YES: Drought was a warning

Denver Post ^ | 10/19/2003 | Bill Owens

[inPhase]

This year, we have an opportunity to save Colorado's water.

Water - the lack of it, the fights over it, the need for it - has defined the American West. Throughout the centuries, the value of water hasn't been really appreciated until it's scarce. Last year, nature challenged us with the worst drought in centuries.

Some may have forgotten how tough this drought is on the people and the economy of Colorado. I haven't. Last summer, many ranchers sold off their herds early, at a devastating financial loss. The nation saw the plight of our farmers, whose crops withered and died.

We cannot change what nature has in store for Colorado. But we can change how we face those challenges and take steps to protect Colorado's communities, jobs and our economy.

Colorado's poet laureate, Thomas Hornsby Ferrill, recognized that our future depends upon water. Memorialized in the state Capitol are his words: "Here is a land where life is written in water." With a vision for the future, he went on: "Beyond the sundown is Tomorrow's Wisdom," he said, and "today is going to be long, long ago."

In order to ensure our economic and environmental prosperity, present and future generations must recapture that vision for the future. Referendum A, with its purpose clearly directed at saving Colorado's water, does just that.

For decades, the status quo for meeting Colorado's water needs has been the buy-up and dry-up of irrigated agricultural lands. But this unsustainable practice leaves local communities and wildlife habitat suffering. Add to this the threat of continued drought and increased demands on Colorado's unused water from burgeoning downstream states like Nevada and California, and our environment is clearly at risk. Meeting the state's water needs for future generations requires planning, initiative and new partnerships. Water storage must benefit not one but multiple uses, including drinking water, irrigation, hydropower, recreation and the environment.

Currently, Colorado has rights to more water than we actually use. According to most estimates, approximately 16 million acre-feet fall on Colorado each year in the form of rain and snow. Of that 16 million acre-feet, we are currently able to store 6 million and we have rights to about 9 million. That means in the good years, prior to this drought, we have had a lot of water that belonged to us that we simply could not store. As the reservoirs reached capacity, the water just flowed downstream to other states.

At its heart, Referendum A is about saving Colorado's water. Referred to the November ballot by a bipartisan majority of state legislators, Referendum A allows communities to combat drought and water shortages by accessing funds for three important components of a comprehensive water policy: conservation; improvement and repair of existing facilities; and new storage capacity.

Today, some municipalities can use their rate base to help pay for bonds for infrastructure projects. But smaller communities and private entities, such as agricultural, recreational and environmental interests, lack the revenues required to repay project costs. With the passage of Referendum A, cooperative projects between diverse interests can be financed for the very first time.

Critics have argued that Referendum A is a blank check that will leave taxpayers with the bill. That's simply false. Referendum A allows entities with revenue streams to partner with other interests to finance infrastructure. As each project is approved, the stake-holders in that project must prove a revenue stream to bond houses. The bond house then has a legal claim on that revenue, and only that revenue.

Revenue bonds are not a new idea in Colorado. The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHAFA) has successfully provided revenue bonds for more than 20 years to build hospitals, affordable housing and nursing homes. Referendum A is modeled after this very successful program. The CHAFA Board, similar to the Water Conservation Board, recommends worthy projects, and the governor in turn authorizes bonds.

With the passage of Referendum A, we will be able to take that same successful process and provide the same opportunities for water infrastructure that we do for hospitals and nursing homes. Not one dime has been lost to the taxpayer under CHAFA, and the program has put a quarter of a billion dollars of new capital into Colorado in just one year.

Opponents have also argued that Referendum A will somehow undo environmental standards or benefit one region of the state over another. That too is a false claim. Referendum A is aimed specifically at financing needed water storage projects. Financing is an economic issue - not a political one. The complex array of state and federal laws that govern environmental compliance and permitting remain firmly in place.

If we fail to learn anything from the drought, we are going to see Colorado's farms, open space and parks continue to dry up. That's not a legacy that I or anyone else wants to leave our future generations. The bottom line for voters in November is: Do Coloradans want to store more of Colorado's water to benefit all Coloradans? The answer is "absolutely yes."

Bill Owens is governor of Colorado.

[inPhase]

"Coloradans want to store more of Colorado's water to benefit all Coloradans? The answer is "absolutely yes." Bill Owens is governor of Colorado."

[alloysteel]

Keep an eye on this Bill Owens. He will be available in January 2005, and Dubya would be well advised to tuck him in the Cabinet somewhere. With a continued high profile after his term as Colorado governor is fulfilled, Owens should be a prospect for a Presidential candidate run himself.

