From 9News.com (Maya Rodriquez):

“We do live in a desert. It’s hard to see that because we have made it this,” said Jim Havey, director of a new documentary called “The Great Divide.”

It explores how Colorado settlers, from early Native Americans to 20th century civil engineers, used water to create the state we call home today. 9NEWS is also broadcasting documentary film “The Great Divide” on Monday, Aug. 31, at 7 p.m. on KTVD-TV, Channel 20…

The film looks forward as well, specifically at the Colorado Water Plan. It’s the first ever comprehensive plan, attempting to guide the state towards a future where more water will be needed to deal with a predicted doubling of the population: 10 million people by 2050.

“We’ve got multiple sectors all across this state that depend on water and making sure that water is delivered with some certainty to them and reliably,” said James Eklund, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which is shaping the water plan.

The pressure for more water could potentially put a strain on the state’s agriculture sector, where farmers and ranchers – who have senior water rights – could sell those rights to growing urban areas.

“Those farmers and ranchers who made an economic decision to move that water from their land and move it to a municipal use—that’s where the balance comes about,” said Colorado Farm Bureau President Don Shawcroft…

We want to make sure that as we move forward with a strategic plan, we’re able to deal with drought, flooding, wildfire – all the things that have been thrown at this state over the course of the last several years — in a strategic manner,” Eklund said.

The final draft of the Colorado Water is set to be finished by Dec. 10. The state is still taking public comment on it, but that will end on Sept. 17. To add your voice to the plan, go to http://coloradowaterplan.com.

Here’s the Coyote Gulch review of the film.

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

An agricultural impact statement for water transfers might become a state tool as the result of a state water plan that’s expected to be finished later this year.

“When I’ve talked about it with the agricultural community, they see it like NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) and more red tape,” said James Eklund, executive director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. “But really, it’s just making sure all information about impact is disseminated.”

Eklund and John Stulp, the governor’s water policy adviser, visited with The Pueblo Chieftain editorial board Thursday.

Eklund threw out the idea of an ag impact statement as one way to evaluate how taking water from a community could change it down the road. Like many other parts of the water plan, however, it remains more of a suggestion than a directive.

The CWCB is writing the water plan on orders from Gov. John Hickenlooper, and it is due by Dec. 10. Nearly two years and dozens of meetings and hearings have gone into the document. More than 26,000 comments have been received in a process that Eklund called “unprecedented” for including public comment.

An ag impact statement would help ensure that taking water permanently out of agriculture is a last resort, but there is no way the state can ban the practice, Eklund said.

“If how development occurs becomes a Colorado question, it takes us out of being a local control state,” he said.
Instead, the water plan provides a wealth of options about alternative transfer methods that do not permanently dry up agriculture.

“Where agriculture will keep water, it will buy time,” Stulp said. “If alternative transfers are voluntary, they have options.”

It’s not possible to ban future transfers, because of the nature of water rights in Colorado, Eklund said.

But the flexibility or agility to use water rights in different ways is important. Eklund insisted the water plan does not condone flex water rights that have failed to become law in the last two legislative sessions.

“When we talk to the ag community, you can get nervous looks, and they ask ‘What’s that going to mean to us?’ We can’t say your property right is the subject of our investigation,” Eklund said. “But stopping buy-and-dry, that’s going to take agility or flexibility.” The water plan won’t supersede state water law, but could expand or introduce concepts in much the same way as recent changes like instream flows, recreational in-channel diversions and storage as a beneficial use.

“We’ve done things as pilots like HB1248 (a 2013 bill allowing long-term leasing), and the danger is they become permanent,” Stulp said. “But the purpose is to give generational changes a chance temporarily.”
“We’re looking for that sweet spot where we can keep producers in agriculture,” Eklund added.

From the Sky-Hi Daily News (Hannah Holm):

Not long ago, mentions of growth control as a tool to reduce water demands tended to be written off by Colorado water insiders as too complicated, outside the control of water providers and anti-economic development.

However, as the state’s water leaders have continued to debate how to meet the water needs of a growing population, the problems associated with getting more water from farms and West Slope streams have loomed larger, while the barriers to addressing water demand through land use strategies appear to have shrunk.

The link between water demand and land-use patterns occupied prime space on the agenda at last week’s summer meeting of the Colorado Water Congress, an entire issue of the Summer 2015 issue of Headwaters magazine, and its own subsection (6.3.3) in the July 2015 draft of the Colorado Water Plan. And House Bill 008, passed in 2015, requires land use strategies to be included in the water conservation plans that are required for large water providers to get financial assistance from the state.

While it’s been obvious for many years that big, green lawns require more water than apartment patios and rock gardens, the socially and politically acceptable tools for guiding growth in a less thirsty direction have been much less evident. Now, local governments and water providers with urgent water supply concerns are taking the lead in developing and implementing these tools in Colorado.

Communities south of Denver have been tapping groundwater faster than it can be replenished and are scrambling to get on a more sustainable water supply path. Eric Hecox, executive director of the South Metro Water Supply Authority, reported to the Water Congress crowd that in addition to re-using their groundwater supplies and participating in a regional water re-use project with Denver and Aurora, South Metro communities are beginning to address water demand in the land development process.

Douglas County has a water section in its Master Plan, which promotes infill development and the preservation of rural and open space. Castle Rock is offering lower tap fees to developers that limit turf areas and install other water-efficiency measures in new developments and is seeking to reduce water demands in existing homes by paying residents to rip out grass. Residents of Castle Rock and Highlands Ranch face higher water rates if they exceed a customized “water budget,” and Parker requires rain sensors on irrigation systems.

A long-standing barrier to relying on conservation as a “new” water supply is the perception that people’s behavior is too fickle to be relied upon for future planning. Building conservation measures into land development through measures such as increasing density and establishing low water-use landscaping from the beginning can take away some of that uncertainty.

Better data on exactly how much water use comes with each style of development can also help. The Keystone Policy Center is working with Denver, Aurora and other local governments through the Colorado Water and Growth Dialogue to combine existing water use data with modeling tools to better quantify the water demand changes that could come with different land use patterns.

The fact that increased population does not necessarily lead to proportional increases in water use is already clear. As Allen Best points out in the summer Headwaters issue, Denver Water’s total water use has decreased by 5 percent since 1990, despite the fact that the population it serves has increased by more than 30 percent during the same period.

As our understanding of the link between water use and different land use patterns, pricing strategies and landscaping requirements becomes more precise, it may be possible to further de-couple population growth from increasing water use. This, in turn, could significantly reduce the need for irrigated agriculture and West Slope streams to supply more water for urban growth, without the need to erect any fences at the border.

To learn more about efforts to integrate water and land use planning in Colorado, see:

• The Summer 2015 issue of Headwaters magazine, at http://www.yourwatercolorado.org/cfwe-education/headwaters-magazine/summer-2015-water-land-use .

• Section 6.3.3 of the July 2015 draft of the Colorado Water Plan, at: http://www.coloradowaterplan.com.

Hannah Holm is coordinator of the Water Center at Colorado Mesa University. This article is part of a series coordinated by the Water Center in cooperation with the Colorado and Gunnison Basin Roundtables to raise awareness about water needs, uses and policies in our region. To learn more, go to http://www.coloradomesa.edu/WaterCenter.

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

Once the state water plan is delivered to Gov. John Hickenlooper, no one from the Arkansas Basin Roundtable will be ready to say “mission accomplished.”

On [August 12], the roundtable contemplated its future in light of the expected wrap-up of the water plan in December.

Public comments, which already number in the thousands, are due by Sept. 17.

The state Legislature’s interim Water Resources Review Committee heard another round of comments from the Arkansas Valley [August 11] in Salida.

And staffers from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which is preparing the plan, gave roundtable members a few tips on finding the highlights among the verbiage of the 500-page document.

The plan generally promotes multipurpose projects with multiple funding partners and broad agreement about mitigation. It favors continuation of realistic conservation strategies. It addresses statewide concerns about municipal supply, agricultural needs, recreation uses and environmental preservation.

