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"Water is an individual, an animal, and is alive, remove the hydrogen and it is an animal and is alive; the remaining oxygen is also an individual, an animal, and is alive. Recapitulation: the two individuals combined, constitute a third individual--and yet each continues to be an individual....here was mute Nature explaining the sublime mystery of the Trinity so luminously that even the commonest understanding could comprehend it, whereas many a trained master of words had labored to do it with speech and failed."
— Mark Twain, 'Three Thousand Years among the Microbes'
On this last Wednesday, December 10, the office of Governor Hickenlooper unveiled the draft of their Colorado Water Plan.[1] Seemingly few in Colorado took any note of this, and yet in a state where water is particularly vital it promises in time to possibly entirely reorder how water in Colorado is owned, managed and used.
By just the year 2050 this state could have spent some $20 billion on water related projects.[2] With such expenditure but the tip of the iceberg in a reordering of priorities, use, and common legal understandings.
Water law in Colorado has historically allocated ownership and usage of water by priority in first use. Or in some miners showing up in 1858, assisting any natives in the area to move elsewhere, staking mining claims, and in helping themselves to whatever water they needed for that (and later in associated agriculture and so forth) then taking a dim view of any later interlopers thinking they had as much right to this same water (now at least in part used). Add in a few lawyers later and one has in time our established commonly accepted water law where by now all the water in this state is at least theoretically owned by someone (and two-thirds of it by out of state parties, such as Nevada and Arizona and so forth, who insist on their fair share flowing out and down to them). With anyone wanting to use any water at all then having to get a license or otherwise buying the right of usage from someone.
That could all change. It should escape no one's notice that for well over a hundred years and more of water diversion tunnels and various schemes that there is now perceived the need of a master water plan for Colorado. Nor simply due the government wishing to see all this more rational and organized. The impetus lies is shortage, or that like it or not something has to be done. Recognized is the looming reality that this state's population continues to balloon, but the supply of water remain not only static, but due climate change indeed decrease over time. Then as well among the many competing claims for water is agriculture in this state, which if presently using the lion's share of our water has also through legal maneuvers increasingly lost its right to it, in this being sold off to municipalities. And to that extent, no more agriculture.
In contention are many varied interests. Not only farmers, but ranchers, environmental in seeing no undue harm to rivers, etc., associated recreational concerns such as ski areas have, industry, water districts, and in whole the entire panoply of anyone in this state not only wishing to use some water, but perhaps some interest in how it is otherwise allocated.
It should be emphasized that this current Colorado Water Plan just unveiled is but a draft, a trial balloon if you will, and one likely to suffer slings and arrows from many directions and vested interests. It is also a compilation of eight other often conflicting plans of river basin roundtables in this state, each with their own needs and agendas. To date there has been widespread input, thus:
“This plan represents hundreds of conversations and comments involving people in our cities, our rural communities, from both sides of the Continental Divide,” said James Eklund, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. “It benefited from the engagement of farmers, ranchers, environmentalists, utilities and water districts, industry and business, and the public at large.” [3]
Moreover, as but a draft malleable to further input. Some 13,000 citizens have thus far made their concerns known, if that leaving the bulk of Colorado's some 5 million still out in the wilderness, as it were. If every last one of us will be affected in some way once all that formalized.
Fortunately, one still has plenty of time to complain. Indeed, all of 2015 and even beyond. Public comments on this plan are welcome through the close of 2015. After that, in 2016, then the Colorado Legislature gets their hands on this. At which point the politics will really begin. One might expect many Coloradoans will only possibly pay any attention when then some fireworks appear in the media, and the dawning realization that what is afoot may fundamentally affect them. But one needn't wait that long.
Take just water diversions, in example. Denver Water currently appropriates between 20 and 30 percent of the water Summit County would otherwise have. They promise no further diversions without at least a pow wow first. But, as the greater populace of the Front Range and their entities, retaining the option to revisit this and take all the more water should they wish. Even as West Slope residents say there is no more water to be had from them (or at least not without various degrees of suffering).
It is all tied together, we all in various contentions and visions of best allocation for a precious resource which is already over-spoken for.
With the serious wrangling over water and our future with it in Colorado having just begun.
"It's pretty much, I mean, black and white. We find a way to use a lot less water per person or we don't have more people coming here. There is no magic." [1]
— Governor Hickenlooper
The Denver Post recently ran a brief article which touches upon a number of key aspects in Colorado's future relation with water.[1] That, to put it succinctly, a deficit of 163 billion gallons is projected by 2050. This in a state which already has its water resources oversubscribed.
