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Colorado’s Water Challenges For The 21st Century

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DefinitionsAcre-foot: Equals about 326,000 gallons—

enough to serve a family of four, for a single year.

Doctrine of Prior Appropriations: The use of water in many of the western United States is governed by this law, which rests on the premise of “first in time, first in right.” Therefore, the first person to use water, acquires a senior right or "priority" to its future use against later users with junior rights or “junior priorities.”

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Colorado’s Eight Major Water Basins

Yampa/White

North Platte

Colorado

South Platte

Arkansas

Rio Grande

Gunnison

San Juan/Dolores

4July, 2000

July, 2005

July, 2010

July, 2015

July, 2020

July, 2025

July, 2030

July, 2035

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1000000

2000000

3000000

4000000

5000000

6000000

7000000

8000000

9000000

State Population

Front Range Popu-lation

Water Supply

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From 1950-2000: the population in the Western States increased from 13.3% to 22.5 %

Between 2004-2005: 5 out of the 6 fastest growing states were in the west.

Arizona (3.5%)Nevada (3.5%)Idaho (2.4%)

Utah (2%)Texas (1.7%)

Colorado (1.4%)

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Agriculture still holds or consumes as much as 90% of the water in western states like Colorado.

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Balancing land use planning with growth pressures.

Exploring ways for agricultural water to be transferred and not permanent:negotiating agreements for leasing ag water;agricultural water right programs like fallow field

or water bank programs.exploring non-tributary groundwater (aquifers);balancing water rights with non-tributary ground

water rights; and developing water reuse methods such as grey

water storage, or rain harvesting.

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Water Infrastructure

9www.asce.org/reportcard

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Federal Aide?Federal funding: the operation and maintenance

budget of the two largest federal water supply agencies (The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation now exceed their construction budgets. Both their operation and maintenance backlogs as well as their rehabilitation and replacement needs, continues to grow.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s funding for the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act is declining while needs continue to grow.

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2008 Report Card For Colorado's Infrastructure. (American Society of Civil Engineers)

Colorado’s Top Three Infrastructure Concerns:

RoadsDrinking WaterBridges

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2008 Report Card For America's Infrastructure. (American Society of Civil Engineers)

352 high hazard dams, whose failure would cause a significant loss of life and property damage;

2 percent of high hazard dams in Colorado have no emergency action plan to address dam failure;

9 of Colorado’s 1,935 dams are in need of rehabilitation to meet applicable state dam safety standards;

Colorado’s drinking water infrastructure needs an investment of $5.32 billion over the next 20 years; and

Colorado has $2.13 billion in wastewater infrastructure needs.

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Answering Colorado’s Water Challenges

Strategies will have to be pursued on and between several different levels in order to approach the topic of addressing both water infrastructure and water supply in Colorado.

Solutions will have to be done cooperatively and resourcefully through federal, state, and local funding partnerships.

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Using What We Have + Finding More?

Exploring new water sources and maximizing our current water usage seem to be the dichotomy of water strategies in the west. The latter challenge involves changing how people use water.

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Changing How We Think About Water

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“Future water policy must find a new equilibrium.”

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Other Pressing Water Issues: Increasing Energy needs;Recreational Needs;Unquantified Indian water rights claims;

(Winters v. United States 1908)Water Rights for Endangered Species

(Federal Endangered Species Act of 1973) Threat of climate change.

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