Gov. John Hickenlooper on Wednesday welcomed the first draft of the first Colorado Water Plan, calling it a useful starting point for avoiding “illogically dysfunctional” strife.
Hickenlooper and top state officials also revealed they are looking at increased high-mountain storage to trap snow, which is melting earlier with climate change.
“There are long histories of discord over water,” Hickenlooper said, acknowledging challenges of meeting a projected 163 billion gallon shortfall as he received the plan at the Capitol. “No one is going to get everything they want. But you can get an end product you feel pretty comfortable with. That’s our goal here, just to keep working it, trying to avoid the big battles.”
The 344-page plan, written by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, reflects years of efforts to ensure enough water for a growing economy and population expected to double to 10 million by 2050.
It lays out general strategies for meeting that shortfall: balancing increased conservation and reuse of fully treated wastewater while leaving open controversial options for more transmountain diversions from rivers.
But a consensus on specifics, absent from the plan, has yet to be forged. Critics were lining up, urging swift changes to lock in protection for rivers and streams and compel Front Range residents to use less water on lawns.
Hickenlooper reiterated an emphasis on using less water and preserving agriculture as priorities. Agriculture uses about 85 percent of Colorado water supplies while cities use about 7 percent, a growing share as some farmers sell water rights.
The water plan, the first of its sort for Colorado, will be finalized next year. Public comment sessions are expected.
Climate change increasingly has complicated state water planners’ work because warming temperatures affect the timing of water flows in rivers. Top state officials said they are looking for ways to trap more snowmelt earlier in high-mountain reservoirs to give flexibility for using water when needed.
“As the climate continues to warm, we’re probably going to need more storage somewhere. … That doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to need to divert more water,” Hickenlooper said.
CWCB director James Eklund, architect of the plan, said, “Snowpack, our biggest reservoir, is melting off earlier every year” — a factor in considering possible new west-east transmountain diversions of water out of rivers.
New storage in improved or expanded mountain reservoirs is an important part of holding onto this water, assuming it comes off earlier, said John Stulp, senior water adviser to Hickenlooper. “It looks like, if it gets warmer, it is going to come down earlier, even before agriculture is ready to use it.”
Nobody’s narrowed it down to specific locations in the high country.
“We have to look at all of the possibilities,” Stulp said. “I don’t think anything is off the table.”
Western Slope criticisms of the emerging state water plan aim mostly at keeping more water, much of it starting as snowmelt, flowing in rivers and streams.
Hunting and fishing groups, in particular, have deemed the plan deficient as a basis for action. More than 7,000 people participated Tuesday night in a teleconference on the plan.
“We need to put more meat into it,” such as requirements for how much water must be left in rivers, Trout Unlimited attorney Mely Whiting said.
The hunting and fishing groups favor increased water-saving in cities, perhaps to include removal or shrinkage of lawns, rather than diverting more water from the Colorado River Basin.
Agriculture does use the largest share of water, Whiting acknowledged, “but we need the food. We need the agricultural landscapes.”
Colorado’s $9 billion recreation economy depends on leaving enough water in rivers to sustain wildlife, said John Gale, regional representative of the Bull Moose Sportsmen’s Alliance. Saving rivers ought to be in the plan “as a priority, instead of an afterthought,” Gale said.
Save the Poudre advocate Gary Wockner stood outside the Capitol on Wednesday holding a 12-foot banner that read: “Save Our Rivers.”
A coalition of six conservation groups has proposed inclusion of a specific water-saving target.
“We should have a statewide goal of a 1 percent-a-year reduction in water use,” said Western Resource Advocates water program director Bart Miller. “And everyone can get there in their own way.”
Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700, bfinley@denverpost.com or twitter.com/finleybruce