Its critical action plan, Chapter 10, outlines in broad strokes how projects will be prioritized, funded and possibly streamlined in the future. During the process, hundreds of projects bobbed up during dozens of meetings.

There are, however, few mandates. Words like “seek, create and encourage” are used, rather than “shall, will or must.”

“Chapter 10 is the guts of the state water plan,” Jeris Danielson said, summing up a similar presentation to the Interbasin Compact Committee a few weeks ago.

The IBCC, formed at the same time as the roundtables 10 years ago, had some angst about its future mission, but realized it will be needed to follow through on plans now in the works, Danielson said.

Jay Winner, the roundtable’s other IBCC member, said the plan is unfinished business, noting that roundtables throughout the state continue to vacillate on a framework for future transbasin transfers.

“If we don’t have a transmountain diversion, we don’t have a plan,” Winner said.

Alan Hamel, who represents the basin on the CWCB, said the roundtables will continue to have a role in the future, implementing basin plans that also were created in the two-year process to create a state water plan.

Jim Broderick, roundtable chairman, told members, who come from all parts of the sprawling Arkansas River basin, that it will be up to them in the future to see that basin plans are moved forward.

“Is this the last opportunity for comment?” Broderick asked Jacob Bornstein, a CWCB staffer.

“This is the last round of comment on the plan itself,” Bornstein replied. “But it is a living document that can change.”

From the Grand Junction Free Press (Hannah Holm):

Are you concerned about how Colorado will balance the water needs of cities, farms and the environment in coming decades? If so, you have an opportunity to make your voice heard by state water leaders.

A second draft of Colorado’s first comprehensive statewide water plan was released last month, and the Colorado Water Conservation Board is seeking public input. Comments on this draft must be submitted by Sept. 17 in order to be considered in the development of the final plan, which is due to be submitted to Governor Hickenlooper on Dec. 10, 2015.

This draft follows years of debate between Front Range and West Slope water providers, environmental advocates, river recreationists, farmers and ranchers over how to meet a projected gap between available water supplies and demands, particularly in growing Front Range cities. There are three main sources to turn to: transferring water from agriculture, pulling more water from West Slope streams across the Continental Divide, and significantly ramping up water re-use and conservation.

Like the original draft released in December 2014, the new draft dodges controversy and lays out a toolbox of actions alongside detailed information about current water supplies, demands and climate change projections. Particular project proposals are found in the “basin implementation plans” developed by roundtables of water providers and stakeholders in each of the state’s major river basins.

The new draft does, however, contain significantly more nuts and bolts on how to move forward on measures such as promoting conservation, improving the efficiency of the project permitting process, and developing new funding mechanisms. The concept of environmental resiliency is also incorporated more fully into this draft of the plan.

In addition, the new draft includes a revised framework for discussing the perpetually hot topic of the potential for a new project to divert more water from the West Slope to the Front Range. The framework sets out “realities and issues proponents for a new transmountain diversion should expect to address,” including the fact that water would likely not be available to divert in some years, due to existing uses and downstream obligations.

In the realm of urban conservation, the second draft of the plan contains beefed up sections on increasing the re-use of municipal water and integrating land-use and water planning, since large-lot subdivisions consume more water than denser development with less turf.

In relation to agricultural water, the second draft discusses measures to increase efficiency and conservation — while noting that the two are not equivalent. Increasing efficiency involves getting better at delivering water directly to where plants need it and nowhere else, which can actually make crops grow more vigorously and thus consume more water. Conservation, on the other hand, involves reducing the consumption of water, which can be accomplished through planting less thirsty plants, giving crops less water than needed for maximum growth, planting less acreage, or getting rid of water-sucking weeds.

While efficiency can have water quality benefits and improve stream flows between the point of diversion and the point where unconsumed water trickles back to the stream, only reduced consumption can make additional water available for other uses.

The draft plan also dedicates considerable ink to “alternative transfer mechanisms” that allow farmers to provide a portion of their water to cities on a temporary basis instead of permanently selling the water rights and drying up their land. Using such mechanisms could be less damaging to rural communities than “buy and dry” practices, but they are more complicated to implement.

Permitting process proposals include ensuring that all agencies with a say on a project are involved early on. Funding proposals include establishing a guaranteed repayment fund to facilitate multi-party projects and green bonds for environmental and recreational projects.

One message that comes through in reading the draft plan is that no one big project or mandate will provide the answer to meeting all of Colorado’s future water needs. The needs are diverse and dispersed, and a diverse and dispersed set of tools are needed to address them. And each tool comes with its own set of technical, legal and financial challenges. The draft plan attempts to chart the course for resolving those challenges, in the hope that the results will add up to a water future for Colorado that matches Coloradans’ values.

You can decide for yourself whether you think the right tools have been identified and the strategies proposed are adequate by going to http://www.ColoradoWaterPlan.com. You can find the complete text of the plan under the “Resources” tab by clicking on “2015 Second Draft of Colorado’s Water Plan.” Clicking on “General Information” under the “Resources” tab will give you access to a webinar and a July 2015 update that outline changes incorporated into the new draft. The “Get Involved” tab provides several options for submitting input.

This is part of a series of articles coordinated by the Water Center at Colorado Mesa University in cooperation with the Colorado and Gunnison Basin Roundtables to raise awareness about water needs, uses and policies in our region. To learn more about the basin roundtables and statewide water planning, and to let the roundtables know what you think, go to http://www.coloradomesa.edu/WaterCenter. You can also find the Water Center at http://www.Facebook.com/WaterCenter.CMU or http://www.Twitter.com/WaterCenterCMU.

More Colorado Water Plan coverage here.

Sprawl

Flood irrigation in the Arkansas Valley via Greg Hobbs

Gore Canyon rafting via Blogspot.com

Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program

Rio Grande cutthroat trout via Colorado Parks and Wildlife

Hayfield message to President Obama 2011 via Protect the Flows

Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant back in the days before I-70 via Aspen Journalism

Colorado transmountain diversions via the State Engineer’s office

More Colorado Water Plan coverage here.

From KUNC (Stephanie Paige Ogburn):

Colorado’s statewide water plan has been criticized for failing to make tough decisions about the state’s biggest water issues: how new growth uses water, a new transmountain diversion from the Western Slope, and how to balance urban needs for water with a desire to preserve agriculture, which uses the majority of the state’s water.

In response, those involved with the plan say that’s not the point. The plan, by gathering input from across the state, is bringing together people with very different perspectives on water. By getting them to discuss the biggest issues around water in the state, it lays the foundation for better water management.

“It’s kind of like building a house,” said James Eklund, the director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board and head of the water plan process.

“You have to have the right tools and this plan sets out our tools, and where we are lacking, and how we can make them stronger. And really it’s a blueprint for how we want to build Colorado moving forward.”

On the other side, some of those watching the plan call it less a blueprint and more of a list. Susan Greene, a longtime water reporter and editor of The Colorado Independent, published an in-depth article on the plan where she interviewed Brookings Institution water expert Pat Mulroy. According to Greene, Mulroy was not impressed with Colorado’s plan.

“Essentially she was just saying this is more of a values statement, or almost an encyclopedia or compendium of the water issues Colorado faces than a plan,” Greene said.

Others quoted in the article had similar criticisms.

The Water Board’s Eklund dismissed this critique, essentially saying Mulroy is stuck in the past, where, as the saying goes, “whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting.” That’s not Colorado’s way, or the way of the future, he insisted.

“Up here, collaboration and cooperation are our motto, and that’s our drive,” said Eklund…

Others involved in the water planning process say that growth and reducing water use with that new growth is the real issue. Jim Pokrandt, with the Colorado River District, said he is glad the state water plan at least talks about land use, growth, and landscaping as an important component of water use.

“How can we grow more smartly is the million dollar question that we need to start dealing with tomorrow,” said Pokrandt.

More Colorado Water Plan coverage here.

The battle between cities and agriculture for water was the theme for a Monday gathering of water experts from around the West who came to Colorado State University for the institution’s first Western Water Symposium. The all day discussions were timely, as Colorado is in the last few months of approving its first statewide water plan, which is due on Gov. John Hickenlooper’s desk by early December.

