Colorado Water
Here's a story from the Rocky Mountain News about the digging of the Grand River Ditch [October 2, 2004, "110-year-old ditch an engineering wonder"]. From the article, "More than a hundred years ago, a lingering drought and water shortages threatened to strangle the livelihood of the farming pioneers on the northern Front Range. So a group of farmers, engineers and bankers from Greeley and Fort Collins trekked deep into what would become Rocky Mountain National Park, looking for water to save their way of life. They found a plentiful supply high in the Never Summer Mountains, but getting it to their farms seemed almost impossible. Still, they had to try. In 1894, undaunted by the isolation, the spring blizzards, the summer mosquitoes and the altitude of more than 10,000 feet, this hardy group of Russian and German immigrants began what would become years of backbreaking labor."
The Rocky Mountain News is starting a series called The Last Drop detailing the strain on mountain waterways from Front Range water use [October 1, 2004, "The last drop"]. From the article, "For more than a century, flatlanders have built ditches and tunnels to turn much of the westbound Colorado River headwaters east over the Continental Divide. It's no longer enough. Urban water utilities, wrestling with drought and a booming population, are scrambling for what's left of the cool, clear Fraser River in Grand County, the Blue in Summit County, the Eagle in Eagle County and the Roaring Fork in Pitkin County. For months, the utilities have negotiated quietly but intensely for new supplies. Yet headwater counties, facing shortages of their own, want the water, too. Without innovative deals and compromise, Coloradans could lose the very mountain landscape that defines the state. The series: Monday: Grand County; Tuesday: Summit County; Wednesday: Pitkin County; Thursday: Eagle County."
Here's a short article about the effect of diverting water from the high country from the the Rocky Mountain News [October 2, 2004, "High-country economy thrives on water"]. From the article, "Here, water is everything. It helps lure skiers and anglers from around the world. It helps employ about 26,000 resort and recreational workers. It helps Vail and Breckenridge maintain their ranking as the first and second most-popular ski areas in the nation. And it helps generate more than 6.85 million skier visits a year in the four Colorado River headwater counties."
All is not well in Animas-La Plata land, according to the Denver Post [October 2, 2004, "Group aims to halt work on reservoir project"]. From the article, "An environmental group has asked the Colorado state water court to halt construction on the Animas-La Plata water project in southwest Colorado, which is $162 million over budget and less than 20 percent complete after years of planning. The Citizens Progressive Alliance, in its motion last week, said that water rights owed to the Southern Ute and the Ute Mountain Ute Indian tribes were settled by acts of Congress in the 19th century. Animas-La Plata was built largely to settle the two tribes' claims to water."
Here's an article from the Cortez Journal about a proposal from John Salazar over farmers selling their water to other basins.
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