Colorado Water Rights Shape Where the Front Range Can Grow

Drive around Northern Colorado and it looks like there's plenty of room to keep building. There are farm fields between existing towns, subdivisions pushing farther east and open land along nearly every major highway. But in Colorado, available land doesn't necessarily mean developable land. You can own the property, have a builder ready to go and buyers waiting for homes, but none of that gets very far until somebody answers a much more basic question: where is the water coming from?

Water has shaped Colorado since the 1800s, and it still determines where new homes, businesses and entire communities can be built. Greeley has spent more than 150 years securing and moving water. Northern Water operates a massive system that carries West Slope water underneath the Continental Divide to Northern Colorado. Thornton bought agricultural water rights decades before it needed them and is now building infrastructure to bring that water roughly 70 miles south. These are different stories, but together they explain something important about Colorado real estate: having land and having enough water to develop it are two very different things.

Colorado Has Been Fighting Over Water Since the 1800s

Colorado is one of the great headwaters states. The Colorado, Arkansas, Platte and Rio Grande river systems begin here and carry water far beyond our borders. The Green River is a notable exception, entering northwestern Colorado after beginning in Wyoming, but the larger point remains: an enormous amount of the water originating in Colorado eventually leaves Colorado.

That has made water valuable here from the beginning. Colorado follows the doctrine of prior appropriation, usually summed up as "first in time, first in right." Older water rights generally have priority when there isn't enough water for everyone, a system that developed as miners, farmers, ranchers and early towns diverted water away from rivers and streams to where they actually needed it.

Today, Northern Colorado farms often receive irrigation water through ditch and reservoir companies, with ownership represented by shares that can be bought and sold. Those shares aren't all equal, and their values depend heavily on the source, seniority and reliability of the water, but shares in some systems can exceed $90,000 each. In some cases, the water attached to a farm can be an extremely valuable part of the property.

That also explains the controversial practice known as "buy and dry." Cities can acquire agricultural water rights and eventually convert that water to municipal use. It can secure water for thousands of future residents, but removing irrigation can also make productive farmland far less useful. The ground is still there, but the water that made agriculture possible may now be serving homes and businesses many miles away.

Northern Colorado Moves Water Across a Mountain Range

Some of Northern Colorado's growth wouldn't be possible on local river water alone. The Colorado-Big Thompson Project, operated by Northern Water and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, is one of the largest transmountain water systems in the West and has been supplying supplemental water to northeastern Colorado for generations.

Much of that water begins as West Slope snowmelt in the Colorado River headwaters and is stored in Lake Granby. From there it moves through Shadow Mountain Reservoir and Grand Lake before traveling more than 13 miles beneath Rocky Mountain National Park and the Continental Divide through the Alva B. Adams Tunnel. Once on the East Slope, a network of tunnels, canals, power plants and reservoirs keeps moving it toward the places where people actually live and farm.

Pinewood and Flatiron reservoirs are important pieces of that system, with Flatiron serving as a major distribution point. Water can move north toward Horsetooth Reservoir or south toward Carter Lake before eventually reaching communities, water districts and farms across Northern Colorado.

Chimney Hollow Reservoir, just west of Carter Lake, adds another 90,000 acre-feet of storage to Northern Colorado's water system. It is part of the Windy Gap Firming Project, which starts with Colorado River water near Granby. Windy Gap water can be pumped into Lake Granby and then use much of the same infrastructure that carries Colorado-Big Thompson water across the Continental Divide. Chimney Hollow gives participating communities additional storage so more of that water can be saved for years when it's actually needed.

And Northern Colorado isn't finished building reservoirs. After roughly two decades of planning and permitting, the Northern Integrated Supply Project is moving toward construction of Glade Reservoir northwest of Fort Collins and Galeton Reservoir northeast of Greeley. Glade is planned at 170,000 acre-feet, slightly larger than Horsetooth Reservoir, while Galeton will add another 45,600 acre-feet. Glade will primarily capture Poudre River water during higher-flow periods, while Galeton will store South Platte water and work with Glade as part of the larger NISP system.

Look at Lake Granby, Horsetooth, Carter, Chimney Hollow, Glade and Galeton strictly as lakes and you miss the larger story. They're pieces of an enormous storage and delivery system that has a lot to do with how much growth Northern Colorado can support.