The plan, broken up by basins, seeks to prepare for a future with more Colorado residents and less water. The plan’s default solution is that the water will come from Colorado’s agriculture, said Supreme Court Justice Greg Hobbs, who directed the symposium.

“The Colorado Water Plan, it’s really a plan about agriculture, how do we get water for the cities and not destroy agriculture,” he said. “And we’ve got a short water supply, and the farmers can be on the short stick of this if we don’t look out for their water rights.”

While the experts spent much of Monday discussing the future of water in the Rockies, they also reminisced about how the West got here, with its water needs exceeding its resources.

It began in the mid-19th century, when three acts passed under President Abraham Lincoln, the Homestead, Land Grant College and the Pacific Railway Acts, opened the West for settlement.

But what settlers found was not the water-rich land and easily accessed gold mines depicted in popular maps of the day, said Susan Schulten, a professor of history at University of Denver. Instead, they found a sort of “American desert,” an arid plains landscape that needed water to sustain the kind of livelihoods people were accustomed to on the East Coast.

What followed was more than a century of work, building dams and reservoirs, and legal wrangling that transformed Colorado into a place that had enough water for gold miners, farmers and growing cities along the Front Range.

In the 21st century, agriculture in Colorado spans both sides of the Continental Divide, and most of it relies on water coming from the mountains. About 70 percent of the Colorado River allocations to Colorado go to agriculture, which is about average, said Reagan Waskom, the director of CSU’s Colorado Water Institute.

But water headed to Colorado’s farms isn’t the only share being eyed in the negotiations to bolster Colorado’s dwindling water supply. In 2012, the Bureau of Reclamation completed a study of the Colorado River, which has its head waters in Rocky Mountain National Park and is the lifeline for much of the arid states to the west of Colorado. To help preserve the river, the study suggested that agriculture and urban users cut back on their flows by one million acre feet…

But it was hard to figure out how to take from agriculture, which has been plagued by drought, and expanding urban areas, said Waskom, who sat on the agriculture committee.

“This big report I don’t think really got us to the future,” Waskom added.

The report suggested that much of the reduction in agriculture’s water reserves be done through fallowing, or letting farmers’ fields go dry. But that solution comes at too high a cost for Colorado’s farmers, Waskom said.

“The way you are going to get ag water is by reducing consumptive use,” he said. “How can you reduce it in such a way and that you can get water and not hurt a farming operation? There really aren’t too many ways that you can reduce consumptive use other than fallowing. If you are paid enough for that water when you fallow, maybe you come out ahead and go golfing.”

More Colorado Water Plan coverage here.

From The Durango Herald (Peter Marcus):

…some wonder if rural Colorado is over-accommodating metro areas with the plan. State water officials – with input from eight regional water basins – outlined an estimated $20 billion in projects related to a municipal water-supply gap, which is growing largely because of Front Range expansion.

A second draft of Colorado’s Water Plan was made available to the public earlier this month. State lawmakers and water officials held a legislative meeting in Durango on Monday evening to present the plan and allow for input.

“We know the state is not going to be able to handle the burden, so we’re going to need to think outside the box,” said James Eklund, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board.

In a change from the plan’s first draft, the second draft includes an elaborate “critical action plan,” which includes proposals for legislation and Colorado Water Conservation Board policy.

The plan focuses heavily on funding, proposing ideas that run the gamut, including a possible ballot initiative that would ask voters to approve a fee on beverage containers. Voters have rejected past tax hikes for water issues.

Other ideas include creating a tax credit for homeowners who install efficient outdoor landscapes and irrigation, and exploring public-private partnerships to implement projects…

“Colorado can no longer be all things to all people,” commented Dick Ray, representing the Archuleta County Farm Bureau.

Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, pointed out that state officials must delicately balance population-dense Colorado with agricultural areas.

“We hear the desire to limit the number of people coming into the state of Colorado, but I don’t know how you do that,” Roberts said. “I don’t know how you close the door.”

More Colorado Water Plan coverage here.

Maybe because it was nearing lunchtime, the conversation about the state water plan turned to food Wednesday as the Colorado Water Conservation Board digested the final draft of the document at its meeting in Ignacio.

“I think you may have bitten off more than you can chew,” John Mc-Clow, a board member from Gunnison told the board’s staff.

“We haven’t opened our mouth,” CWCB Executive Director James Eklund replied. “This is the menu. We should be hearing more through the public comment process.”

Although saying changes from the first draft of the plan showed progress, McClow noted there were 83 funding actions listed in the plan and more focus was needed.

The board was divided about how much detail the plan should mention about specific projects and the ways to fund those projects, outlined in Chapter 10 of the newly released Colorado Water Plan. The board had looked at 181 “critical” projects during a June 23 work session, but differed on whether the projects were endorsed or simply identified.

“I would like to have a little more time to look at the list again,” said Alan Hamel, who represents the Arkansas River basin on the board.

Board members April Montgomery (Southwestern Colorado) and Travis Smith (Rio Grande basin) wanted more detail in Chapter 10, but were also concerned that the plan promote recreation, forest health and agricultural values. Montgomery wanted more clarity about whether a project’s chances of being funded depended on it being listed as “critical.” Smith said there was little in the plan about how projects would be prioritized.

Board member Patricia Wells, Denver Water’s general counsel, disagreed on the need for more detail in the 500-page plan, saying no one would read a long, detailed list of projects. She was also critical that the plan put so much emphasis on urban conservation, rather than promoting the value of people living in cities.

“Eighty-six percent of the people live in urban areas…they are the economy,” Wells said. “The only mandate in here is that the people use less water…Residential outdoor water is 2 percent of the water use in Colorado, but it contributes to the quality of life…People are the Rodney Dangerfield of water use. I think we should give them a break.”

Her comments were largely offset by conservation groups that addressed the board. Western Resource Advocates, Trout Unlimited and American Rivers speakers all praised the plan.

“Our impression is favorable,” said Drew Peternell of Trout Unlimited. He singled out stream management plans, which are cited as a way to meet environmental and recreational needs. “This will give us tools to identify what are the flow regimes we need to support nonconsumptive needs.”

Comments on the plan will be accepted through Sept. 17, and the final version of the plan will be submitted to Gov. John Hickenlooper in December.

The entire plan can be viewed at coloradowaterplan. com. Past documents and instructions for submitting comments also can be found on the site.

More CWCB coverage here. More Colorado Water Plan coverage here.

From Business Wire:

Colorado’s leading conservation and recreation organizations, including American Rivers, American Whitewater, Audubon Rockies, Conservation Colorado and Western Resource Advocates pointed to how the second draft of the Colorado Water Plan was improved by setting a common-sense goal for water conservation, creating a strong framework for scrutinizing large trans-mountain diversions and acknowledging the need for significant funding for river protection plans.

The groups also pointed out that to achieve real change, the final plan needs to:

1. Ensure an inclusive implementation process, similar to how the State has engaged and been responsive to public input during the planning process thus far;

2. Provide adequate funding for stream management planning, river restoration and urban water conservation;

3. Provide specific screening criteria so that projects move forward only if they benefit our communities, rivers and agriculture; and

4. Avoid large new trans-mountain diversions that would drain water from Western Slope rivers.

Specifically, the plan calls for a reasonable statewide urban conservation goal of saving 400,000 acre-feet of water by 2050. This equates to an almost one percent per year reduction in water use in Colorado cities and towns. However, the plan needs to include the incentives, funding and technical support to get that done.

The plan underscores the importance of healthy rivers and streams in Colorado and acknowledges that $2-3 billion is needed to protect them, but doesn’t yet commit funding to carry out that protection.

The Colorado Water Conservation Board has received more than 24,000 public comments and has been responsive to public input. It’s key that decisions about plan implementation stay visible to an engaged public and don’t fast track water project permitting to the detriment of public review and involvement.

