Colorado Water
Here's a Denver Post article on the ongoing drought in Colorado [May 2, 2004, "Drought's a tricky phenomenon"].
Here's an article written by Chips Barry about front range water needs from the Denver Post [May 2, 2004, "Drought is just a temporary condition"]. From the article, "The only rivers of size that drain the Front Range are the Arkansas and the South Platte. Neither has reliable water left to be appropriated for new growth. The only option is to purchase water from existing agriculture, which can cause economic and social dislocation in the communities dependent upon that irrigated agriculture. Conversion of agricultural water to municipal uses requires that the water be purchased, often at a very high price, and then changed to a different use. A change-use case in water court can be difficult and time-consuming. In both the Arkansas and the South Platte River basins, agricultural water converted to municipal use must be transported back to the metropolitan area by pipeline. Pipelines are expensive to build and costly to operate."
Melinda Kassen discusses the need to conserve water and change our attitudes about water use in yesterday's Denver Post [May 2, 2004, "Change assumptions about development"]. From the article, "In the 1920s, states along the Colorado River entered into an interstate compact that divided up the river's water. The compact requires the Upper Basin (including Colorado) to deliver 75 million acre-feet of water every 10 years to the Lower Basin. Compact negotiators believed this was half the river but, in reality, in an extended drought, it isn't. Worse, climate change will likely further reduce the amount of water the Colorado River produces. While state agencies have calculated that Colorado has at least 400,000 additional acre-feet of water to develop, long-term drought and/or climate change could wipe that quantity off the books. For 40 years, the Upper Basin states assumed Lake Powell would act as a savings account and protect cities and farms from having to curtail water use to meet its obligation to the Lower Basin. Now that Lake Powell is less than half full, it may no longer be prudent to assume that Colorado can develop new water supplies without worrying about the possibility that its water users could be shut down to meet our down river obligations. Thus, building water projects that take very infrequent wet-year flows to the Front Range where we can't send it back down the Colorado River may no longer be prudent."
Colorado Luis thinks that the ongoing drought may increase urbanization in the west.
6:35:45 AM 
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