You are receiving this newsletter because you are a recognized Douglas County community leader and stakeholder.
As County leaders, we must protect our region. Our quality of life is directly connected to our commitment to build a tomorrow that preserves the best of today. This vision includes protecting our natural resources, utilizing our county’s resources in a fiscally-smart manner, and wisely planning for our future. Thank you for standing with us.
Summit County’s Innovative Water Leadership in 1980s
Provides Roadmap for Douglas County Today
Public private partnerships that are designed to protect water security – and ensure adequate future water supplies – are nothing new in Colorado. Counties that act as partners, and even catalysts, in water deals goes back nearly 40 years when Summit County first seized an opportunity to protect quality of life and economic vitality in mountain communities.
While some public officials in Douglas County have an outdated and pedestrian view of how counties should lead on water during increasingly challenging times, Summit County took a forward-looking view that, in retrospect, was not only necessary but fiscally prudent.
Summit County was the key player in negotiating an agreement with Denver Water in 1985 that provided water for the municipalities and ski areas in the county. It followed that agreement up in 1992 with the purchase of the Clinton Reservoir in the purchase of the Clark Reservoir, which was put up for sale by Climax Molybdenum Co.
At that time with Summit County being a leader, other municipalities, and private sector companies – including five ski areas – joined the partnership. As part of the reservoir acquisition, Summit County, with the reservoir acquisition complete, struck an agreement with Denver Water to guarantee water for the reservoir.
The result of these early public private partnerships was to ensure the ski economy in the area would be sustained through snow-making and municipal water resources. Summit County would have current and future water needs addressed at that time. In addition, the partnership allowed for the provision of augmentation water to users in dry years.
The growing water crisis in the West calls on leaders to take a broader, comprehensive view of a county’s future water needs, and not merely wait for others to hopefully step up and provide water security.
Summit County’s leadership in the 1980s presents a clear roadmap for Douglas County in the 21st century.
Recent Headlines
Aurora cuts one of its lawn watering days, which should be a warning for other Colorado cities
Two days a week instead of three, and a surcharge, for 2023 is a reminder that it’s never over until the runoff is counted.
Aurora Water just issued an urgent reminder that a Westerner’s outlook can change dramatically just by jumping over into the next river basin.
…At the same time, Aurora sits with half-empty reservoirs and a dwindling snowpack in one of its key resource basins, the Arkansas River watershed. Already fearing water levels for Colorado’s third-largest city may approach emergency conditions this summer, the city council voted Monday to cut one day from allowed lawn watering schedules and add a surcharge for outdoor use.
...Water watchers praised Aurora’s early action, and its reliance on a science-based drought plan that was already in place.
The West just got blanketed in snow, but its water problems aren't over
...“The wet winter and the hearty snowpack will ease drought concerns in some of the hardest-hit areas of the West when summer comes. But many places, including the Colorado Basin, have racked up such dramatic deficits that a single season can’t forestall the dire water supply concerns.
“...the promising snow season won’t paper over Western states’ long-term water problems, which still require urgent, large-scale reductions in use.”
Planning for the worst: Agency seeks power to limit residential water use
While western states work to hash out a plan to save the crumbling Colorado River system, officials from Southern Nevada are preparing for the worst — including possible water restrictions in the state’s most populous county.
The Nevada Legislature last week introduced Assembly Bill 220, an omnibus bill that comes from the minds of officials at the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
Most significantly, the legislation gives the water authority the ability to impose hefty water restrictions on individual homes in Southern Nevada, where three-quarters of Nevada’s 3.2 million residents live and rely on the drought-stricken Colorado River for 90 percent of their water.
Did you know? Nearly half a million homes in the Centennial State could be without water by 2050. And, one recent study from researchers at New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory found that Colorado could see a 50 to 60 percent reduction in snow within 60 years. More here via 5280.
Upcoming News from DCFF
Every other week, DCFF will report on important news and challenges impacting our community. We hope you will stay engaged and connected with us.
