The Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District and the Parker Water and Sanitation District have a formal agreement to develop a water right that would yield more than 70,000 acre feet of water from the South Platte River.

In a press release issued late Thursday, the two districts announced the formation of the Platte Valley Water Partnership, a joint water supply project to use a new water right that the two entities own along the South Platte River near Sterling.

According to Friday's announcement, the project will make use of new and existing infrastructure to store and transport water for agricultural use in northeastern Colorado and municipal use along the Front Range.

"The project will increase the renewable water supply for PWSD's existing and expanding customer base while preserving and supporting agricultural uses in the South Platte River Basin," the release said.

The partnership involves the phased development of the water right. The early phases would involve a pipeline from Prewitt Reservoir in Logan and Washington counties to Parker Reservoir, which supplies the City of Parker. Later developments would see a 4,000 acre-foot reservoir near Iliff on land owned by Parker, and a 72,000 acre-foot reservoir near Fremont Butte north of Akron. A pipeline, pump stations, and treatment facility will also be built as part of the project,

The LSPWCD and PWSD have been in talks with each other and with landowners for several years. Lower South Platte general manager Joe Frank publicly briefed his board of directors in December 2019 about progress on the project and negotiations have been ongoing since then.

The project will be used to capture excess water that would otherwise leave Colorado, primarily during spring runoff and storms. Colorado and Nebraska have an interstate compact that requires a certain amount of water must leave the state for downriver users, but in some cases millions of gallons of water in excess of that escapes across the state line.

Frank said Thursday the Platte Valley Water Partnership is a win-win for urban and rural water users.

"It's critical for our community to avoid the buy-and-dry issues that have become commonplace," Frank said. "By working together with Parker Water and Sanitation District on an agreement that meets both of our needs, we've found a solution that addresses both agricultural and municipal water shortages without further drying up irrigated agriculture."

PWSD District Manager Ron Redd said the project is in line with Colorado's Water Plan, a 2015 document that provides guidelines for providing an adequate water supply for the state's growth through 2050.

"We look forward to working together with Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District," Redd said. "We've been guided by the principles laid out in the Colorado Water Plan; by opening up a dialog we discovered we had many shared values and were able to create a regional solution that benefits us all."