Colorado and the West is running out of water . . . (Aurora: law, to move)

[reginhild]

USGS Analysis of the Arkansas River changes as a result of the Pueblo and John Martin Resevoir:

An analysis of historical specificconductance data indicates that specific conductance in the Arkansas River changed as the result of main-stem reservoir operations. Specific conductance upstream from Pueblo and at Las Animas tended to decrease following the construction of Pueblo Reservoir. Likewise, specific conductance downstream from John Martin Reservoir and at Lamar decreased after implementation of the 1980 John Martin Reservoir operating plan. The decrease in specific conductance at the site upstream from Pueblo is beneficial from a municipal drinking-water-supply perspective because streamflow in this area provides drinking water to the greater Pueblo area. Although specific conductance increased at the site near Avondale, the increase after 1974 was not large enough to change the salinity hazard for irrigated agriculture. Although specific conductance decreased at Las Animas, downstream from John Martin Reservoir, and at Lamar, the decrease was not large enough to change the salinity hazard for irrigated agriculture. The salinity hazard at all three sites remained high to very high (greater than 2,250 mS/cm).

Basically, any increase in consumption while maintaining resevoir levels will result in downstream effects.

[Josseppie]

"The decrease in specific conductance at the site upstream from Pueblo is beneficial from a municipal drinking-water-supply perspective because streamflow in this area provides drinking water to the greater Pueblo area"

I guess this is good for Pueblo.....

[CometVoyager]

Originally Posted by Nadine

Hey all I said was there were lots of ways to save water. I am not going to be included in this argument. No I am not confused and I am not an uniformed idiot either. If you want to have rocks in your front yd. Have them. I irrigate from the river yes and I will continue to. I have a hay field and a small lawn which I will continue to keep. Animals do not eat rocks. I fill my dishwasher, my wash machine, and put a plug in my sink to wash my face etc etc etc. So you do your thing and I will do mine. But that does not make me wrong or you right. Water that my lawn, garden and fields do not use into the plants themselves goes into a water table that is about 2 ft below, flows into a number of different springs that flow back into the river. Those springs were not there until people stopped using wells. So now it spills over and comes out in the springs. You are speaking again of cities, large cities that take water from other areas. I don't and I don't waste. Oh by the way the Panik did not have anything to do with Canon City.

Nadine, not to worry about Colorado ever running out of water. The only problem Colorado may have with regards to its water resources are the way they are managed. And unfortunately water rights are a big political and power issue in this state and when you do the research you will find it is all about $$$$$.

Colorado, ranks in square miles as our 8th state and only with a population of aprox 5 million whereas New York with no less than 3 times the population of Colorado ranks in square miles as 27th!

Colorado has vast fresh water resources from its rivers, lakes, high Rocky Mountain Streams, Lakes and Snow Pack, huge underground sealed natural aquifers and many treated municipal water tables!
In other words this thread is only here to try to scare you and spew erroneous facts about Colorado running out of water!

Just do the math and with a little research at your local library or public works department you will find the truth!

So water your lawn all day if you must, water your live stock and agricultural needs and please get involved in local water politics so you can help stop the fraud and lying that is falsely elevating water rates in this state!:mad :

[Bideshi]

I recommend the book "Cadillac Desert" for those who want to sort out the truth of the conflicting statements.

[jazzlover]

Don't try to argue with CometVoyager--it's futile. He will never let the facts get in the way of his story. His asinine comparison of New York to Colorado is a great example. He should check the average precipitation of over the land area of New York compared to Colorado. Of course, if he did, the complete idiocy of the comparison would be apparent. And all the little stupid emoticons in the world don't change the reality.

[MtnFlyer]

Originally Posted by MtnFlyer

So is this really a Colorado issue or a ~40 state issue? If it's the later then would a statewide irrigation ban really do any good? Wouldn't the aquifer depletion continue and Colorado be right back in the same position in a matter of months? If that's truly the case then it would almost seem that the building of reservoirs is not the ideal, but a logical solution albeit a departure from the land's history.

Jazz I realize my post on this was a page or so back, so you probablay missed it, but you had mentioned a ban on watering and that it would circumvent the need for reservoirs etc. If the problem is really a near 40 state problem, how would banning lawn irrigation fix the shortage you were referring to for Colorado? Wouldn't the shortage in the other states cause a draw from the same aquifers that feed Colorado at a rate faster than the recharge?

