Water Plan will need everyone to pitch in, officials

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Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper ,right, hoists a copy of the new Colorado Water Plan with James Eklund, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board at the end of an announcement about the plan on Thursday, November 19, 2015. The board gathered at the History Colorado Center for the historic presentation. ( Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post )

Colorado adopted a landmark $20 billion water plan Thursday to try to accommodate rapid population growth by conserving more, reusing more, storing more and sharing more between farmers and cities — and diverting less from west to east across the mountains.

"Now is the time to rethink how we can be more efficient," Gov. John Hickenlooper said at a ceremony embracing the roughly 480-page document.

Deep divisions remain between the Western Slope, where water is concentrated, and the booming Front Range cities.

Some utility officials question whether a desired statewide cut of 130 billion gallons a year would be enough to sustain growth without developing new water supplies using the snowmelt flowing off the mountains.

And funding challenges loom, with state officials estimating a need for government to raise $3 billion to $6 billion by 2050.

State officials emphasized a practical consensus that emerged after a decade of river basin negotiations. In a drought-and-flood-prone West where clean water increasingly is coveted, they contend Colorado residents are best served by rallying around a common plan.

Hickenlooper urged immediate work with everybody chipping in to implement the plan: residents shortening showers, lawmakers cooperating to ensure funds and fine-tune laws, utilities thinking regionally about effects of diversions, and farmers forging alternatives to selling their water rights to cities.

And the governor swiftly placed the plan into the context of an intensifying Western water struggle.

"The Western governors have agreed that we're all going to work on water together," Hickenlooper said, referring to pressure California's water crunch puts on an over-subscribed Colorado River. "None of us knows with any certainty how that drought is going to continue and spread."

If Colorado ramped-up water conservation, with the incorporation of water into land-use planning and reservoir construction done right, the controversial diversion of more water across mountains won't be necessary, Hickenlooper said — even with the 5.3 million population projected to nearly double by 2050.

Front Range cities rely on 24 tunnels and ditches to divert an average of 262 billion gallons of water a year west-to-east across the Continental Divide. This practice depletes streams and rivers, hurting ecosystems.

Diverting more to satisfy growing Front Range urban needs ought to be "the last possible use," Hickenlooper said, adding state leaders' goal is "where the water is, it stays."

Colorado Water Conservation Board staffers assembled the Colorado Water Plan after reviewing 30,000 submissions by residents. The plan prioritizes everyone using less, protecting against the loss of irrigated cropland as suburbs expand and building more reservoirs to capture water as permitted under interstate compacts.

Environment groups and utility officials agreed a unified state stand may help prevent the federal government and other Colorado River Basin states from driving water decisions.

"Colorado has the ability to greatly influence what happens along other stretches of the Colorado River," said Jon Goldin-Dubois, president of Boulder-based Western Resource Advocates.

Putting forth an unprecedented, detailed state plan "gives Colorado leverage in those interstate conversations," he said.

Around Colorado, local authorities have developed individual basin plans.

State planners have projected statewide shortfalls of 163 billion gallons a year by 2050. Much of the estimated $20 billion water cost of sustaining population growth would be paid by water utilities, state officials said. But officials are pushing for greater use of severance tax funds for storage expansion and are considering a possible water tax as one option for raising the $3 billion to $6 billion needed in the next 35 years.

Across western Colorado, water quality is designated as impaired along more than 1,000 miles of streams and rivers. Sportsmen and recreation groups lauded elements of the plan that could boost stream health, including calls for modernizing farm irrigation to require diversion of less water and creation of plans to protect streams.

"We're pleased that the Colorado Water Plan recognizes that healthy rivers are central to Colorado's quality of life and help drive our booming $13 billion recreation economy," Colorado Trout Unlimited executive director David Nickum said.

Yet there are anxieties. The conservation target of using 130 billion gallons less statewide each year may force utilities to tighten limits on lawn irrigation or other measures. That target appears "basically pulled out of the air," said Donna Brosemer, spokeswoman for the city of Greeley.

Denver Water manager Jim Lochhead, pointing to a 20 percent drop in water consumption over the past 10 years despite population growth, said water-saving goals can be reached "without sacrificing quality of life."

Lochhead anticipated benefits of changing land use in cities. "As we get denser ... that's going to reduce our overall water use."

The plan depends on voluntary compliance since the Colorado Water Conservation Board lacks regulatory power. Colorado's state engineer and the state Department of Public Health and Environment are the main state regulators around water.

Hickenlooper said the plan, if implemented, will "create a motivating context" for using water more efficiently out of self-interest.

"I'm not a huge fan of regulation," he said. "This is designed so that we won't need as much of the formal regulation we have now."

Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700, bfinley@denverpost.com or @finleybruce

State plan saves on water

The Colorado State Water Plan unveiled Thursday is designed to address huge projected shortfalls as the state's population of 5.3 million people nearly doubles by 2050. Main elements of the plan include:

• A statewide water-saving target of 130 billion gallons a year for cities and industry. Communities are left largely on their own to cut water use in homes, at industrial sites and on lawns.

• Goals of increasing reservoir and aquifer storage space by 130 billion gallons statewide, and encouraging re-use of wastewater.

• A framework for assessing possible unspecified new transmountain diversions of water from the western side of the Continental Divide, when this can be done without harming rivers and streams.

• A proposal to develop stream and river protection plans covering 80 percent of "critical watersheds" by 2030.

• A strategy for slowing the loss of irrigated agricultural land as Front Range utilities buy up water rights — which state officials said threatens 700,000 more acres, or 20 percent of currently irrigated acres statewide. The plan calls for temporary transfers where farmers and ranchers lease water to cities and suburbs but retain ownership of agricultural water rights.

• A goal of linking county land use planning with water supply planning so that, by 2025, 75 percent of residents live in communities where new development is tied to water availability.

• Proposals for streamlined permitting of water projects designated by state planners for official support.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29...itch-officials


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