Colorado Water
Aurora is most likely going to enact a surcharge to pay for water to replenish depleted reservoirs, according to the Rocky Mountain News [February 25, 2004, "Aurora gets closer to water surcharge"]. From the article, "The Aurora City Council has given preliminary approval to a water rate surcharge schedule to pay for leased water to refill the city's drought-depleted reservoirs. What the city's 69,000 water customers will actually pay in addition to the base rate of $2.69 per thousand gallons of water won't be set until the end of April. That is when the City Council will set the level of of drought severity. If the drought level is set at Stage II, as officials believe likely, the surcharge for 90 percent of the city's water customers would be an additional 65 cents per thousand gallons. That scenario also depends on whether the Bureau of Reclamation approves Aurora's leasing of 12,600 acre-feet of water from High Line Canal users in the Arkansas River Valley. That lease would cost the city $5.5 million. If the High Line lease, the largest temporary water transfer in Colorado history, is not approved, the city still plans to lease smaller amounts of water from the the Climax Mine Co., several ranches near Leadville and the East Cherry Creek Valley Water and Sanitation District. That would cost about $2.5 million and the reservoir recovery surcharge for most customers would be about 35 cents per thousand gallons under Stage II conditions."
The Pueblo City Council approved an agreement with Colorado Springs on Monday, according to the Rocky Mountain News [February 24, 2004, "Pueblo going with flow"]. From the article, "For the first time in decades, Pueblo will cooperate with, rather than fight, Colorado Springs - to develop a $900 million pipeline from the Arkansas River up to El Paso County. In exchange, Colorado Springs will give up some of its water rights and provide other incentives to help Pueblo maintain river flows through the city - flows that will help keep its historic river walk vital and its proposed kayak course afloat."
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