Northern Water Inclusions

Northern Water Petition for Inclusion 

To receive Colorado-Big Thompson Project water, your property must be included within Northern Water boundaries. As a property owner, you can submit a petition to request the Northern Water Board of Directors include your land within Northern Water boundaries, as well as an Application for Secretarial Assent.  

To determine if your lands are within the boundaries, or if you need assistance with the Northern Water petition for inclusion, please contact Kris Thompson at 800-369-7246. Our GIS system is set to pull parcels by the parcel number, not the legal description, so it is more precise to search by the parcel number.

Petition of Inclusion of Lands into Northern Water
Application for Secretarial Assent
Filing Fees

There are two required petition filing fees:           

  • $400 processing fee 
  • Northern Water facilities fee 

Fees are payable by cash or check (made out to Northern Water) when you return the completed paperwork. You may choose one of two methods to calculate the facilities fee. To learn more, please see the Petition for Inclusion of Lands in Northern Water. 

Petition for Inclusion 

As you fill out the paperwork please be aware of the following details:

  • List the legal landowners (petitioners), the total number of acres and the complete legal description by using the traditional metes and bounds description resulting from a legal survey of the lands or by the county assessor’s parcel number. Metes and bounds legal is not required. We need the parcel number to match our GIS polygons to the county records. Include the current assessed value of your property and any improvements. You can find this information on your property tax notice or obtain it from the county assessor’s office. Also include a copy of the assessor’s profile sheet and a copy of the last recorded deed which shows the ownership of the lands to be identical to the ownership as shown on the submitted petition. 
  • Provide the signatures, titles (if a corporation or partnership) and addresses of all the landowners of record. All signatures on page two must occur in the presence of a notary public. 
  • Sign and date Appendix A. This will subject the petitioner’s land to the same mill levies and assessments as other lands already included within Northern Water boundaries. 
  • By signing the petition for inclusion, the petitioner waives his/her right to require an election before Northern Water imposes any mill levies or assessments.
Secretarial Assent 

Since the C-BT Project is owned by the U.S. government, its repayment contract between Northern Water and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation requires the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to approve all inclusions into Northern Water boundaries. Anyone filing a petition for inclusion must complete the Application for Secretarial Assent. Reclamation will review the questionnaire before approving an inclusion. Be sure to complete all 15 items. Failing to do so could delay the inclusion process. If the applicant can answer yes to question seven, they do not need to fill out questions 8 to 15. Please contact Kris Thompson. 

Filing Process 

Once you return the petition for inclusion and the Secretarial Assent, and pay the processing and facilities fees, staff will present the petition to the Northern Water Board of Directors for consideration. The Board has no legal obligation to approve a petition for inclusion. Once the Board approves a petition, Reclamation also must grant approval. This is known as “secretarial assent” and can take up to six months. Finally, the presiding Weld County District Court judge must approve all inclusions. Northern Water staff will contact you once the court makes a decision.