FOUNTAIN CREEK AQUIFER BASIN
Since the early 1970's, W. W. Wheeler and Associates, Inc. has provided (and continues to provide) engineering services to numerous clients within the Fountain Creek basin. These clients include the following:

- Stratmoor Hills Water and Sanitation District
- Security Water and Sanitation District
- Widefield Homes Water District
- City of Fountain
- Widefield Aquifer Water Users

In order to produce a dependable municipal water supply for its clients along Fountain Creek, Wheeler has provided engineering services to help develop plans for augmentation. The augmentation plans allow the municipalities to continue to pump wells and/or divert streamflow out of priority and to provide replacement of the resulting stream depletions with senior irrigation water rights, return flows associated with Fry-Ark Project water, or other sources of replacement water. As part of the development of the augmentation plans, Wheeler provided complete engineering services that included analysis of water use and needs, projections of water demands, evaluation of water rights yields, and assistance in permitting and regulatory requirements for diversion and storage facilities.

Entities that withdraw groundwater from the Widefield Aquifer (an off-channel alluvial aquifer located near Security and Widefield) entered into an agreement in which pumping from the aquifer is monitored and controlled. The Widefield Aquifer Stipulation was agreed upon in 1975 for the purposes of settling water rights disputes among various water users, maintaining reasonable water levels, and providing reliable supplies for municipal uses. Wheeler was instrumental in the development of the Stipulation. The U.S. Geological Survey MODFLOW groundwater model was used by Wheeler to analyze the affects of well pumping on the water levels in the Widefield Aquifer. The groundwater model was calibrated by using historic pumping records and matching historic water level measurements.

To analyze the exchange potential along the mainstem of Fountain Creek, Wheeler developed a daily surface streamflow model. The computer model was developed using historic daily streamflow data and diversion records for the ditch structures along Fountain Creek. Daily river gains and losses were estimated using measured daily flow values at U.S. Geological Survey stream gages within the river exchange reach. The calculated gains and/or losses were spatially distributed to specific locations along the river exchange reach based on an analysis in which the probable sources of inflows and outflows were identified. This analysis considered the location of irrigated lands contributing irrigation return flows, as well as the locations of measured and ungaged discharges of municipal wastewater. The exchange model used the calculated river gains and losses, the historic stream flows and the historic diversions by ditches to compute the daily flows immediately downstream of diversion structures throughout the river exchange reach.