Castle Rock Water is updating the document that decides where your water comes from for the next forty years, and it is asking customers what they think first. A 13-question questionnaire is open through Oct. 11, and there is an open house from 4 to 6pm on Thursday, Oct. 8 at the Castle Rock Water offices, 171 Kellogg Court.
The Water Resources Strategic Master Plan started in 2006, after studies flagged shrinking nonrenewable groundwater across the South Metro Denver region, and it has been revised roughly every five years since. The 2026 update sets the priorities for 2026 through 2031.
Why this one is worth five minutes
Most requests for public input are about something abstract. This one is about your bill.
Castle Rock Water is funded entirely through customer rates and fees — not taxes, and not the Town's General Fund. So every pipeline, reservoir and water right in this plan gets paid for by the people who use the water. The Town says plainly that rates are expected to increase gradually, while staying mid-range compared with other Front Range providers, and that the current five-year budget carries $75.6 million for long-term renewable water projects.
The plan also runs the other direction: the more efficient the community gets, the less water has to be bought, treated and piped in the first place.
Where the water actually comes from
The number that explains the whole plan: deep underground aquifers were still about 65 percent of Castle Rock's supply in 2025. That water is nonrenewable, it is being slowly mined, and it takes generations to recharge. The long-term goal is 100 percent renewable by 2065, with groundwater held back as a drought reserve.
Renewable supplies — local surface water from Plum Creek and Cherry Creek, imported water, and reuse — averaged 31 percent of the town's water over the past five years, with a high of 35 percent in 2022.
Meanwhile demand keeps climbing. The Town uses roughly 10,800 acre-feet a year now, projected to reach up to 16,800 acre-feet at buildout.
What the last five years bought
The Town's own accounting of 2021 to 2026:
- Ran on 100 percent renewable water for the first time ever, through the Plum Creek Water Purification Facility, during the summer of 2025.
- Finished the expansion of Castle Rock Reservoir No. 1 and built Reservoir No. 2, plus Walker Reservoir with partners.
- Permitted and started up four aquifer storage and recovery wells, which bank water underground when there is a surplus.
- Acquired 3,205 acre-feet of new groundwater supplies and more than 100 acre-feet of senior renewable water rights.
- Became the largest owner of WISE supplies after buying a 250 acre-foot Pinery subscription, and completed the Parker WISE Pump Station and Binney Pump Station connections.
- Generated $2.7 million leasing out idle water rights, and landed a $1.75 million federal grant toward the Plum Creek to Rueter-Hess pipeline.
The conservation side
Castle Rock has cut per-person use from 135 gallons per capita daily in 2006 to 111 in 2025, working toward 100 by 2050.
Some of that is policy you have already seen in new neighborhoods: a no-turf ordinance means no new high-irrigation turf grass gets installed in new development, and an ultra-high-efficiency toilet requirement is in the building code. Advanced metering is now fully installed across the system. ColoradoScape rebate amounts and budgets were raised sharply, and 2026 set a record for retrofits. Greywater systems got piloted and then dropped after they did not prove out as effective conservation devices.
The draft goal for the next five years is blunter: reduce irrigated non-functional turf grass in Castle Rock by 30 percent over the coming decades.
What is on the table for 2026 to 2031
The draft goals worth knowing about:
- Expand the Plum Creek Water Purification Facility to 12 million gallons a day, with the Liggett Road Pipeline and a Plum Creek Central Wellfield pipeline upsize.
- Build the Plum Creek to Rueter-Hess Reservoir pipeline with bidirectional pumping, and significantly increase what is stored at Rueter-Hess.
- Secure permits and property for the Chatfield Pump Back project.
- Develop a desalination solution with Aurora Water for imported WISE and Box Elder supplies.
- Capture reusable water from the new Sedalia wastewater system.
- Pay for it with water revenue bonds, a low-interest loan from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, and more aggressive leasing of idle water — including to oil and gas.
How to weigh in
The questionnaire is 13 questions and lives at CRgov.com/WaterResources, along with the full accomplishment and goal lists and the 2021 plan itself as a PDF. It closes Oct. 11.
The open house is Thursday, Oct. 8, 4 to 6pm, at the Castle Rock Water administrative offices at 171 Kellogg Court. Water resource staff will be there to take questions in person.
For context on where things stand right now, the town returned to Stage 1 drought on Sept. 1 after customers cut demand 10 to 20 percent, and there is still money on the table for using less water at home.
Sources: Castle Rock Water's Water Resources Strategic Master Plan 2026 Update page (CRgov.com/WaterResources) and the Town's Sept. 9 news release (CRgov.com).