SOMEBODY has to be prepared to face the Queen of Harpies, Herself, in 2008. Not that far away....

[Porterville]

The Los Angeles Basin has to go!!! It is bad for everyone.

[Reagan Man]

At its heart, Referendum A is about saving Colorado's water.

There's nothing more important to the future of Colorado and its people, then the availability of water. The recent drought brought considerable difficulties to Colorado's farmers, ranchers and general infrastucture. The Colorado Water Conservation Board needs this approval to fund the construction of new reservoirs to keep water in the state and not lose it to downstream states.

The only possible vote on Referendum A, is a big YES!

[CHUCKfromCAL]

Water storage is a good ideal anywhere in the West. The West is almost all arid land - much of it is desert.

a major portion of the fresh water available in the west is consumed by agriculture. Very soon we are going to have to ask ourselves if the benefits of having farms and ranches in the west is outweighed by the cost to the taxpayers for supplying them with water to operate.

I suspect that the people in Denver, Las Vegas and Los Angles would vote for water for themselves and their families. That means that the Midwest and East will have to grow and supply food for the West.

[inPhase]

Owens has been in the news and is making his moves.

But the water issue is becoming a SW states war (again) and just hope that they keep the feds out of it.

LA and SD need desalination plants asap. They would pay for themselves.

[Jeff Chandler]

Oh, that reminds me. I left the water running in the back yard. Love that CAP canal!

[inPhase]

That's why I hope the feds don't step in. LA and San Diego are siphoning all the water up, and have been since LA water district won the big and famous water wars ~100 years ago.

But I don't know if farming/ranching is the bigger consumer of water in CA or if they pay less for it.

[AuntB]

Water ping!

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[Porterville]

LA and SD shouldn't have lawns and grass that require so much water for vanity's sake, they should landscape with indigenous plants... instead of stealing water from the rest of California and the other SW states. That would be a start... They've nearly sucked that lake up in Yosemite dry.

[E.G.C.]

Oklahoma agriculture ping

[alloysteel]

Desalination plants may not be the answer for water demand in Los Angeles and San Diego. There is a similar project in the Tampa Bay region in Florida (yes, Florida has a water problem too). They have run into technical problems with the reverse-osmosis filtration system, and there is the further problem with discharge of the higher-salinity effluent. The second problem is probably easier than the first. Long discharge pipes are sent out several miles into the Gulf, so the high-saline water does not affect the estuaries near the coast. The primary problem is the system as it exists now, is woefully below the necessary capacity to assure redundancy as the filters are changed on a more frequent basis.

For California: A sea-level canal, half a mile wide, from Brownsville, Texas to Imperial Beach, California, following along the US-Mexico border. A translucent roof over this canal, to serve as a heat collector and to keep the humidity from the evaporation of the water in the canal trapped until it is condensed and drained off, for use in homes, industry and agriculture. Several birds shall be taken with the same cast of the stone.

Mexico is effectively separated from the US by a barrier that would make EVERY illegal entrant literally a "wetback" should they attempt to cross over deserts and through tunnels.

Yuma, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas become seaports.

Transit time by ship between Asia and East Coast or Gulf ports vastly shortened.

Massive employment in US while the new canal is being built.

Much new technology emerges from the terraforming efforts that go into the design and construction of this engineering project.

Mexico gains much respect for their northern neighbor. They might even be induced to take up a little initiative and ambition of their own.

And of course, the water problem for the whole Southwest, if not cured, is at least alleviated.

Of course, there are a few problems with what to do with the spoil from the project. Putting it on barges and hauling it out to ocean depths to be dumped may not be practical, and simply dumping it in the Sonora and Mojave deserts may raise some legal challenges. More than that is simply digging the excavation, a far more impressive undertaking than simply building the Pyramids, for example.

Hey, you inventors. We need teleportion and anti-gravity devices, NOW. Comb the curliques out of your thinking caps, and get busy.

Dream no small dreams.

[inPhase]

Was enjoying your post and ideas until I got to the anto grav devices, but the best humor is needed given how serious the water problems are becoming.

Since it is all politics, hard to say reason will have a rule. But something will certainly have to give.

Good point about the salt density of the effluents.

[inPhase]

ping sure, tough water call ping.

[blackie]

Wet ~ Bump!

[marsh2]

I presume from your statements that you do not eat food.

[CHUCKfromCAL]

Farming / Ranching uses between 65% and 90% of the water in the west (varies by state and location). The bulk of the water consumption in southern California is Agricultural.

[inPhase]

Am not surprised that farming/ranching is the big user of water in the west.

What do the Saudis do with the desalination effluents? Didn't we build those plants for them?