Here’s what leading conservation groups are saying:

“We’re encouraged that the State assembled a second draft plan that weaves together a wide range of interests and public input. The boat is definitely pointed in the right direction. Strong rowing from the State is still needed if it’s going to reach its destination. Specifically, the Governor and Water Conservation Board must ensure plan implementation is inclusive and expands funding for protecting our rivers.” – Bart Miller, Healthy Rivers Program Director, Western Resource Advocates

“We are pleased to see the plan includes many of the priorities Coloradans have expressed in more than 24,000 public comments – including underscoring the importance of healthy rivers, a strong statewide urban conservation goal, and tougher scrutiny for large new trans-mountain diversions. Over the next few months, we urge the Water Conservation Board and the Hickenlooper Administration to make the final plan a detailed and workable blueprint that will protect our rivers, the multi-billion dollar outdoor recreation industry, agricultural heritage, and thriving cities.” – Becky Long, Advocacy Director, Conservation Colorado

“The second draft of Colorado’s Water Plan has taken good steps forward. To reach the finish line, the plan needs to greatly expand its funding commitment to healthy flowing rivers – a major factor in our $9 billion-a-year outdoor recreation industry. Those who value Colorado’s recreational opportunities, and related economy require further assurances Colorado rivers will be protected in the final plan.” – Nathan Fey, Colorado Stewardship Director, American Whitewater

“The second draft of Colorado’s Water Plan shows progress. More work must still be done to assess, protect, and restore dynamic flows for our rivers and increase funding for stream management plans and their implementation. Suggestions of resilient river systems, stream management plans, and strong urban water conservation goals are positive steps forward, echoed by public input, and critical for the health of our rivers.” – Abby Burk, Western Rivers Specialist, Audubon Rockies

More Colorado Water Plan coverage here

From The Durango Herald (Peter Marcus):

The July 2 release of the plan marks a critical juncture for Colorado’s Water Plan, which has been hailed by Gov. John Hickenlooper as one of the most important pieces of policy facing Colorado. The draft was actually released about two weeks early…

Local and state water officials will hold a meeting in Durango on July 20 at the Holiday Inn and Suites, where state Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, James Eklund, director of the Water Conservation Board and Mike Preston, chairman of the Southwest Basin Roundtable, are expected to give an overview.

Preston said the plan represents an opportunity to frame the future of water in Southwest Colorado and throughout the state for the next 50 years.

Included in the water plan are proposals from eight separate water basins, including a roadmap provided by the Southwest Basin Roundtable. Conversations between those roundtables have been taking place for 10 years.

Policy-makers must balance the interests of rural Colorado – where water is precious for agricultural needs – with the needs of the rapidly expanding Front Range and suburban communities. One sticking point could be transmountain water diversions for Front Range communities. Front Range plans call for more trans-mountain water, but Preston questions the viability of such a strategy.

Officials must also preserve the state’s “prior appropriation” system, in which rights are granted to the first person to take water from an aquifer or river, despite residential proximity. Water rights often dominate policy conversations.

The Southwest Basin is complicated, flowing through two Native American reservations and including a series of nine sub-basins, eight of which flow out of state. Complexities exist with agreements with the federal government, which owns large swaths of land in the region.

Goals outlined by the roundtable for Southwest Colorado include pursuing projects that meet the municipal water gap; providing safe drinking water; prioritizing conservation; and promoting water reuse strategies. For example, one strategy outlined would reduce lawn watering. The plan also calls for evaluating storage options.

Overall, the statewide plan outlines $20 billion worth of infrastructure projects to consider through 2050. The Southwest plan includes about 120 projects aimed at addressing agricultural, municipal, industrial, recreational and environmental water supply gaps, according to Preston. Multi-purpose projects are a priority, he said.

Preston said he has a team currently combing through the second draft of the plan to determine what changes occurred from the first draft. He was not immediately able to comment on any updates to the plan.

“We’ve got a lot of substance, really a 50-year strategy in the plan, and then a bunch of unresolved issues on a statewide level,” Preston said. “So, we’re really going to press for broader community education and engagement from here forward.

“This is a living document,” Preston added. “We’re pretty serious about what’s in it, both in terms of trying to develop our own supplies for the future, and how we need to participate in the statewide exercise.”

More Colorado Water Plan coverage here

From Aspen Journalism (Brent Gardner-Smith):

The second draft of the Colorado Water Plan has been released, but instead of listing specific potential projects, the statewide plan still points to eight regional “basin implementation plans” developed by water-supply planning “roundtables.”

And one such regional plan is considered by powerful water interests in the Denver metro area and South Platte River basin to be the necessary water plan for the state, and it includes moving more water from the West Slope to the East Slope.

At the core of the South Platte plan are potential new transmountain diversion or pumpback projects on the Green, Gunnison, Yampa, Colorado, Blue and Eagle rivers.

The plan also highlights conceptual dam projects on the main stem of the Colorado River west of Rifle and at Wolcott, which would store water pumped up from the Eagle River.

“Investigating, preserving and developing additional supplies from the Colorado River Basin is critical to effectively plan for future water supplies,” states the “South Platte Basin Implementation Plan.”

The dry-up of “hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land” is “the default option if decision makers do not exercise the political will to preserve and promote opportunities to develop Colorado River Basin supply for use along the urban Front Range,” the plan says.

The South Platte plan was prepared by consultants at HDR Engineering and West Sage working under guidance from the members of the South Platte and Metro roundtables. It was submitted to the CWCB in mid-April, as were seven other basin implementation plans from other roundtables.

The South Platte and Metro roundtables include representatives from Denver Water, Aurora Water, Northern Water, the South Metro Water Supply Authority, Weld County, Arapahoe County, and the cities of Thornton, Greeley and Loveland, among many other entities.

Water providers in the South Platte River basin now import 400,000 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River basin and another 100,000 acre feet from the Arkansas, North Platte and Laramie river basins.

By comparison, Ruedi Reservoir holds about 100,000 acre-feet of water.

And Front Range water providers see the need for another 195,000 acre feet of water for growing cities and 260,000 acre feet more for irrigation, even though the amount of irrigated land is expected to shrink from 831,000 acres to 635,000 acres.

The South Platte plan calls for minimizing the amount of “buy and dry” occurring on the Front Range by increasing the amount of new water supplies from the variety of rivers that make up the Colorado River basin within the state of Colorado.

“Agricultural water transfers can be reduced if other solutions including the development of Colorado River supplies are more successful,” the plan states.

It’s a concept found throughout the South Platte plan – the more Western Slope water made available to the Front Range, the less ag land will be dried up by expanding cities.

“The South Platte and Metro Roundtables have expressed in many documents and venues that all the available options for water supply development must be pursued simultaneously not sequentially,” the plan says under the heading of “potential future actions.”

“This approach can provide the greatest assuredness that Colorado River Basin water supply may be available for use, thereby reducing the need for East Slope providers to implement large-scale traditional agricultural to water urban water transfers,” the plans also says.

Large-scale concepts

The South Platte plan identifies a range of projects that could deliver new Colorado River water supply to the Front Range and divides them into “large-scale concepts” and “smaller-scale and incremental concepts.”

Under large-scale concepts, there are four “Colorado River transbasin concepts” listed in the plan, and they are on the Gunnison, Green, Yampa and Blue rivers.

The projects have likely all been studied and described in the past in various documents, but they are only briefly described in the South Platte plan.

A potential pipeline from Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Green River to the Front Range is more fully explored than others, however, in both the main plan and in Appendix F.

The Flaming Gorge pipeline concept has also been studied in-depth by the South Metro Water Supply Authority, which represents 14 water providers in Arapahoe and Douglas counties.

All four of the “large-scale” projects would require new water storage facilities, including, perhaps, underground aquifers on the East Slope.

The Flaming Gorge project involves contracting with the Bureau of Reclamation for 150,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir. It requires a 355-to-442 mile pipeline and pumps to move water 1,400 feet to 3,100 feet up and over the Continental Divide to the Front Range.

