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Now that we have statewide elections every year, we see ballot initiatives in circulation almost continuously concerning abortion, tax-limitation, property taxation, etc. But I've yet to see the one we need most: a numeric limit on pending water projects.
As a somewhat informed and concerned citizen of a rural region that comprises the headwaters of most major river systems in Colorado, I try to stay current on the various schemes, plans, proposals and diversions which might affect this area.
But it would be more than a full-time job. Recently I received correspondence from a troublemaker asking me why I hadn't written about the Animas-La Plata project in the Durango area, which he characterized as deceptive pork-barrel spending or worse.
I gave a feeble excuse: My available time for examining water projects is already quite occupied.
For instance, there's Elephant Rock, a dam proposed by Colorado Springs across the Arkansas a few miles north of Buena Vista. The last I heard, it had moved to a back burner, as Colorado Springs had agreed to pursue other storage alternatives first.
But nowhere have I noticed any official announcement
that No reservoir will ever be built at Elephant Rock,
by Colorado Springs or anyone else.
So I have to keep
my file open; I can't just do the sensible thing and forget
all about it, except in nightmares.
Across the Mosquito Range from Elephant Rock lies South Park, where the City of Aurora has proposed to use an aquifer as a rechargeable subterranean reservoir. My tenuous understanding is that in real wet years, water will be injected into the underground gravels, to be withdrawn in the frequent dry years.
Neighbors worry about the effects on their wells, both
Democrats in Park County fear that fueling Aurora's growth
with more water will produce more suburban Republicans, and
when I consult a friend who retired from the U.S.
Geological Survey as a groundwater hydrologist to see
whether this makes any sense, he tells me that hydrology
is more an art than a science. What do you need me to
say?
Not much hope of making sense of that one, one way or another, and across the Sawatch Range from Elephant Rock lies Taylor Park, which contains a smaller park, Union Park. That's where Arapaho County says there's surplus water which could support new and improved forms of suburban sprawl, but is unfortunately being wasted now on hundreds of miles of trees and fish and before California gets it.
If it were up to me, I'd figure that if the water is destined to support more off-ramp shopping strips, regional malls and cookie-cutter housing developments, better to do that in California than Colorado. But it's not up to me, and it's yet another water project to keep track of.
North of Elephant Rock, just across the Continental Divide, there's the Homestake Project, which Colorado Springs and Aurora wanted to expand. Eagle County used its land-use powers to stop that, and the state supreme court upheld the county. But Aurora and Colorado Springs have since been trying to get the legislature to take away this power from counties. So it's not over.
South of Elephant Rock, over Poncha Pass, is the San Luis Valley. It surface is 7,000 feet above sea level, its bedrock floor is below sea level, and all the gravel in between is supposedly saturated with water that nobody is using at the moment.
Thus the AWDI plan to develop it, which the courts
stopped. But it 's not over, either, with Gary Boyce's
No Dam Water Project,
which offers some surface
water to replace any local groundwater losses. That, too,
will require considerable study for me to comprehend what's
proposed and its possible effects.
This list of water projects to worry about within 60
miles of Elephant Rock
is by no means exhaustive,
either. For instance, the state Division of Wildlife wants
to swap some land with the City of Salida, and water is
involved there, on account of a lawsuit Kansas won against
Colorado concerning the flow of the Arkansas River.
So, there are several dozen reasons that I've never delved very deeply into Animas-La Plata.
And that's why I'd like to see a constitutional
amendment which would establish The Colorado Commission
on Water Project Discussion Priorities.
The commission
would meet annually, decided which project would get
attention that year, and we could focus just on that one;
all others would pend in abeyance for the next 12 months
and we could safely turn our backs on them for the
duration.
Failing that, perhaps some civic-minded Colorado institution will open a web site with the particulars, from proposals to engineering studies and financing plans, of every pending water project.
As it is, there's no way to keep up with all these schemes to develop more Front Range real estate at the expense of the rest of the state. Get distracted for even a moment, and another one pops up, or an old one is resurrected.
Our state should limit them to one at a time, or keep us up to date on all of them.
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