According to the Pueblo Journal U.S. Congressman John Salazar hopes to use the newly minted Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress to push more water conservation and tighter controls on transmountiain diversions of water. From the article, "Salazar opposes transbasin water transfers without full mitigation to the areas where water is taken from. 'If people in the urban areas were willing to address the issue and make full mitigation to the basins where the water was coming from, I don't think we'd be having this discussion,' Salazar said. Salazar wants urban areas to fully reuse transmountain water through physically treating it, rather than moving the point of diversion through exchanges on paper. 'One of the things that angers me is the cities buy the water at one point but divert it at another. They take good water and then let crap go down the river,' Salazar said. 'The cities need to think how they can use and reuse water to infinity and develop more conservation methods.' Water imported from one basin to another can be used 'to extinction' under Colorado water law, since it did not originate in the basin where it is used. About 80 percent of Colorado Springs and 70 percent of Aurora water supplies come from other basins. Colorado Springs exchanges its return flows down Fountain Creek, which has increased base flows fourfold...
"Salazar also plans to continue working for the completion of an Army Corps of Engineers study on Fountain Creek and the Arkansas Valley Conduit during his second term. 'There's a big difference being in the majority. I'm on the water infrastructure subcommittee and we'll be able to work for funding that has not been coming from the administration,' Salazar said. 'Democrats have for years been standing up for Arkansas Valley and Western Slope water.'"
Category: Colorado Water
7:22:10 AM 
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