“Diversions would likely vary significantly from year-to-year depending on many factors potentially including hydrologic conditions, current storage levels in federal reservoirs (Colorado River Storage Project and Lake Mead), status of compact compliance monitoring, environmental and recreational needs and management strategies as well as Front Range water demands and storage levels,” the South Platte plan says of the Flaming Gorge pipeline.

The South Platte plan also says that Flaming Gorge concept was put forward by the South Metro Water Supply Authority, which “stressed that the concept is now worthy of serious consideration” and “recommends further investigation as a practical and viable means to manage Colorado’s statewide water resources and that the concept be vigorously pursued in subsequent stages of the developing Colorado’s Water Plan.”

The Blue Mesa Reservoir project also would require a water contract with Reclamation, in this case to move water from the Gunnison River through an 81-mile pipeline into the Arkansas River basin, from where the water would then be pumped into the South Platte basin. This requires pumping the water 3,400 feet in elevation.

The Yampa River project would require a 250-mile pipeline and the need to pump water up 5,000 feet in elevation over at least two mountain passes. The project would divert or pump water out of the Yampa near Maybell into a large reservoir.

The South Platte basin implementation plan says that with “large-scale” projects, there may be ways “to help offset the regional impacts of the projects, maximize and distribute statewide benefits, and ensure continued viability of the West Slope’s economy.”

Or, in other words, provide benefits to the West Slope river basins where the water originates.

For example, in turn for taking water out of the Yampa and White rivers, the South Platte plan finds that more infrastructure could be built as part of the transmountain water project to irrigate more land in Moffat Count, and provide more water to Steamboat Springs.

In the Gunnison basin, a new transmountain project could create more storage in the upper Gunnison River basin and help with water quality problems in the lower Gunnison basin.

The South Platte plan also notes that by building new transmountain diversion projects on the Gunnison, Yampa or Green rivers, it might be possible to leave move water in the already seriously depleted headwaters of the Colorado River.

Smaller-scale concepts

The plan also identifies a series of smaller-scale projects, including ways to leave more water in Green Mountain Reservoir – on the Blue River in Summit County – for eventual use by the Front Range.

The Wolcott Reservoir would be perched on a cliff above the hamlet of Wolcott, where traffic destined for Steamboat Springs leaves I-70.

It would be an “off-channel” dam and reservoir that would store water pumped uphill from the Eagle River.

Once in a new Wolcott Reservoir, the water could be released downstream – which would free up water in Green Mountain Reservoir for Front Range use – or pumped up over Vail Pass and into the Front Range’s existing water diversion systems.

The South Platte plan also describes a pumpback system that could be installed on the Colorado River below its confluence with the Gunnison River in Grand Junction.

Otherwise free-flowing water, destined for Lake Powell, would be pumped from below the confluence back upstream 16 miles so it could either be diverted into the Government Highline Canal.

Or it could be sent back downstream to help a regularly de-watered section of river below the canal, where native fish species are struggling to survive.

In satisfying the senior water rights on the Highline Canal, and helping to keep fish alive – and the federal government at bay – the lower Colorado River pumpback project could also let water stored in Green Mountain and Ruedi reservoirs be used for other purposes.

“A pumpback project on this stretch could provide water for the senior calling rights, therefore reducing the amount of Green Mountain Reservoir water that would need to be released for West Slope beneficiaries,” the South Platte plan notes.

The Webster Hill Reservoir is described in the plan. It’s a dam and reservoir on the main stem of the Colorado River downstream from the city of Rifle where the river bends away from I-70.

“This concept would include a regulating reservoir on the mainstem of the Colorado River with a volume of 30,000 to 40,000 acre feet,” the South Platte says.

The plan also describes two potential “small-scale” projects on the Yampa River.

One is called the “middle Yampa pumpback” and would take from a tributary of the Yampa, the Elk River, and send it through a tunnel under the Continental Divide and the Mt. Zirkel Wilderness Area to the headwaters of the Poudre River basin.

A second is called the “mini Yampa pumpback,” which would take water from the headwaters of the Yampa, including Morrison and Service creeks, to Granby Reservoir and on to the Front Range.

Then there is the Taylor Reservoir pumpback, which requires pumping water from Blue Mesa Reservoir up to Taylor Reservoir, and then sending it under the Continental Divide.

“The water court has previously stated that the yield from this concept would be around 50,000 to 60,000 acre feet,” the South Platte plan notes.

Power and water

The South Platte water-supply plan suggests that the South Platte basin is the most important, and powerful, part of Colorado.

“Considering the various conversations with South Platte basin stakeholders, it seems that one of the key overarching messages that should be conveyed is that a good Colorado plan needs a good South Platte plan,” the plan itself proclaims.

It also says, “Colorado lacks a cohesive plan to meet growing Front Range municipal water needs.”

Today, 80 percent of the state’s population lives in the South Platte River basin, which includes the Front Range cities of Aurora, Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins, and many other smaller, but steadily growing cities. Population in the basin, now 3.5 million, is expected to climb to six million by 2050.

According to the South Platte plan, “the single biggest driver of the need for additional water supplies is population growth” and the future water-supply gap in the South Platte basin accounts for 75 percent of the state’s forecasted water gap.

And yet today “agriculture is the dominant water use in the basin, accounting for 85 percent of total water diversions.”

The plan also sounds a “one Colorado” theme.

“There are many factors that support a broad statewide approach to solving South Platte basin water supply issues,” the plan says, including that “regional affiliations are increasingly fluid with offspring of West Slope residents increasingly finding employment and raising families in new South Platte river basin communities.”

Uphill to money

The South Platte plan includes, as Appendix F, a “concept for discussion” put forward by the South Metro Water Supply Authority, which includes a review of how to compensate the Western Slope for the loss of its water.

The Authority’s concept paper finds that “generally, the most useful form of compensation would be unrestricted monetary compensation to be used by the West Slope to compensate unprotected parties and for whatever other purposes its citizenry prefers.”

Rather than committing a certain amount of money for specific projects, the South Platte plan appendix suggests “a development fund” be established “for future water needs or other economic development on the West Slope.”

Front Range money could also be used, the appendix suggests, to try and repair the environmental damage already caused to headwater streams of the Colorado River by Front Range diversions.

Which as the plan put it, could serve as “an early milestone in the process, bringing environmental benefits to the headwaters on the way to project permitting.”

And the paper suggests that the “primary base of funding” for any new transmountain diversion would be “use rates and tap fees,” as “this connects the customers with what they are paying for.”

Two other funding mechanisms are also explored, including a “water” mill levy in nine Front Range counties or a statewide “container fee” on beverage containers, both of which the plan says could generate about $100 million annually for new water projects.

In the analysis of the water mill levy, or property tax, the plan suggests that half of the $107 million raised each year – $54 million – could pay for a new water project and the other half “could help provide water and economic development for the West Slope.”

The plan also notes, as a “point of comparison,” that Gunnison County in 2009 only saw $10 million in general fund revenue.

Finding such funding, and building a new transmountain diversion, would mean, according to the South Platte plan, that “transfers of East Slope agriculture would no longer be the dominant strategy for meeting Front Range water needs.”

A state water project?

However, the plan notes that there are “some important factors affect our ability to implement large statewide projects.

“First, smaller water providers on the Front Range, who will likely bear the largest part of the municipal and industrial gap, do not necessarily have the capability to develop new Colorado River Basin supplies on their own and will likely rely on conservation, reuse, and incremental agricultural transfers leading to a large loss of irrigated land in the South Platte Basin.

“Secondly, it cannot be assumed that cities or private investors will be able to build the Colorado River Basin supply projects needed to avoid a large loss of South Platte agriculture.

“A point has been reached in our state’s development where a state water project needs to be considered in order to minimize impacts of buy-and-dry,” the plan states. “This is the essential trade-off that Colorado’s Water Plan must recognize and address.”

Editor’s note: Aspen Journalism is collaborating with The Aspen Times and the Glenwood Springs Post Independent on coverage of rivers and water. The Times published this story online on Tuesday, July 7, 2015.

