Niagara Bottling Taps Greeley Water to Ease Pressure on Aurora Supply
If you’ve picked up a case of store-brand bottled water at King Soopers or Walmart lately, there’s a good chance it came from Niagara Bottling’s massive facility off E-470 and 6th Parkway. But here’s the twist: to keep the lines running without busting their Aurora water budget, the company just bought 4.9 million gallons from Greeley.
That’s roughly 15 acre-feet—enough to supply about 30 Aurora households for a year—trucked or piped down I-76 from the Cache la Poudre basin. Niagara holds a contract with Aurora Water for up to 200 acre-feet annually, but with production humming, they needed a buffer before hitting that cap.
For context, Aurora’s water portfolio is a carefully balanced mix of South Platte rights, Prairie Waters reuse, and mountain runoff. Every acre-foot counts, especially after 2022’s near-crisis drought year. When a major commercial user like Niagara—one of the city’s top 10 water customers—looks outside city limits, it’s a practical move that keeps local allocation available for residents and smaller businesses.
Greeley, sitting on senior Poudre rights, has surplus in wet years. The intergovernmental agreement lets them lease that flexibility without triggering a permanent transfer—something Colorado water law makes notoriously difficult.
Bottom line: your rates aren’t changing, and Prairie Waters isn’t taking a hit. But it’s a reminder that in the Front Range, water security is a regional team sport. Next time you crack open a purified bottle, know it might’ve taken a detour through Weld County to keep Aurora’s taps flowing.
