Jeff Martin couldn’t sleep the night Gross Dam was scheduled for completion. … Martin, the program manager for the dam project, had worked for 12 years on the $600 million effort to replace the old Gross Dam with one that is 131 feet taller, tripling the reservoir’s storage. Crews still have some finishing work remaining, he said, but the major work to raise the dam is now complete. … But it remains unclear whether Denver Water will ever be able to fill the reservoir to its new full capacity as a yearslong court battle lumbers on between the utility and environmentalists. … Environmental groups argued in court, and in their filings, that regulators failed to evaluate how siphoning more water from the drought-stricken Colorado River would impact the basin as a whole. And the groups charged that they failed to weigh other project options that wouldn’t require the clear-cutting of a half-million trees or risk damage to wetlands.

Other dam news around the West:

• Native News Online: Water agencies, tribes and conservation groups defend “two-basin solution” amid federal meetings on Potter Valley Project
• The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.): Cloverdale City Council bickers over input on fate of Eel River dams