State plans more talks on fair division of water- Board's study sees high future demand

By Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News
November 18, 2004

The Colorado Water Conservation Board early next year will launch another round of statewide water talks aimed at helping rural and urban areas find ways to divide remaining water supplies equitably.

The decision comes as the board this week finalized a groundbreaking $2.7 million statewide study indicating that Colorado's water needs will soar 53 percent by 2030.

"They now have a glimpse into the future," said Kent Vertrees, who runs a Steamboat Springs-based river rafting company and who represented the Yampa River Basin during the study's first phase.

"But we need to keep it going. It's not every day that we get to sit down and talk," Vertrees said.

The board will spend up to $500,000 on phase two of the study, which will examine how the state will quench its thirst in the face of a relentless population boom.

The report said that even as the drought eases, Colorado's thirst will grow. How those new water needs are supplied - whether through additional transmountain diversions, the drying up of farms, aggressive conservation or water recycling - is a critical question Colorado has yet to answer.

The study, known as the Statewide Water Supply Initiative, outlined several trends in water use and development that could significantly affect the landscape of Colorado, including:

• Nearly half a million acres of irrigated farmland could be dried up by 2030 as the population grows and water is transferred from agricultural to municipal use.

• Many Coloradans want to find ways to meet environmental and recreation needs while balancing the needs of municipal, industrial and agricultural users.

• Smaller, rural and agricultural areas have limited resources that make meeting their future water needs particularly challenging.

The purpose of the study, launched 16 months ago in response to the drought, was to help lawmakers understand the state's water needs and what role policy-makers could play in managing the state's water supplies.

In phase two of the study, researchers hope to address ways to:

• Facilitate talks among officials in the state's eight river basins to ensure that rural areas, where much of the state's water originates, and the thirsty urban Front Range can share water supplies equitably.

• Require water utilities to report annual water use to ensure adequate data for planning.

• Monitor water utilities' prog-ress in meeting local water needs.

Cities have said they can meet most of their future water demands by drying up agricultural lands, expanding existing reservoirs and recycling water.

But Western Slope officials and environmentalists remain deeply worried that the state will back a large-scale effort to move vast quantities of water - again - from the Western Slope to the Front Range.

Still others worry that Colorado's rural farm economies will be crippled as cities move to convert more farm water to municipal use.

The SWSI report can be found on the SWSI Web site at www.cwcb.state.co.us.