For decades, Highlands Ranch Water has worked to build a reliable, renewable water supply for the community. A major milestone in that effort was reached in 2020, when a long-planned project at Chatfield Reservoir received final approval clearing the way for Highlands Ranch Water to begin storing water there the following year.

The Chatfield Storage Reallocation Project was developed to make greater use of an existing reservoir by adding water storage capacity while maintaining Chatfield’s important role in flood control. The project reallocated space within the reservoir to create an additional 20,600 acre-feet of storage for municipal and agricultural water providers.

Highlands Ranch Water, then known as Centennial Water and Sanitation District, is one of 10 participants who secured storage in the reservoir. The district added 6,922 acre-feet of new storage capacity to its surface water supplies.

Years of planning, investment and construction were required before water could be stored. Raising the reservoir level also required relocating recreational facilities and completing environmental mitigation projects in and around Chatfield State Park. Then came the milestone everyone had been working toward.

On May 12, 2020, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determined the required work had been satisfactorily completed and authorized participants to begin storing available water in the new reallocation pool.

For Highlands Ranch Water, that approval transformed two decades of planning into a tangible water supply asset. In 2021, Highlands Ranch Water began storing water in Chatfield Reservoir.

The significance of the project became especially visible in 2023. Following a wet spring, Chatfield Reservoir reached its new full operational level of 5,444 feet above sea level for the first time since the reallocation project was approved.

Today, Highlands Ranch Water's storage in Chatfield Reservoir is an important piece of a diversified water supply system. Along with the district's other water rights, storage and infrastructure, it provides greater flexibility to manage water supplies from year to year and strengthens the community's long-term water reliability.