Senior Water Resources Planner - Colorado Water Rights

Freese and Nichols is seeking an experienced Senior Water Resources Planning Engineer to join our growing team in either our Denver or Loveland, Colorado office to support and help grow our Colorado Water Resources Planning practice with a strong emphasis on Colorado water rights, basin-scale hydrology, and long-range water supply planning.

This position will support public-sector clients throughout Colorado and nationally, including municipal and regional water providers, special districts, and state or basin-driven planning entities. The successful candidate will have a seller/doer role, helping to identify, pursue, win, and manage technically complex planning and water rights-related projects while providing senior technical leadership within multidisciplinary teams.

This role is intended to support Freese and Nichols’ strategic expansion of water resources planning services in Colorado with close integration across water/wastewater planning, environmental services, and infrastructure planning disciplines, nationally. Project focus will include geographically and technically diverse efforts across Freese and Nichols geographies.

What you'll do:

Serve as Project Manager and/or Technical Lead for complex Colorado water resources planning projects, including:

Long‑range water supply and integrated water resources plans

Water rights evaluations and strategy support

Basin‑scale hydrologic and yield analyses

Scenario‑based planning related to climate variability, demand growth, storage, reuse, and operational constraints

Provide technical support to water rights applications and processes, including:

Support for water court change cases (engineering analyses, yield impacts, depletion accounting)
Evaluation of conditional and absolute water rights

Analysis of augmentation plans, substitute supply plans, and conjunctive use operations

Coordination with legal counsel on water rights matters

Lead or contribute to development of quantitative planning and decision‑support models, including surface water and/or integrated surface water–groundwater systems

Prepare and review technical memoranda, reports, exhibits, and expert‑support documentation suitable for planning studies, regulatory review, and legal proceedings

Support business development by:

Assisting in preparation of proposals (scope, staffing, fee)
Participating in client meetings and industry events

Leveraging existing and developing new client relationships across Colorado Supervise and mentor engineers, planners, and analysts; provide technical guidance and quality control

Coordinate with multidisciplinary internal teams (environmental, water/wastewater, planning) and subconsultants

Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, Water Resources Engineering, or related engineering discipline

Professional Engineer (P.E.) license in the State of Colorado (or ability to obtain via comity within a defined timeframe)10+ years of progressively responsible experience in water resources planning and/or water rights analysis

Demonstrated experience working in Colorado’s prior appropriation system

Experience supporting or leading projects involving Colorado water rights administration, such as:

Augmentation plan support

Change of water right analyses

Yield and reliability analyses

Conjunctive use or replacement water evaluations

Strong technical writing and presentation skills

Experience preparing scopes, schedules, and budgets for professional services

Ability to work independently while functioning as part of a collaborative team

Preferred Qualifications:

Direct experience working with or supporting:

Municipal or regional water providers in Colorado Basin round tables or Colorado Water Plan–related efforts

State agencies such as the Colorado Water Conservation Board or Division of Water Resources Modeling experience relevant to Colorado water rights and planning, such as:

State Mod River Ware State CU Experience with groundwater flow modeling (e.g. MODFLOW or equivalent), particularly for:

Stream–aquifer interaction analyses

Well depletions and lagged response evaluation

Support of water rights and augmentation planning decisions

Planning‑level evaluation of groundwater supplies…