From KUNC (Stephanie Paige Ogburn):

Over the course of the process, the state’s nine roundtables, representing eight different water basins (the Metro and South Platte roundtables are in the same basin), have outlined their ideas for state water use. As usual, the Front Range water districts are calling for more water from the Western Slope, with predictable outcry from those on the west side of the mountains.

It’s the failure to make firm decisions on this sort of contentious issue that has led to criticism of the plan, which does not have binding authority and has not required participants to iron out where future water will come from.

The participants in the process acknowledge the document lacks teeth, but Joe Frank, chair of the South Platte Basin Roundtable, said that’s deliberate.

“It is a planning document, it’s not a law, it’s not a mandate, but these are more recommendations that hopefully people can actually follow up on and really start to do some real things,” said Frank.

Yet those outside the process, including famed water expert Pat Mulroy — who led the desert city of Las Vegas’ water planning for decades, spurring the city to unprecedented levels of conservation while also shoring up its water supplies — told the Colorado Independent that a plan that doesn’t force anyone to make tough decisions isn’t much of a plan.

The public can comment on the plan until Sept. 17, 2015. The final draft will be submitted to Governor Hickenlooper in December of the same year.

More Colorado Water Plan coverage here.

More Colorado Water Plan coverage here.

From WesternSlopeNow.com (Taylor Kanost):

By 2050, Colorado’s population is expected to jump from 4.5 million to approximately six to eight million people. Meanwhile, Colorado’s water supply isn’t growing.

“Everybody woke up to the fact that if we’re going to grow our state, we have to take a serious look at water supply,” said Jim Pokrandt, Chair of the Colorado River Basin Roundtable.

Through a series of roundtable meetings in each of Colorado’s nine water basins, officials are attempting to formulate a plan that meets the needs of several entities – Municipal, environmental, recreational, and agricultural.

Historically, when Colorado’s water supply has fallen short, the state will buy the water rights from local farmers to fill the void. The problem is this “Buy and Dry” strategy has devastated Eastern Plains communities in the past. On top of that, global warming is requiring farmers to use more water than they have ever had to use before.

“Under hotter temperatures, all plants take more water,” said Holm.

Ultimately, water leaders want to avoid this strategy.

“It doesn’t paint a pretty picture for Colorado, whether it’s fruit security or other things agriculture provides like wildlife habitat and environmental benefits,” said Carlyle Currier, Colorado River Basin Representative on the Inter-Basin Compact Committee.

Another option being considered is adding even more water to the 500,000 acre feet sent from our side of the state to the Front Range.

Even though most of Colorado’s river water is on the Western Slope, additional diversions would put a lot of stress on the Colorado River Basin, an area that is already obligated to divert water to other western states.

“Our obligation is to let at least 75 million acre feet flow downstream from Lake Powell over each ten year period,” said Holm.

If the Eastern Slope ends up taking more water, it will be tougher for the Colorado River Basin to meet these obligations.

“That water will have to come from somewhere, and if we take more from the river we will have to add more back to the river primarily by drying agriculture,” said Pokrandt.

Even in this hotly-debated topic, the one constant among the majority of Western Slope leaders is the focus on conservation.

“They would like to see the Front Range cities do as much as possible on the conservation and reuse front as they can before they come looking to the West Slope for water,” said Holm.

Other solutions being tossed around range from cloud seeding to proper forest management to reducing city water use.

The public comment period on the first draft of the plan ended at the beginning of May, but the public will have the opportunity to place further comments once the second draft is released on July 15th.

The final Colorado Water Plan will be submitted to the Governor on December 10th.

More Colorado Water Plan coverage here.

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

A final draft of Colorado’s Water Plan will be released next week, triggering a few more months of activity before reaching its completed form in December.

The plan is moving toward its final version after Gov. John Hickenlooper ordered it in 2013. The first draft was completed last year by the Colorado Water Conservation Board. The state’s nine roundtables also have completed basin implementation plans that will become a part of the completed plan.

The draft of the final plan is scheduled to be released on July 15, with public comments accepted through Sept. 17.

The plan seeks to ease the strain increased urban population will put on the state’s water resources, with particular emphasis on preserving agricultural and the environment. It has been driven by public comments through numerous meetings over the past two years.

“We don’t want to get in the same situation where California is in,” said John Stulp, Hickenlooper’s top water adviser. “We want a plan in place before there is another drought.”

The plan will have more concrete solutions to state water needs than the draft submitted to the governor last year, Stulp said.

There is, for instance, a target for municipal conservation savings — 400,000 acre-feet as a “stretch goal” — along with some steps that could be taken to get there.

“There are no ‘thou shalts’ in it. For one thing, we don’t as a state have that authority. It’s more about education and timing,” Stulp said.

“The municipalities have done a great job since 2002-03, with about 20 percent less use. That’s been done through incentives and education.”

The plan also talks about how future water projects could be financed, again without committing state funds to any project.

“It talks about general concepts, and publicprivate partnerships,” Stulp said. “It gives wider latitude to the CWCB for drinking water projects and to the Colorado Water Power and Development Authority for other types of projects.”

The two agencies are the major public lenders for water projects, but their roles have become stratified.

“We want to work more cohesively so folks won’t have to be shopping for loans,” Stulp said.

The plan also will talk about removing state and federal bureaucratic hurdles that have slowed down the construction of water projects.

“There will be more emphasis on multipurpose projects, and groups working with each other rather than trying to gain leverage,” Stulp said.

“We’re hoping we can get state agencies involved early on and address concerns earlier in the process.”

There are also suggestions for policy changes and future legislation, based on the activities of the past 10 years among roundtables and the state’s Interbasin Compact Committee. Among those are demonstration projects, such as the Arkansas Valley Super Ditch, which seek to create ways to share agricultural and municipal water. The legislative interim water resources review committee, co-chaired by Rep. Ed Vigil, D-Fort Garland, and Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, is planning a series of hearings in each basin to hear comments on the plan. The Arkansas basin hearing will be 6-8 p.m. Aug. 11 at the Salida Community Center, while the Rio Grande basin meeting will be 6-8 p.m. Aug. 10 at the Inn of the Rio Grande in Alamosa.

Specific projects are well represented in the basin implementation plans.

The Arkansas River basin plan alone has about 500 projects listed, with roughly 50 of those in Pueblo County. Not all of the projects will be funded or built, but are included for future consideration as the state meets future water challenges.

More Colorado Water Plan coverage here.

From The Colorado Independent (Susan Greene):

It has taken 12 years, 344 pages and input from tens of thousands of people to put together what officials are touting as Colorado’s first statewide water plan.

Yet, as Gov. John Hickenlooper’s Natural Resources Department finishes its long-awaited second draft in the coming week, both critics and supporters doubt it’ll put forth many durable solutions to Colorado’s snowballing water shortages.

The plan’s first draft has a gaping hole. The heart of it, Chapter 10 – entitled “Legislative Recommendations” – is where the proposed fixes are supposed to be. So far, it has been left blank.

The administration promises to write the second draft “as an action plan that will include legislative recommendations as well as a variety of administration actions” the agency can take on its own.

But “action” can be a subjective term.

The plan is expected to list conceptual goals rather than requirements. It’s likely, for example, to recommend cutting water usage by 400,000 acre-feet a year – roughly enough for about 800,000 families – through conservation. But there would be no teeth if, as expected, it doesn’t specify how and among which water users such ambitious conservation would be gleaned

John Stulp, the Governor’s water policy advisor, says the non-prescriptive approach is consistent with Hickenlooper’s style of governing.

“Colorado’s very big on local control. Mandates just don’t do very well in this state,” he said this week from his wheat field near Lamar. “The Governor isn’t going to say ‘Do this. Do that.’ He likes to develop consensus about concepts amongst folks who haven’t gotten along so well in the past.”
In the meantime, several water experts say the plan is shaping up to be less of a plan than hoped.

Committing only to theoretical frameworks and so-called “no and low regret actions” in the short-term, some say, won’t solve shortages that will increase with long-term population growth and climate change. The state’s shortfall is expected to spike to 500,000 acre-feet – the amount of water it would take to supply more than 2 million people – by 2050. If there’s no pain now, some warn, there won’t be much gain moving forward, and Colorado runs the risk of a water crisis like California’s, or bigger.

