On September 15, the Colorado 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Save the Colorado v. Graham. Read the summary, below or click through to the entire opinion.
Save the Colorado v. Graham, Nos. 25-1137, 25-1231 & 25-1299 (D.C. No. 1:18-CV-03258-CMA) (D. Colo.) In 2002, Denver Water predicted it would soon face a water shortage. To address this problem, it proposed the Moffat System Collection Project, which would increase the holding capacity of the Gross Reservoir (a large reservoir northwest of Boulder) by raising the height of the Gross Dam. Since the proposal would affect wetlands at the base of the dam structure, Denver Water applied for the necessary wetlands permit from the Army Corps of Engineers in 2003. And after an extensive process, the Corps issued the permit in 2017. In 2026, Denver Water completed a $600,000,000 construction project that raised the Gross Dam 131 feet, and the Reservoir stands ready to hold an additional 77,000 acre-feet of water.
But Denver Water cannot fill the Reservoir. Save the Colorado and other environmental groups sued the Corps for violating the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), alleging deficiencies in the Corps’s fourteen-year review process. The district court agreed and enjoined Denver Water from diverting water to the Reservoir.
Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, the Court reverses. The district court found that the Corps violated the CWA and NEPA because it (1) too narrowly defined the Moffat Project’s purpose, and (2) failed to adequately consider project costs and climate change’s impact on the project’s feasibility. We conclude the Corps may include a project’s multiple related purposes when defining the project’s purpose. And we also find that the Corps’s determinations on cost and climate change were reasonable and supported by the record.
The Court reverses the district court, vacates the permanent injunction, and remands with instructions to enter judgment against the plaintiff. Read the opinion.