Click the link to read the article on The Sopris Sun website (Amy Hadden Marsh). Here’s an excerpt:
October 7, 2026
Representatives of the Colorado River Water Conservation District (CRWCD) presented a detailed update about West Slope water, Shoshone water rights and more. Taking a look at water conservation proportionality, Lindsay DeFrates, CRWCD public information officer, later told The Sun that the CRWCD believes that proportionality is critical as the state investigates how to implement the Contribution Program, which allocates Colorado’s share of federal money awarded to the Upper Basin states to conserve water. “It will pay people to use less water,” she said. At Monday’s meeting, CRWCD General Manager Andy Mueller expressed concern regarding the disproportionate impact of water conservation on western Colorado agriculture. “If you don’t have state laws requiring proportionality from all Colorado River users, meaning the Front Range as well, all of that water not only comes off the West Slope, it comes out of West Slope [agriculture],” he said.
Colorado’s conservation goal is 100,000 acre-feet of water. “If all of that comes out of West Slope [agriculture], that’s a big hit to our local economies, to our small towns, to our agricultural industry, and it may be just the beginning of what we view as a permanent program,” Mueller added.
As for the Shoshone water rights issue, CRWCD’s Strategy Chief Amy Moyer told the BOCC that the purchase price is $99 million and all but $1.6 million has been raised from the CRWCD, the federal government and state and local governments, including $3 million from Garfield County. “Our plan is to continue working with communities up and down the river,” Moyer said. “But we may want to sit down with you as we look to close that $1.6 million gap.”