the location and amounts of return flows from the Cline Ranch water rights. An innovative groundwater recharge program was developed to replicate historical groundwater return flows.
• WATER RIGHTS EXCHANGE PROJECT – On behalf of Cottonwood Water and Sanitation District on Cherry Creek southeast of Denver, field work and hydrological analyses were completed to support the filing and adjudication of a new exchange water right on Cherry Creek. This exchange right allows upstream alluvial wells to be pumped in exchange for downstream return flows credits during “live stream” conditions on Cherry Creek. The exchange plan was filed in the water court in 1995, and adjudicated in 1998.
• UPPER BEAVER BROOK RESERVOIR PROJECT – This project involved the reconstruction of an existing reservoir to its historical decreed capacity. This necessitated wetlands mitigation, acquisition of additional water rights and negotiations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. An analysis of water demands on the reservoir, located west of Golden, Colorado, was completed, along with a projection of future water demands and depletions to Clear Creek and the South Platte River downstream. These depletions were mitigated with the acquisition of water rights to insure that streamflows at the Colorado/Nebraska state line were not increased.
• WATER RIGHTS TRANSFER PLAN AND IMPLEMENTATION – For the Lookout Mountain Water District near Golden, Colorado, this project included the acquisition of senior water rights and their change to municipal use. Six shares of the Farmers Highline Canal on Clear Creek were purchased, their historical use was studied and terms and conditions were fashioned to prevent injury to other water rights. This included an exchange of water from downstream to upstream, the storage of that water in three reservoirs and the use of the water for municipal purposes. A decree from the water court was obtained allowing this transfer, and a detailed daily accounting system was developed for reservoir operations based on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. The accounting model includes mathematical expressions for stage-capacity and stage-area curves, computation of evaporation losses, computation of target reservoir levels, reservoir inflow and several different storage accounts, depending on which water rights are being stored.