While enforced rationing is envisioned as one method to resolve such a dilemma, new construction projects to the tune of $18 to $20 billion by 2050 are as well. However with the state pleading poverty, it envisions the use of private investment to fund such projects. So citizens of this state can expect not only more restrictions on how they use water, but also higher costs for such privilege. As with US 36 and other road projects, not only our formally public roads but also community water resources will be privatized, towards the personal profit of a few—not the common betterment of all (or water delivered at lowest possible cost).
As noted within this article, the communities of southern Denver may have to consider water sources beyond the aquifer presently used. The physical limitations faced are real. If other aspects are largely discretionary. There is projected to be such a large shortfall in available water simply due assumed demand. Or an increase in Colorado's population from 5.3 million today to some 10 million by 2050. With it estimated then some 2.5 million of these new residents without any water, as all stands now.
There is at last only so much water in Colorado, with the total amount in precipitation in rain and snow projected to decrease in coming decades due climate change. How that is apportioned will involve a good deal of politics, if all and even the apolitical will feel the effects. This is being decided now, with best chance for public input and influence on decisions that will influence their lives long into the future being the remainder of this year, 2015.
Insofar as water, this may well not remain your grandfathers Colorado.
I would agree strongly that corn for ethanol is a waste. What Mike and others ignorant of the water situation on the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain West don't understand is that there are going to be several million acres (probably tens of millions) that are going to be removed from corn production by the continuing depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer. Much of that land will either go back to much less productive use--either dryland wheat or milo, or back to native grass pasture land. (One note about that--no one has figured out how to make grass digestible by humans, other than by eating a ruminant animal that has grazed on grass, or utilizing the products of that animal like milk--so vegetarians may have a hard time of it in a few years.) All of this will have a huge impact on not just regional food production, but national food production, and that process is already beginning in the parts of the Ogallala Aquifer most subject to depletion. All of this portends big changes to the US diet, and, very possibly, food shortages and even starvation for some Americans. We will come to regret lapping up water supplies to irrigate lawns, and paving over some of the region's best farmland for suburbia.
Vegetarians are going to have a hard time because they can't eat grass? If you are suggesting a shortage in vegetarian food because of lack of water, you should know that the amount of water used in a vegetarian diet pales in comparison to the amount of water it takes to raise a cow. It's not even close. If water conservation via dietary intake is the way we should go, we should all become vegan.
Beef turns out to have an overall water footprint of roughly four million gallons per ton produced. By contrast, the water footprint for “sugar crops” like sugar beets is about 52,000 gallons per ton; for vegetables it’s 85,000 gallons per ton; and for starchy roots it’s about 102,200 gallons per ton
^You misread what I posted. When the Ogallala depletes, there will be a lot of land that will be barely suitable for dryland crop production, and a huge amount of land that will go back to rangeland. Rangeland relies primarily on natural precipitation. But, humans can't eat grass unless it's converted by an animal (dairy or meat products) into something that we can digest. The figure for water use to raise a cow is a red herring. That assumes that the cow spends most of its life in a feedlot being fed a corn/silage mix, not grazing out on the range. While the feedlot regime is the way most cattle are raised today, it won't be as more cropland has to revert to rangeland. We're going to be eating a lot more range-fed beef in the future.
The other fact that city-slickers ignore is that when they talk about "corn-fed" beef is that they assume that means that all that cow is eating is shelled corn. Actually a large part of what cattle are fed is corn silage, which is the processed stalks cobs, etc. of the corn plant. All of that is cellulose, which humans can't digest.
^You misread what I posted. When the Ogallala depletes, there will be a lot of land that will be barely suitable for dryland crop production, and a huge amount of land that will go back to rangeland. Rangeland relies primarily on natural precipitation. But, humans can't eat grass unless it's converted by an animal (dairy or meat products) into something that we can digest. The figure for water use to raise a cow is a red herring. That assumes that the cow spends most of its life in a feedlot being fed a corn/silage mix, not grazing out on the range. While the feedlot regime is the way most cattle are raised today, it won't be as more cropland has to revert to rangeland. We're going to be eating a lot more range-fed beef in the future.
The other fact that city-slickers ignore is that when they talk about "corn-fed" beef is that they assume that means that all that cow is eating is shelled corn. Actually a large part of what cattle are fed is corn silage, which is the processed stalks cobs, etc. of the corn plant. All of that is cellulose, which humans can't digest.
Ahhh I know this version of the paranoid, survivalist, right wing, apocalyptic wet dream. Basically the liberal, urban dwellers are left without food and the good rural rancher folk raise their cattle which they defend from those short sighted idiots who hadn't planned so well with their arsenals of AR-15s. All the while the cities burn themselves to the ground.
The urban liberals will of course be the first to die off because they have no survival skills or guns but it will be poetic justice because they have long looked down their noses at the hard working real Americans who have sweated their tails off to feed the undeserving, unappreciative city clowns.
