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For a few minutes on Tuesday evening, I wondered if someone had slipped something into my coffee. The news reports had it that the early returns on Referendum A showed an overwhelming defeat for the proposal to borrow $2 billion for unspecified water projects. That seemed impossible. When you're afflicted with my political leanings, you're so accustomed to being on the losing side that it's hard to believe good news.
But the numbers held up, with Colorado defeating
Referendum A by a 2-1 margin; last summer, the polls showed
it passing comfortably. The principal supporter, Gov. Bill
Owens, did not apologize for promoting a divisive issue.
From foreign soil, he said the vote shows that we have
yet to reach a consensus.
Given the margin of defeat,
it appears that we have reached a consensus.
Another supporter in state government, Agricultural
Commissioner Don Ament, said I'm ready and willing, and
I'm sure the governor is, to say, 'Okay guys, what is your
plan?' We still have the problem, now I want to talk some
other solution.
Referendum A was designed to solve the problem of the south metro area -- Arapahoe, Douglas and Elbert counties. They've grown quickly, but rely on a declining aquifer. The groundwater will run out, so they need to find another water supply for both current and future users.
If there were a single entity that supplied water there, it would likely be big enough to construct a supply system with diverted water, in the same way that Denver, Aurora, Colorado Springs and Pueblo have built their water systems.
But there isn't a big single entity there. It's a maze of dozens of little water-and-sanitation districts, special districts, private wells and the like. Politically, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to consolidate them into a unified water provider that could grab enough water.
So they tried to get the state to step in with Referendum A, which was defeated -- it didn't even pass in Arapahoe, Douglas and Elbert counties.
A solution? They should form their own big water district to address their own present and future water supply problems, rather than expect the entire state to address their issues.
As for a statewide solution, here's a suggestion. Get
the state engineer's office to draw up a list of
underperforming reservoirs,
along with cost
estimates to bring them up to their rated capacities, and
perhaps expand them.
Thus we'd have a bang for the buck
rating for
improving storage capacity at minimal environmental
degradation. Then, to make it more politically salable,
parcel out the projects among drainages, so that each basin
gets a piece of this pie.
Put this list in front of the voters, along with some in-stream flows based on the increased storage, and it might well pass.
How would this work? We'll assume there's an Example Reservoir, built in 1922 with a capacity of 400 acre-feet to serve the Example Valley Irrigation Co. It could be expanded at reasonable cost to 500 acre-feet, but it currently holds only 300, on account of siltation and some dam-safety problems.
It gets on the list and voters approve the statewide plan. Example Valley irrigators pay part of the cost to bring their reservoir to 500 acre-feet; Colorado pays the rest. Example gets 400 acre-feet of storage, Colorado gets the other 100, which is released for in-stream flows when necessary.
Users would pay much of the cost of improvements; they might have to borrow the money. And if they wanted to borrow it from the state, the mechanisms are already there with the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority.
But where would the state get the money for its share? A
tax increase would be a hard sell, but since some of our
water
is flowing down to Arizona, Nevada and California
anyway, why not arrange to lease it to those states?
Instead of us spending billions to develop and transport
that water across two or three mountain ranges, let them
send us millions each year for letting the water do what it
wants to do anyway.
Granted, this solution isn't simple. But it would improve both storage and stream-flows. The projects would be listed, so we'd know what we were buying into. The projects would be divided among basins, so the pork would spread throughout the state. Those who benefit most would pay their fair share, and the rest of the cost would be covered without raising any Coloradan's taxes.
So there's one way to proceed, now that we've done right by Referendum A,
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