“I’d say the word ‘plan‘ is misused here,” said Pat Mulroy, a Nevada-based water expert with the Brookings Institution, after reading the first draft.

“It’s a nice compendium of issues and subject matters of all things water in Colorado, but it’s not an action plan,” added Jim Lochhead, head of Denver Water, the big water-rights holder on the Front Range.

“It doesn’t set an agenda for what Colorado needs to do in order to meet the challenges facing the state.”

Russ George, former speaker of Colorado’s House and Gov. Bill Owens’ natural resources chief, defends the grassroots statewide planning process he has helped lead for more than a decade. But, he says, if you’re looking for specifics on how to make up for water shortfalls, you won’t find them in the state water plan.

“Would we have liked all of this work and information to have produced really fantastic solutions? Yes. But nothing like that is going to occur,” he told The Independent..

“You’ve got to realize that sometimes the plan is the process. I don’t feel the need for any of us to get hung up on the plan piece of this thing.”

* * *

George, 69, grew up on his family’s farm near Rifle. A water lawyer by trade, he says he has been in the business since age 10 when his dad taught him how to irrigate their 160 acres of barley.

A longtime critic of the havoc Colorado’s “first-in-time, first-in-right” water laws can play on water policy, George has championed a collaborative approach that brings together senior and junior water-rights holders to discuss how to live within the state’s dwindling groundwater and river supplies.
After the drought of 2002 and 2003, he set up a series of roundtable discussions in each of Colorado’s nine river basins. The urgency water interests felt about those years’ dustbowl conditions convinced them to try a new form of conversation.

“There’s a recognition in the water community that when things are done in desperation you come up with very bad solutions that could be much worse than if you had planned to begin with,” said Denver water lawyer Alan Curtis. “You can’t kick the can down the road because suddenly there’s a wall waiting and they’re going to start taking water away from people who are going to sue.”

From the start of the roundtable talks, George asked all participants to come up with two lists: what they need, and what they’re willing to give up so somebody else can have what they need.

“We tried to move the decision-making away from the old places of ‘I have the money and the right and the power, so I can do what I want,’ to, ‘We all need to be at the table together’,” he said.

A decade and hundreds of roundtable meetings later, the approach has succeeded in garnering grassroots involvement in one of the state’s most pressing public policy issues. It also has managed to bring together adversaries within river basins who used to communicate with each other only in water court.
In the Colorado River basin, for example, cattle people, irrigators, municipal planners, anglers and conservationists have for years now been meeting once a month on Mondays, mid-day, at the recreation center in Glenwood Springs. Players in the Yampa/White basin meet quarterly on Wednesdays in a community center in Craig.

It’s a measure of the roundtables’ success that, despite participants’ competing views on water use, they sometimes share donuts, coffee and pictures of their grandkids before or after meetings.
But the approach has a key flaw: Participants have been far more amenable to answering the first part of George’s question – what water they need – than the second part – what they’re willing to give up. It’s no surprise. Water wars and an ethos of “not one more drop” date back to before statehood when the “Colorado doctrine” of prior appropriation was set in the 1860s. The doctrine holds that the first person to use or divert water for a “beneficial” use gets first rights to it.

State planners are scrambling to pull together input from ten years of roundtable discussions, plus scores of emails and letters from the general public, before releasing the second draft of the water plan next week. It’s a lofty task, given that most input has been heavy on problems and light on solutions.

“So far, the plan is more of a description of what is rather than what will be,” said Colorado Water Congress chief Doug Kemper.

The issue of what Chapter 10 will and won’t include is a touchy one.
Kemper paused when asked if he expects it to list any meaty solutions.

“I don’t have an expectation about that. I just don’t have an expectation about that,” he said.
Later, he elaborated.

“Look, I don’t think it’s a realistic expectation to come up with a grandiose water plan that’s a blueprint that everybody’s going to follow,” he said. “As a member of the public, what I would want to know is that the document reflects public input and values, and that the state took that into account.”
Putting forth solutions amounts to political fire juggling in a state whose Western Slope has 70 percent of the surface water and 11 percent of the population, while the Front Range makes up 75 percent of the state’s economy. Colorado is split geographically, demographically and politically when it comes to water. Any way you cut it, a plan dictating major reforms is likely, in legal and political terms, to be a losing proposition.

“Which politician is going to feel like they have sufficient public cover to adopt it?” Brookings’ Mulroy said. “Let’s face it. If there were a real plan, people would be loading their guns about now.

This (plan) is probably as good as you’re going to get unless you’re in a crisis mode like California.”

* * *

Hickenlooper made a shrewd choice of who would lead the water planning process.

James Eklund had worked as one of his legal counsels and as a natural resources lawyer for the Attorney General’s office before the Governor picked him to direct the Colorado Water Conservation Board. It helps that Eklund is what Hickenlooper isn’t – a fifth generation Coloradan who grew up not only on the Western Slope, but also in a farming family.

It also helps that Eklund knows a bit about politics, having studied the subject at Stanford and later worked as a driver to Ken Salazar, the AG turned U.S. senator turned U.S. interior secretary. He shares with Salazar the unique ability to navigate as well on cattle ranches he does in the conference rooms of 17th Street white-shoe law firms.

As Eklund tells it, the water plan already is a huge accomplishment, at least from the perspective of how many people have become involved. Through May, it had generated more than 24,000 public comments touching on every aspect of water use in the state. His staff has responded to every one.

“The process is a success in itself,” Eklund says.

But how will the state measure the success of the content rather than just the process? That’s a little tougher to define.

Eklund told The Independent last week that progress is being made on the more detailed elements of the plan, which will look at regional suggestions submitted by the basin roundtables and put forth reasonable outcomes – at least in concept. He says the plan and process need to be able to adapt and morph as circumstances such as growth, drought and climate change shape the future. There’s also a need for “agility” in state water law and federal regulatory processes in order for the plan to be successful, he added.

All in all, he downplays expectations for Chapter 10.

“No one solution is a silver bullet,” Eklund noted. “We have to have a package solution that includes storage and conservation. We can’t conserve our way out of this.”
The issue of water storage – dams, reservoirs and other systems linked with massive delivery systems known as “trans-mountain diversions” – is the third rail of Colorado water policy.

The Front Range wants more storage facilities, or at least the option to build them, so it can shore up supplies to keep up with population growth. The Western Slope agricultural community, intent on keeping its water west of the continental divide, says no way. Environmentalists and sports-folks want cities and farmers to conserve more to ensure enough river flow to protect outdoor recreation, plants and critters.

Two polls that came out last year showed 90 percent of Colorado voters want to keep our rivers healthy and flowing.

“We want this plan to include funding to protect rivers across the state. It should be a river plan, not just a water plan,” says Bart Miller, Western Resource Advocates’ water program director.

WRA and other environmental groups are pushing for aggressive urban conservation goals like ones passed in other states seeking to cut usage 20 percent over 20 years.

On the issues of conservation targets and more storage projects, water interests have dug in their feet.
George, who serves as vice chair of the Water Conservation Board, said he always expected by this point in the roundtable process to be able to answer the puzzle of how to ease the blow of projected shortfalls.

“That question just gets more intense the farther we move along. So the question here at the 11th hour is whether there’s water anywhere in Colorado that can be moved from where it is to greater use to more people, the Front Range,” he said. “Underlying all of this is great fear: Are we just going to take the water from agriculture to the cities for domestic use? Because that’s what happens if we do nothing.”

It’s in this context of political pressure and fear that Eklund and his staff have struggled to come up with actionable solutions. Scrambling to fill in the glaring blankness of the much-anticipated Chapter 10, they last week put before a state-formed water committee 160 questions about possible fixes.
Some sources say those talks fell apart because of a hesitancy to propose legislation, regulation or change.

As George tells it, the suggestions are “still lingering.”

“You have to understand that the staff doesn’t want to make policy decisions. Those are political judgment calls. So it’s hard slogging.”

* * *

Herein lies the downside of the grassroots approach.

