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Providing that 42,297 signatures arrive by Aug. 3 and that a majority of Colorado voters do right in November, then equity and honesty could replace the greed and lies that now characterize water transfers in Colorado.
It's a proposed constitutional amendment called WATER,
an acronym for the awkward phrase Willingness and
Appropriateness in Transfers and Exports of Rivers.
But don't hold that against it. In essence, WATER would require a vote of people in the source basin before water can go to another basin.
As things work now, when an urban area wants water from a rural area, the urban interests lie: In 1976, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District claimed that the Windy Gap project would preserve agriculture along the Front Range, but in fact the expropriated Western Slope water went to the Rawhide power plant.
Or they resort to subterfuge: When Thornton bought farm water in Weld County, the city kept its identity secret lest prices rise. On greedy Wall Street, insider dealing is a felony, but in Colorado water, it is business as usual.
If WATER passed, cities could still take water from rural areas. They'd just have to persuade us hicks that it was in our interest to export water. This might take the form of annual payments that would reduce local taxes, or building schools and libraries, or scores of other ways that rural communities could become viable in a changing economy.
Who could be against this? You can rely on Fred
Anderson, once a state senator and now a honcho with the
Northern Colorado district, to be against anything
sensible. He once opposed electing water district directors
because the wrong people might get elected -- a problem we
obviously had when he was elected to the legislature.
Anderson said subjecting water transfers to a vote might be
an illegal taking
of a property right.
If a water right is property, why isn't it taxed like other property? Why is it that if you acquire other property through deception, you can't keep it, but you can keep water? Anderson believes a water right is property only when it's convenient for him to believe that.
Farmers who might sell their water and retire to a life of coupon-clipping also oppose WATER. Their water? Plenty of it comes from tax-subsidized projects like Colorado-Big Thompson, Fryingpan-Arkansas and the Twin Lakes tunnel.
But they invested their lives in their enterprises, right? So did the guy with the hardware store on Main Street, and the woman with the cafe next door, but under our current system, only the farmer profits when the water is sold. The rest of the community is left holding the bag. How fair is that?
WATER could insure that everybody who has invested in the source basin benefits, and that there is a fair and open market in water. Anybody against that is either greedy or dishonest, and really ought to be running for congress instead of putting the screws to rural areas.
NOTES: The series by Mark Obmascik and Patrick O'Driscoll is damn good reporting of an important issue. Please pass along my compliments to all involved, and my hopes the Post does more of this sort of thing. High Country News shouldn't have a monopoly on thoughtful reporting of regional issues.
Tell Ewegen I like his recipe better than any others I've ever seen in the Post, and I year for the day he takes over Colorado Cooking on Wednesdays in addition to his other duties. Can I count on his support in the campaign to make the Jalapeno the official state vegetable?
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