From the Cortez Journal (Joe Hanel):
The group’s 32-page report is the first glimmer of a possible statewide strategy for water supply, after more than a century of fighting among the state’s regions. The Interbasin Compact Committee began meeting five years ago to hash out a solution for a state that has too little water for its future residents. Its 32-page draft report is still a work in progress, and members expect to refine it over the next year with public input.
What motivates the group is the status quo: Unless Colorado makes big changes, cities will continue to buy out water rights from farmers, resulting in a dry-up of farms and the withering of the rural economy…
The draft report calls for several controversial actions:
Statewide codes for plumbing and landscaping.
Annual payments to communities that see large transfers of water to a different basin.
State participation in new projects that might transfer water from the Western Slope to the east.
Restrictions on land use to reduce the demand for water by growing cities and suburbs.
The changes amount to greater powers for the state government over areas that currently belong to local governments, like building codes and development patterns…
The report identifies four general ways to find enough water: new projects for use in both Western and Eastern Colorado, completion of projects already on the drawing board, conservation, and transfers of farm water to cities. A mix of all four will be needed, according to the report…
The idea of having the state fund and direct new dams is worrisome, said Jim Pokrandt, chairman of the Colorado River Basin Roundtable. “On the West Slope, are we going to get run over because most of the people and most of the politicians are on the Front Range?” Pokrandt asked.
I tried to snag a copy of the report that the IBCC distributed but it is not ready yet. Eric Hecox said in email, “The report changed quite a bit from the draft we went into the meeting with. We’re hoping the final will be done by 12/15.”
More coverage from the Associated Press (Stephen K. Paulson) via The Aspen Times. From the article:
Jim Pokrandt, representing the Colorado River Basin committee, said water is no longer a local issue and the state should regulate it as it does utilities. “If water is truly a scarce resource, that’s the logical conclusion,” he said.
Former state Agriculture Commissioner Don Ament, a farmer who attended the water basin meetings but has no official role, said the report does little to solve problems in conservation, loss of agricultural land and finding new water sources. He said the state already has a major role with the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which oversees and provides funding for water projects statewide and has the authority to carry out most of the report’s suggestions. “This report just gets us back to right where we were before,” Ament said.
More IBCC — basin roundtables coverage here.