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Facts You Haven’t Heard About Proposed Water Projects
The opponents of new renewable water sources for Douglas County and other Front Range communities have seldom used verifiable facts in their criticisms, but rather have rested their complaints on emotion and misdirection.
Here are some facts that you likely haven’t heard.
The San Luis Valley (SLV) has 1.02 billion acres of unused water, because it sits over the second-largest aquifer in the United States.
Opponents focus on the term “allocated water,” which means an entity owns it and it has been adjudicated in state Water Court. The focus should be on unused water, which they don’t want to discuss.
The RWR project proposes to use 22,000 acre-feet. This water would come from the confined aquifer in the San Luis Valley, which is fully renewable with five days of runoff from San Luis Valley mountain ranges.
While the slogan “not one drop” of water out of the SLV sounds great, the reality is that there are seven trans-basin diversions out of the SLV today.
Opponents have said that this fully renewable water project is a “buy and dry” project.
Ironically, the Rio Grande Water Conservation District – the loudest opponent of the RWR project – is eager and willing to buy and dry when using tax dollars. State funds totaling $30 million have been dedicated to buy and dry efforts in the SLV, meaning taxpayers in Douglas County helped subsidize this buy and dry scheme that provides not a drop of water for them.
The bottom line is that Colorado is facing water shortfalls amounting to hundreds of thousands of acre feet in the years to come.
Renewable, responsible solutions are the best way to address this growing need across our state as well as in Douglas County.
Those are the facts, and as has often been said, “facts are stubborn things” – even in debates over water policy.
Recent Headlines
A Massive Plumbing System Moves Water Across Colorado’s Mountains. But This Year, There’s Less To Go Around
...About 80% of Colorado’s water falls on the western side of the state. Much of it is high-mountain snow and rain that eventually trickles down into streams and rivers like the ones on Independence Pass.
But about 80% of Colorado’s people live on the east side of the mountains. Because of gravity, that water doesn’t flow to them naturally. Instead, Colorado’s heavily-populated Front Range relies on a massive plumbing system to keep drinking water flowing to its taps.
...A tunnel through the mountains draws in water that will pass through two reservoirs and the Arkansas River on its way to the southern portion of the Front Range. Water diverted from the Colorado River basin, through trans-mountain diversions, makes up 60 to 70% of the water used by Colorado Springs. Denver, Greeley, Fort Collins and smaller municipalities on the Front Range also rely heavily on Western Slope water.
Colorado legislature sets aside $60 million for groundwater sustainability in the Rio Grande, Republican River basins
Colorado is moving toward putting $60 million into a new groundwater compact compliance fund for the Rio Grande and Republican River basins that would be created and funded through a bill championed by state Sen. Cleave Simpson of Alamosa.
Senate Bill 28 would create the Compact Compliance Fund that would be administered by the Colorado Division of Water Resources. The fund would receive an appropriation of $60 million from Colorado’s share of federal COVID relief money from American Rescue Plan Act.
The bill, cosponsored by Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, originally only established the fund, and then an amendment unanimously adopted Thursday by the Colorado House Agriculture, Livestock, and Water Committee added $60 million into it.
…Each basin would get an earmark of $30 million to pay for efforts like retiring groundwater wells and other conservation and water sustainability measures. The goal would be to spend all $60 million within the time constraints put on federal COVID dollars, whether it’s a 50-50 split or not.
