DENVER – Gov. John Hickenlooper last week received a draft of a historic water plan that aims to offer a framework for how the state should grapple with shortfalls in the future.
Colorado’s Water Plan outlines $20 billion worth of projects to consider through 2050, according to James Eklund, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Voters likely would need to approve a tax increase.
There also are legislative hurdles, with an aim to approach lawmakers for measures in the 2016 session.
Policy officials would need to 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.
The backdrop has been private ownership of water rights. Colorado uses a “prior appropriation” system in which rights are granted to the first person to take water from an aquifer or river, despite residential proximity.
Conversations through eight regional basin roundtables have been going on for about 10 years, meaning stakeholders were able to hit the ground running.
The Southwest Basin Roundtable flows through two Native American reservations – the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute Indian reservations. The basin includes nine sub-basins, and eight flow out of state.
Hickenlooper ordered the plan in May 2013; a final plan must be completed by Dec. 10, 2015.
Shortfalls in municipal water supply are expected by 2050. The result could be agricultural dry-up, fish and wildlife extinction and pressure on municipalities.
The plan stops short of prescribing how the state should move forward. It doesn’t mandate transmountain water diversions for Front Range communities, a contentious subject.
It does, however, try to steer municipalities away from the practice of purchasing water rights from farmers when there is no diversion, leaving agricultural land dry.