Orlando Reservoir
We’ve seen many articles in the press lately regarding crumbling United States water infrastructure, lamenting the loss and its future impact on agriculture and municipal water use.
As you know from several press releases lately, Two Rivers is restoring 70,000 acre feet of historic water infrastructure to enable the re-irrigation of 25,000 acres of very fertile, fallowed farm land bringing it back into production. Farmland is the water bank for future water use. Attached as a file, and pictured below is a picture of the Colorado State Engineers Office inspecting our current restoration of the Orlando Reservoir in Huerfano County.
The restoration of the reservoir, will repair a 1905 reservoir that can store up to 3,117 acre feet of water and enable the irrigation of 1,000 acres below the Orlando Reservoir and assist an unincorporated town above the reservoir maintain its water supply. The town was in danger of having to shut down because of its inability to acquire an augmentation source for its well water.
Two Rivers, The State Engineers Office and the Colorado Water Conservation Board were able to combine the right combination of private equity capital, administrative permitting and low cost infrastructure loans to rebuild a reservoir that had not been renovated in many decades. The renovation was a 20% of the cost and a fraction of the time to plan, permit and build a new reservoir. This is the perfect functioning of private enterprise and state government to provide valuable low cost necessary services to the citizens of Colorado.
Reservoirs are one of the most valuable water rights in Colorado because they allow you to capture the snow melt in the spring to retime it’s use through the rest of the year.
