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Old 06-11-2021, 06:37 PM
 
Location: CO/UT/AZ/NM Catch me if you can!
6,926 posts, read 6,892,031 times
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I wasn't sure if I should have posted this here or up under the Colorado Springs forum, but I'm sure that our mods will see that this is placed in its correct spot.

I read this story on Coyote Gulch and heard it in much more detail on Colorado Public Radio:

Quote:
Colorado Springs is one of the fastest growing regions in the state. Homes are getting more expensive and harder to buy. The boom is expanding into nearby cities — and the pressure is building…

There are currently fewer than 9,000 taps, or connections, to Fountain’s water supply. Over the last year, Dan Blankenship utilities director for the City of Fountain in El Paso County. said developers have applied for nearly 30,000 new taps to the city’s water system.

Blankenship is telling developers, Fountain is tapped out…

To support that many new taps, the city would need to buy additional rights to use more water. They would also need a place to store that water, and the city would need to treat it and find a way to get it to homes.

Where the city of Fountain gets its water from

Fountain gets most of its water from the Pueblo Reservoir, which is filled with water that would otherwise end up in the Colorado River. The reservoir project was built in the 1970s. It’s unlikely the city would be able to build something similar today, Blankenship said. It’s a lot tougher to do that now, just because of the environmental concerns…

Smith said it’s becoming more common for developers to have to secure water rights and pay for additional water infrastructure if they want to build a big project.

But he said the situation in Fountain is unusual…

Fountain hasn’t finalized any plans yet, but they say developers are going to need to help pay the millions of dollars to buy those new water rights, reservoirs, and pipes needed to support that kind of growth. Blankenship, Fountain’s utility director, said instead of the city paying for that upfront, he wants to shift that cost to developers…

No matter how a developer might have to secure water for a new project, the cost will get rolled into the price of a new home, said Kevin Walker, with the housing and building association in Colorado Springs…

Kevin Reidy, a senior water conservation specialist with the Colorado Water Conservation Board, said other water utilities are also worried about how to keep up with growth. Fountain is just the first to talk so openly about the issue…
(bolding my own)

- More at the links above.

The situation in Fountain is not unusual at all. The only thing that is unusual is Fountain's willingness to state that the emperor has no clothes.

The West - Colorado included - has been experiencing severe drought for the past 20 years. The last time a drought this deep and this extensive struck our region was back in the 1200's and it led to the depopulation of many areas - think Mesa Verde or Chaco Canyon - as the ancestor's of today's Pueblo Indians pulled up stakes and left looking for places that still had access to water either in springs or rivers or falling from the sky in an amount adequate for dryland farming.

This time around, our current cycle of deep drought has been made even worse by the impacts of climate change. Increasing temperatures mean increased evaporation and the drying out of soils which then soak up most runoff instead of allowing it to flow into rivers and streams and ultimately into the Nation's largest reservoirs - Lake Mead and Lake Powell. Both Powell and Mead are now only about one third full - the lowest amount since they were constructed.

The Front Range cities are hopefully eyeing the Western Slope in hopes of diverting more water across the Continental Divide to the thirsty and ever growing cities like the Springs and Denver. Except that we don't have any water to spare either since the Western Slope is now experiencing its worst drought in recorded history with no hope for recovery anywhere in sight.

If the Front Range wants to continue to grow, builders and water managers are going to have to come up with more creative - and viable solutions. It does no good to build a dam that will never fill with water. Cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas are going to have to accept that they exist in an arid desert landscape - probably as soon as 2022 when Arizona will lose most of its Colorado River water. In 2023 Denver may well be next.
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Old 06-12-2021, 11:03 AM
 
9,868 posts, read 7,604,472 times
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

Setting up more bank accounts does no good if you don’t earn any money to put in them.

Building more reservoirs during a time of increasing droughtiness makes holes in the ground, not water.

And this year, the Front Range got almost all the snow and rain. Hey, time for them to send water TO the western slope!
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Old 06-12-2021, 02:39 PM
 
Location: CO/UT/AZ/NM Catch me if you can!
6,926 posts, read 6,892,031 times
Reputation: 16507
Quote:
Originally Posted by pikabike View Post
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

Setting up more bank accounts does no good if you don’t earn any money to put in them.

Building more reservoirs during a time of increasing droughtiness makes holes in the ground, not water.

And this year, the Front Range got almost all the snow and rain. Hey, time for them to send water TO the western slope!
Hah! I like the way you think!
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Old 06-12-2021, 04:59 PM
 
6,802 posts, read 10,437,008 times
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I am really glad Fountain is saying no because of water. Finally someone not saying yes to every development regardless of water availability.
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Old 06-16-2021, 10:59 PM
 
Location: Eastern Colorado
3,887 posts, read 5,722,539 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by otowi View Post
I am really glad Fountain is saying no because of water. Finally someone not saying yes to every development regardless of water availability.

There are a lot of towns that require developers bring water with them for developments, that has been going on for years along the front range.

The big difference here is that they are making developers pay for the new required infrastructure that is needed. Having to build some kind of reservoir system and upgrade the rest of the system is a new idea. It will be interesting to see what happens, as you are talking millions in additional costs meaning that they are only going to get very large developments or very high end homes going into the area.
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Old 06-17-2021, 08:24 AM
 
Location: Taos NM
5,319 posts, read 5,046,642 times
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How much do you think the water situation is a limiter to development state wide vs being a limiter just to the Front Range corridor? Like, is the San Luis Valley or Eagle County able to keep growing and adding houses since they are closer to water sources the Front Range wants to pump water from?

Also, for a lot of smaller mountain towns in south central Colorado, is it mostly well water? Do places like Colorado City, Westcliffe, or Buena Vista have a central water supplier or is it groundwater?
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Old 06-17-2021, 09:43 AM
 
Location: Leadville, CO
1,027 posts, read 1,960,472 times
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AFAIK Buena Vista gets its municipal water from the Cottonwood Creek drainage and it's somewhat rare for mountain towns to draw water from the main rivers (none out of Leadville, BV, Salida get their water from the Arkansas, for example; we all draw from side drainages). Not sure about tinier places like Colorado City.

Although water is obviously plentiful for the mountain towns, (again AFAIK) development can be limited because we're only entitled to certain amounts of that water in order to ensure that downstream communities (and states, and on and on) are served the amounts they're allocated as well. I think Ouray County, maybe just the city of Ouray, was having this problem where they can't grow much until they secure additional water rights?

On the other hand, I've never heard of restrictions on growth in Eagle County, Lake County, etc. due to water rights, so perhaps most places around here just happen to have a lot of capacity that they aren't reaching yet. Could just vary widely from place to place.
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Old 06-17-2021, 02:04 PM
 
Location: Taos NM
5,319 posts, read 5,046,642 times
Reputation: 6682
Thanks for the insight Tony! That's good to hear, it sounds like many decent sized towns have side drainage options and a central distribution system. Wells seem expensive and problem prone, glad that's not the default.

Thinking of possibly moving to a mountain town in the future when a WFH job happens and the supply chain straightens out again, but water is one of those factors that determines where is and is not a good place to consider.
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