Water users within each of the river basins have made progress discussing their regional needs. But now there’s distrust among the water basins – especially Western Slope versus Front Range – whose participants perceive the process has pitted their basins against others.

No matter how many basin roundtable meetings the state holds, no matter how many public comments it solicits, and no matter how many public-comment emails planners respond to, devising the fix-it part of the plan calls for exactly what the administration hoped to avoid. It requires top-down decisions that either manage to bring all the basins together or, more practically, show a willingness, if needed, to uphold certain political interests above others.

Factors such as cost come into play: Without help from the feds, like Colorado used to receive for new water projects, can the state afford such massive expenditures?

And there are economic repercussions to weigh: Will new businesses and families keep moving to Colorado if, like lately in drought-savaged California, the plan would require them to cut back on watering their lawns or filling their hot tubs?

And there are political calculations to make: Do lawmakers – already bitterly divided with a split legislature, tensions between urban and rural concerns, and pressures of an election year – have the fortitude to pass any meaningful water use bills? And what would Hickenlooper’s legacy be if, uncharacteristically, he tried to dictate aggressive water use reform?

“You have tens of thousands of comments here. Somebody needs to decide which input is valid or invalid. Someone needs to make sense out of the chaos. That’s a subjective process,” Mulroy said.
And it’s a process that by definition is far from grassroots. It takes expertise about the legal and political complexities of water policy.

“You have people who aren’t in the water business who are expressing their views. Can tens of thousand of individual comments produce some vision?” said Denver Water’s Lochhead. “At the end of the day, there needs to be some leadership to produce action.

“Someone needs to step up and move forward.”

It’s not enough, Lochhead says, for the plan to assert broad value statements such as the needs to protect Colorado’s farms and ranches, preserve future options for undeveloped water and conserve. As he puts it, those are just platitudes.

Lochhead has lists of specific, measurable solutions that include enforcing conservation through the state’s permitting processes, offering incentives for more green architecture, allowing Coloradans to capture rainwater, encouraging use of more recycled or “gray water” and increasing efficiency in irrigation systems.

He also has asked the administration to set ground-rules for water negotiations, “defining what needs to be done and who are the parties that are going to get together by date-certain to develop a solution.”
In other words, he wants a Chapter 10 with details and deadlines, and a commitment to pushing all parties beyond their own interests. Even his water district’s own.

“There’s still a very real opportunity both in Chapter 10 and throughout the plan to articulate a path forward and a plan for meeting our needs, saving our rivers and setting goals that citizens around the state can rise up and achieve,” Miller said.

The administration had calculated that if Chapter 10 is too robust, Hickenlooper could face the stigma of messing with water users’ property rights á la California Gov. Jerry Brown. But if Chapter 10 turns out to be just conceptual, proposing no meaningful action items, Hickenlooper could face the perception of weakness and the dubious distinction of having championed a water plan without a plan.

For the water plan to succeed, it requires a delicate balance between political pragmatism and leadership. If it swings too far either way, it likely will be mothballed in some library’s Western history section, as was Colorado’s first statewide plan – from 1974.

“Yes, that’s right. It’ll come as news to a lot of people that this isn’t in fact our first state water plan,” Kemper said. “The reason nobody’s heard of the first plan is because it had no impact.”

Marianne Goodland contributed to this story.

More Colorado Water Plan coverage here.

From The Fort Morgan Times (Marianne Goodland):

It’s hard to imagine, in the midst of flooded fields and basements, the possibility that Colorado could face a major water shortage sometime in the next several decades.

But Colorado this year is just now coming out of its latest drought, and another is never far away. And Colorado officials expect the state’s population to grow by almost double in the next few decades. That means more water will be needed than Mother Nature can provide.

That’s one of the reasons the state is putting together its first comprehensive water plan, to manage future droughts and future population increases.

In the next several weeks, the Colorado Water Conservation Board will release the next draft of the statewide water plan. It’s been in the works officially for two years, although basin roundtable and other groups have been looking at the state’s water situation since just after the 2002 drought…

James Eklund, director of the CWCB, said it’s easier to plan for the state’s water future when Colorado isn’t in a drought, as opposed to California, which is imposing emergency restrictions. California is in the fourth year of its drought, and that state’s emergency restrictions recently began extending to agriculture…

The heart of the plan is proposals submitted by the state’s nine basin roundtables. The state has eight major basins, so there’s a roundtable for each, made up of representatives from agriculture, recreation, local and domestic water providers, industrial and environmental interests. Five additional members must hold water rights or have a contract for federal water. A ninth roundtable represents the Denver Metro area.

Each basin roundtable submitted what’s called a Basin Implementation Plan (BIP). Denver and the South Platte River Basin Roundtable submitted a joint plan. Suggestions on how to manage Colorado’s water future come from those BIPs.

The draft state plan explains that one of the most controversial issues around water is the diversion of water from the Western Slope to the Eastern part of the state. The South Platte/Denver roundtable BIP said the groups believe in preservation of the state’s ability to use water from the Colorado River. That water is governed by a series of compacts with four “lower basin” states: California, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. One of the concerns is that a “compact call” could require the state send more water to those lower basin states, which would put agriculture more at risk in Colorado. Eklund says a compact call is not likely anytime in the next ten years.

The South Platte/Denver BIP notes that the basin is a key economic driver that includes seven of the top ten agricultural-producing counties in Colorado. The BIP estimates the water gap in the South Platte/Denver basin by 20950 at 428,000 acre-feet for municipal and industrial use, and 422,000 acre-feet for irrigated agriculture. Morgan County’s projected gap is the largest in northeastern Colorado, at more than 12,000 acre-feet.

The South Platte/Denver basin faces significant challenges in the lifespan of the plan. That includes competition for water, continued transfers of agricultural water rights to municipalities and industrial water users, and a significant need for more storage. Lack of storage is forcing the area to rely on groundwater, which is water that resides below ground, often in aquifers.

The South Platte/Denver BIP presents a number of solutions for the area and for cooperation with the state’s other basins.

Currently, the area’s growing water demands are met largely by agricultural transfers: selling water rights to other users, mostly municipal and industrial, such as oil and gas. It’s a touchy subject, according to state water czar John Stulp: how to preserve agricultural water rights and at the same time recognize that those rights are private property. The BIP notes this, calling for a system where farmers can “decide for themselves how to manage those water rights while maintaining their right to use or sell” them. That system, at the same time, must include new ways to conduct those transfers to minimize the impact on the rest of the area. Those impacts are frequently economic: once water rights are permanently transferred, the community can suffer through loss of economic activity.

People often point to Crowley County, in southeastern Colorado, as what that looks like. Most of the water rights in Crowley County were sold off in the 1970s to municipal water providers; farming is nearly non-existent and the land has reverted to prairie grassland. The county now relies on a private prison as its major economic engine; fully 45 percent of the county’s population are prison inmates.

While the state has already taken steps to minimize the impact of “buy and dry” for agricultural water rights, the BIP suggests much more can be done. The BIP calls for additional water from the Colorado River, a suggestion that makes Western Slope residents nervous; and additional storage, either in reservoirs or in below ground aquifers.

The BIP also calls for new multi-purpose water storage in the basin area and to look for ways to more effectively use groundwater.

But storage costs money. A lot of money. The statewide water plan estimates a cost of $18 to $20 billion to fully implement the plan. That’s not all going to be paid for by the state: the plan lists more than a dozen financing options, including bonding and public/private partnerships.

The next draft of the statewide plan, due in July, will include legislative recommendations, although Stulp recently said they hope to avoid asking for a lot of new laws to implement parts of the plan. Another draft is likely in September; the final plan is due to the governor in December.

In the meantime, watch for another round of public hearings on the statewide water plan. The legislature’s interim water resources review committee will be part of a statewide tour that will visit each basin area. For the South Platte, that meeting is scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. Sept. 14 at the Island Grove Event Center in Greeley. The Denver Metro hearing will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Sept. 15 in the Aurora City Council Chambers.

More Colorado Water Plan coverage here.