It's going to be hard. Society will collapse but it serves us right for voting in a Communist Muslim president. This was the only possible outcome.
3) 'Draft of Colorado’s Water Plan points out conflicts, collaborations on path to secure water future,' Summit Daily Draft of Colorado
I couldn't get the first link to work and since it looked important, I searched for the updated link. I believe this is it and wanted to share for others interested. Over 400 pages of info.
Ahhh I know this version of the paranoid, survivalist, right wing, apocalyptic wet dream. Basically the liberal, urban dwellers are left without food and the good rural rancher folk raise their cattle which they defend from those short sighted idiots who hadn't planned so well with their arsenals of AR-15s. All the while the cities burn themselves to the ground.
The urban liberals will of course be the first to die off because they have no survival skills or guns but it will be poetic justice because they have long looked down their noses at the hard working real Americans who have sweated their tails off to feed the undeserving, unappreciative city clowns.
It's going to be hard. Society will collapse but it serves us right for voting in a Communist Muslim president. This was the only possible outcome.
Whatever helps you sleep at night.
I'm actually a pretty strident conservationist. That said, I spent a lot of years in agriculture and dealing with water issues. One of the biggest misconceptions among most Americans, especially those who have never had any connection to the land or to agriculture, is that America has endless agricultural abundance and a completely secure food supply. In fact, this country's food supply is likely never been as insecure as it is today. It is way too dependent on depleting water supplies, fossil fuel-based fertilizers, an extremely fuel-inefficient transportation system, and--in the last few years--more and more dependent on actual food imports from other countries. It wouldn't take much disruption in any one or a couple of those areas to very graphically demonstrate just how tenuous a lot of our food supply really is. Meanwhile, we continue to convert more and more of our best farmland to suburbia, divert agricultural water to irrigating worthless Kentucky Bluegrass, and once again make the same mistakes in agricultural practices that led to the Dust Bowl in the 1930's. Sadly, most Americans--especially suburban Americans--are oblivious to the hazards. All of that's not about one's political bent, it's about reality.
I'm actually a pretty strident conservationist. That said, I spent a lot of years in agriculture and dealing with water issues. One of the biggest misconceptions among most Americans, especially those who have never had any connection to the land or to agriculture, is that America has endless agricultural abundance and a completely secure food supply. In fact, this country's food supply is likely never been as insecure as it is today. It is way too dependent on depleting water supplies, fossil fuel-based fertilizers, an extremely fuel-inefficient transportation system, and--in the last few years--more and more dependent on actual food imports from other countries. It wouldn't take much disruption in any one or a couple of those areas to very graphically demonstrate just how tenuous a lot of our food supply really is. Meanwhile, we continue to convert more and more of our best farmland to suburbia, divert agricultural water to irrigating worthless Kentucky Bluegrass, and once again make the same mistakes in agricultural practices that led to the Dust Bowl in the 1930's. Sadly, most Americans--especially suburban Americans--are oblivious to the hazards. All of that's not about one's political bent, it's about reality.
I've represented a stakeholder group on a water use panel. It never ceased to amaze me how much finger pointing goes on at these meetings.
Yes you are right that suburban development is an issue, but the reluctance of the biggest users to adopt best practices when it comes to water use is the biggest problem IMO. Big Ag is the worst offender of them all. They rely on gov't subsidy to pay for water to farm in arid land they have no business being in. They buy congressmen and senators to ensure that's these practices will not end.
Dense urban development is the answer to the suburban sprawl you so loathe, and it is something that Denver is doing a better job of pursuing than nearly any other Western city. It makes me question your immense distaste for the city.
If you really want to know how we got where we are today, there is no better book than "Cadillac Desert".
I read Cadillac Desert within months of it being published back in the 1980's. As for Denver metro, I don't loathe what I call "original" Denver as much as I loathe the monster called modern suburbia that has come to dominate Denver and every other major city in the US.
I read Cadillac Desert within months of it being published back in the 1980's. As for Denver metro, I don't loathe what I call "original" Denver as much as I loathe the monster called modern suburbia that has come to dominate Denver and every other major city in the US.
I dislike suburban development as well. Moving people towards urban centers is the best long term solution for our country. It is so much more efficient. Denver is doing a better job of this than most other western cities. Developing a usable mass transit system is integral.
As for the best farmland being turned in to suburbia, there is very little best farmland in Colorado. Our growing season is too short and we don't have the natural water to support it. A tremendous amount of our government subsidized water gets used to grow high water crops with short growing seasons like alfalfa that is used to feed livestock. Farming should mostly be done in other states. People should eat far less meat. We should not be using fossil fuels as much as we do. The list goes on, but unfortunately people don't want to make the tough decisions.
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Future water issues
