Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Public Radio website (Shanna Lewis). Here’s an excerpt:
June 4, 2024
Colorado Springs Utilities is joining a growing list of water managers and local governments across southeastern Colorado in decrying Aurora Water’s recent purchase of a large farm and water rights in Otero County. The Colorado Springs utility — which is overseen by the city council — is among the counties, cities and other agencies who say that Aurora Water is violating the terms of a 2003 agreement. That contract with the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District allows Aurora to use water rights in the Arkansas River Basin along with infrastructure managed by the district but with limitations and only under certain conditions. That includes only using the water three years out of every ten and only when Aurora’s storage reservoirs are below 60 percent capacity. Colorado Springs Utilities is part of the southeastern Colorado water district, along with nine counties and dozens of municipalities, rural water systems and irrigation companies within the Arkansas River Basin stretching from Leadville to the Kansas border…
“We pay taxes to support that project (SECWCD) in the Arkansas Basin. Having that project utilized for the city of Aurora, which clearly does not sit in that basin, was problematic,” said Abigail Ortega of Colorado Springs Utilities during a recent presentation to the utilities board. She was referring to the reason for the original agreement between Aurora and the southeastern Colorado water district.
Ortega said El Paso County and Colorado Springs residents make up about 70% of the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District’s more than 950,000 users. The southeastern Colorado water district and water managers in the Arkansas River Basin want legal documentation from Aurora to ensure that the water will not permanently leave the basin. Officials from Aurora and the water district met in early May to discuss the district’s concerns.