Brighton Water Conservation Plan Receives State Approval

The City of Brighton received written approval from the Colorado Water Conservation Board's (CWCB) Office of Water Conservation and Drought Planning for its Water Conservation Plan. The Plan, which was prepared by Great Western Institute, received high marks from the CWCB and its reviewer/contractor Aqua Craft. Specifically, CWCB indicated that, "The City of Brighton Water Conservation Plan prepared by Great Western Institute is an excellent example of what a conservation plan should be."

The Plan was prepared over about a 6 month period led by City of Brighton Public Works Department staffer, Dawn Hessheimer, who manages multiple water resources projects for the City including augmentation and substitute water supply plans and water conservation. City Planning, Parks and Recreation, Finance, and Public Works Departments all had a hand in supporting Plan development and completion.

CWCB had particular praise for the cost/benefit analyses, and related water savings analyses included in Brighton's Plan. The CWCB has embarked on developing an "Identified Projects and Processes (IPP)" database to track water needs and development into the future, including those related to water conservation. CWCB indicated that the format that Great Western Institute utilized for the City of Brighton, including detailed cost/benefit analyses and assumptions for each selected water conservation measure and program is going to help facilitate the development of the IPP database. Although CWCB will not develop guidelines that are so specific as to require this cost/benefit format, CWCB will promote the use of similar content and information in future Water Conservation Plans since it allows for easy input into the IPP database. This is just the kind of water conservation planning metric that will help the state to quantify "more meaningful water conservation".