Observers on the rainy side of Colorado always keep their eyes on the Front Range, looking for new plans to divert water over the Great Divide, to fuel unbridled growth. Here's an article about Colorado's projected population growth, from The Durango Herald. They write:
More than 4.7 million people live in Colorado today. By 2035, an additional 3 million people are expected to move here. And there are no plans to make sure they all have water. That's because cities and counties decide how and where to grow. Water providers don't have veto power over growth. They just look for more water to serve the newcomers. But a small number of water experts is starting to speak up about growth.
The problem became apparent in 2003, with the release of a report by the Statewide Water Supply Initiative, or SWSI. Water people pronounce it SWAH-sea. The initiative predicted that current or planned water projects could handle only 80 percent of the new urban growth by 2030. The missing 20 percent became known in the water business as The Gap. Many cities are counting on farmers to sell their water rights, according to the SWSI report. Rural residents complain the practice is killing the farm economy...
Most water managers are reluctant to tell county commissioners how to plan for growth. "If you're not a municipality, you really don't have land-use control," said Eric Wilkinson, general manager of NCWCD. Eric Kuhn, head of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, voiced his frustration in August at a Colorado Water Congress meeting. The water supply should be part of the debate about foreign immigration, Kuhn said. "It's obvious that issue isn't being discussed and we're not connecting all the dots. As water managers, we're not supposed to, but that issue has to be discussed at the general government level," he said. But water managers have to start talking about it, too, said [Jenny] Russell, the Telluride attorney who represents Southwest Colorado on the Interbasin Compact Committee. "How is it that you're allowed to grow until you come to a (water) deficit?" she said. "Water providers have always been told, 'Keep your hands off.' I think the time has come to change that, because all of Colorado is growing." But water managers don't have legal control over land use. Russell thinks it will take an act of the Legislature to either require or encourage cities to match their land-use plans to their water supplies...
Locally, La Plata and Montezuma counties are expected to grow at least 75 percent by 2035. The population of the Four Corners will double, to 160,000 people by 2035, according to the state demographer. In Durango, more than 100 construction projects are under way or expected to be built within city limits. Together, the projects could add as many as 4,400 new housing units in the city in the next 10 to 20 years. Public Works Director Jack Rogers said the city has adequate water rights for its growth plans, and future water supplies will be more secure once the Animas-La Plata Project is finished...
On a tour of Northwest Colorado in August, Sen. Jack Taylor pointed to several planned subdivisions west of Steamboat Springs - 2,000 home sites here, 2,400 there. Three-acre patches on the banks of the Yampa River are selling for $5 million, he said. "When you start adding it up, where's the water going to come from for all these home sites?" said Taylor, R-Steamboat Springs. Others say there's room - and water - for 3 million new Coloradans. "Colorado can handle that kind of growth, but it is going to come through smart management of our water supply," said U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar. Harris Sherman, director of the state Department of Natural Resources, expanded on the idea. "We can handle another 3 million people, but it will involve serious tradeoffs," Sherman said. Those tradeoffs include a loss of farmland, and less water in the rivers for fish, recreation and scenic beauty. Water managers, counties and the state have to do a better job of helping each other understand the constraints, Sherman said. "We need to be more realistic about where these future water resources will come from," he said...
In 1970, Douglas County was a rural spread south of Denver with about 8,500 people, much less than the population of Montezuma County at the time. Thirty years later, it had 175,000 people - more than twice as many as every county in Southwest Colorado combined. Its population nearly tripled in the 1990s, when it routinely made the list of America's fastest-growing counties. Douglas County wasn't alone. The Front Range's population doubled from 1970 to 2000. Almost 4 million people live there today. Many of the new suburbs south of Denver rely on groundwater, which is being depleted a little more every year. This rattles water managers like Kuhn. At a Water Congress meeting in August, Kuhn railed against "Baja Denver" and said the construction of suburbs without a sustainable water supply will be remembered as a historic failure of Colorado's leaders. The consequences will be felt far away from the Front Range, Kuhn said in an interview. "You don't build hundreds of thousands of homes ... and then shut them off when it comes to a dry period," he said. City and county leaders have to do whatever it takes to look for water. And there's just one place left to find it, Kuhn said. "Western Slope agriculture. That's it."[...]