{"id":596599,"date":"2026-04-21T01:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T01:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/596599\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T01:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T01:12:07","slug":"denver-water-plans-to-empty-antero-reservoir-because-of-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/596599\/","title":{"rendered":"Denver Water plans to empty Antero Reservoir because of drought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Denver Water will empty <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverwater.org\/recreation\/antero-resevoir\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Antero Reservoir<\/a> this summer, moving the water downstream to minimize water lost to evaporation during <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverwater.org\/tap\/denver-board-water-commissioners-declares-stage-1-drought-implements-mandatory-watering\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a record-setting drought<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The utility \u2014 which serves 1.5 million people across the Denver metro \u2014 on Monday announced its plans to drain the Park County reservoir, located on the Middle Fork of the South Platte River south of Fairplay. Recreation at the reservoir will close through the end of the year, including camping.<\/p>\n<p>Denver Water officials did not give an exact date when the draining would begin or when recreational access would close.<\/p>\n<p>The water in Antero Reservoir will be moved downstream to Cheesman Reservoir, southwest of Deckers. The move will save 5,000 acre-feet of water from evaporating from the surface of Antero Reservoir, which has the highest evaporative rate of Denver Water\u2019s reservoirs.<\/p>\n<p>An acre-foot of water equals the approximate annual water use of three to four households, according to the utility. When full, Antero Reservoir can hold more than 20,000 acre-feet. It was 88% full on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAntero is a drought reservoir, designed to provide water to our customers during a severe drought,\u201d Nathan Elder, the manager of water supply for Denver Water, said in a news release. \u201cConsolidating this water into Cheesman will help us make the most of the water we have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Water managers will work with Colorado Parks and Wildlife to minimize fish deaths in the reservoir, according to the news release. Antero is popular with anglers year-round.<\/p>\n<p>Denver Water officials will decide when to refill the reservoir based on drought conditions.<\/p>\n<p>The reservoir was last drained in response to drought in 2002. Denver Water also emptied the reservoir in 2015 for dam rehabilitation.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/myaccount.denverpost.com\/dp\/preference\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Get more Colorado news by signing up for our Mile High Roundup email newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denver Water will empty Antero Reservoir this summer, moving the water downstream to minimize water lost to evaporation&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[259968,82195,259969,3832,9045,25043,243217,15229,192,259970,259971,2558,34650,3,162768,79,259967,34321,282,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-596599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-buena-vista","9":"tag-camping","10":"tag-chaffee-county","11":"tag-colorado","12":"tag-colorado-news","13":"tag-colorado-parks-and-wildlife","14":"tag-denver-water","15":"tag-drought","16":"tag-environment","17":"tag-fairplay","18":"tag-hartsel","19":"tag-latest-headlines","20":"tag-mountains","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-park-county","23":"tag-science","24":"tag-south-platte-river","25":"tag-utility","26":"tag-water","27":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}