Colorado Water
Here's an opinion piece, from the Rocky Mountain News, written by the publisher of the Pueblo Chieftain, commenting about the recent anti-speculation ruling by water judge Dennis Maes [July 31, 2004, "Speakout: Water speculation not good for Colorado"]. R.H. Rawlings writes, "The ruling could not be a clearer statement of the facts of the case and of the law. High Plains does not have a buyer. How could any court possibly rule that High Plains is not a speculator? Your editorial asserted that 'Water is a commodity and rights to it should be easily marketable.' That works just fine for Aurora because its mayor and City Council don't seem to care that their purchases of water in the Arkansas Valley already have dried up thousands of acres of prime farmland and their more recent purchases will dry up even more. Those actions destroy the economy of the nearby towns and detrimentally affect the economy of the entire valley. How would the folks in Denver like it if the same were to apply to, say, residential zoning, permitting some of Denver's most popular neighborhoods to be changed to polluted industrial areas, merely to maximize the owner's profits? How would you react to such a degradation of your city's environment and economic future?"
8:02:27 AM 
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