Greeley Has Been Planning for Water Since 1870

Greeley understood this problem almost from the moment the Union Colony was established in 1870. Irrigation canals were among its earliest major projects because there wasn't much point in establishing an agricultural colony on the plains without a dependable way to water it. A dispute with upstream Fort Collins-area water users during the dry summer of 1874 also became part of Colorado's early water history and helped reinforce the importance of priority between competing users.

That approach never really stopped. Over generations, Greeley assembled water rights from multiple river basins, including the Cache la Poudre and Big Thompson systems, along with high-country storage, irrigation companies and an extensive network of ditches, canals and pipelines. Greeley's system includes substantial water stored in Lake Loveland and Boyd Lake, while the city also owns Colorado-Big Thompson and Windy Gap water. Its current water portfolio actually reaches into four river basins.

Residents can even notice the difference between those sources at the faucet. Greeley's Bellvue Water Treatment Plant near the mouth of the Poudre Canyon receives high-quality water from the Poudre, high-mountain reservoirs and other sources. The Boyd Lake plant operates primarily as a seasonal peaking plant and can receive water through Lake Loveland and Boyd Lake. Greeley's own studies describe Bellvue's source as high-quality mountain surface water and document meaningful differences between the two supplies.

Greeley's reputation for tap water isn't just local bragging. In 2017, it won both the American Water Works Association's Best of the Best Water Taste Test and People's Choice Award, becoming the first utility to win both in the same year. The larger point isn't which side of Greeley has better-tasting water, though. It's that the city has spent more than 150 years treating water as something that has to be secured, stored and moved long before the growth arrives.

Thornton Bought Water for a City That Didn't Exist Yet

Thornton followed a similar long-term strategy much later. In the mid-1980s, the city acquired agricultural water shares in Northern Colorado and began the legal process of converting that water for future municipal use. Thornton is now building the infrastructure necessary to move that water through Larimer, Weld and Adams counties to the city, with the full project expected to stretch roughly 70 miles.

Thornton sees those purchases as responsible long-term planning for a city that knew it would eventually need considerably more water. Many people in Northern Colorado see the other side of the equation: water historically used for agriculture being moved south to support continued urban development. The project has spent years dealing with permitting, route disputes, litigation and opposition before reaching its current stage.

Both parts of the story matter. Thornton really did plan decades ahead, but moving agricultural water can have lasting consequences for the places it leaves behind. That's why calling the project simply good or bad misses much of what makes Colorado water so complicated.

The situation also helps explain why Northern Colorado communities continue spending enormous amounts of money on projects like Chimney Hollow, Glade and Galeton. Growing cities need more than water rights on paper. They need storage, treatment capacity and infrastructure capable of delivering that water when residents actually need it.

Water Is Part of the Real Estate Story

Most people aren't thinking about water rights while touring an apartment, walking through a model home or driving past a field outside town. They turn on the faucet, water comes out, and that's about as much thought as it receives.

Behind almost every major Front Range development, however, somebody had to figure out where that water would come from. The same applies to apartments, schools, restaurants, shopping centers and practically everything else that follows residential growth. Zoning matters. Construction costs matter. Interest rates and buyer demand matter. But none of those things create a municipal water supply.

Northern Water, Greeley and Thornton show different versions of the same reality. Northern Colorado moves water underneath the Continental Divide and stores it in an interconnected system of reservoirs. Greeley has spent generations acquiring and developing water resources well beyond its city limits. Thornton bought agricultural water decades before it expected to need all of it and is now dealing with the controversial process of moving that water south. Meanwhile, billions of dollars and decades of planning continue going into the next generation of Northern Colorado water storage.

That's one of the less obvious realities of Colorado real estate. A field can look like the obvious location for the next thousand homes and still be nowhere close to ready for development. In Colorado, having room to grow and having enough water to grow are two completely different things.

If you're considering a move along the Front Range, understanding how a community is growing can be just as useful as knowing today's home prices or apartment rents. Premium Apartment Locators works with renters, buyers and people relocating throughout Northern Colorado and the Denver metro. Explore our latest housing resources or contact us for help comparing communities and finding the right home for your next move.