[CosmicWizard]

I've lived in water rich places and I've lived in Colorado. Anyone who has done the same, is not going to mistake Colorado as a place with plenty of water. If you take the land area ( in square miles ) of NY and CO and multiply that by the average annual precipatation here's what the numbers look like:

NY: 47,213.79 square miles * 40.5 inches = 1,912,126
CO: 104,000 square miles * 17 inches = 1,768,000

Granted this is just a very rough way to look at it that gives a gross estimate at best, but I think it makes my point that just because Colorado is a BIG state in land area, the amount of precipitaion it receives on an annual basis is less than the much smaller states of the east that receive far more precipitation.

[jazzlover]

Right now, there are really two major underground aquifers that supply a fair chunk of Colorado's population with water--the Denver Basin Aquifers (actually a combination of several small aquifers), and--to a much lesser extent--the Ogallala Aquifer (often referred to as the High Plains Aquifer). Most all Ogallala Aquifer water used in Colorado is consumed for irrigated agriculture. That is going to be a self-limiting use as that aquifer depletes. The Ogallala's "pool" of available water is thinnest in the Texas Panhandle--so that area is running short first. A lot of formerly irrigated land in that area is going back to dryland because it is simply no longer economically feasible to pump the water for irrigation. In some areas there, the water table has fallen hundreds of feet in the last 30 years. Colorado's portion of the Ogallala is a much "thicker" pool, so the water table here is not falling as fast, but falling it is. We are simply "mining" the water at a rate much faster than it can recharge from any surface sources. There is strong evidence, too, that much of the Ogallala is "ancestral" water, geologically trapped eons ago. One pumped out and used (and sent into the hydrologic cycle to fall someplace else--probably to the east)--it's gone from Colorado for good.

The Denver Basin Aquifer is in much worse shape than the Ogallala. First, it is a lot smaller--pretty much limited to the the area shown on this map: Denver Basin aquifer system extent
Since it is a major water source for Douglas County, and parts of neighboring counties (all of which have grown stupidly and rapidly in the last 30 years), it is depleting rapidly. I actually grew up drinking water from this aquifer. The well I drank from was 900' feet deep with the water table at around 400' back in the early 1960's. My understanding is that the water table there has dropped to the point that well is no longer usable. While the performance of one well shouldn't be taken as a guide to the whole aquifer, there is no doubt that the Denver Basin Aquifers are depleting at a growing rate directly tied to the number of wells that have been drilled in the last 30 years--mostly for residential domestic use and residential irrigation.

Most all of the rest of Colorado's water comes from surface sources, fed my mostly mountain snowpack in winter. There, too, the trends are troubling. There is mounting evidence that we are entering a long-term (decades-long) drought cycle--whether that is being caused by or aggravated by man-made climate change, or is just a natural climatic variation is being hotly debated, but the end result is the same: diminishing surface water supplies. The mountain pine beetle epidemic is also very troubling--since the deforestation of large areas--especially by fire--compromises the watershed's ability to retain moisture--it quickly runs off. Denuded slopes also accelerate erosion and greatly increase siltation in reservoirs--decreasing their storage capacity significantly. Water quality is also compromised. So, we wind up in a very unenviable situation where we are constantly increasing our demands for water at the very time that supplies of it are becoming both diminished and less certain in both quantity and quality. So far, the major injury that has occurred has been to irrigated agriculture, which--for decades--has had its water mercilessly expropriated--mostly for non-productive lawn irrigation. A quick trip to a place like South Park, which used to be a lush paradise of sub-irrigated meadows and one of Colorado's highest hay producing areas, or to the lower Arkansas River Valley around La Junta and Rocky Ford, which used to be one of Colorado's prime irrigated agricultural areas, will reveal tens of thousands of dried-up acres--the water stripped away to irrigate laws in Denver, Aurora, and Colorado Springs. As I posted before, most newcomers to Colorado don't even recognize that this has happened because they never saw the state the way it once was.

As I posted earlier, the water problems around the country differ by locale. In Colorado and other arid states, the problem is too much population chasing limited surface water supplies and finite (and often depleting) underground supplies. The suggestion to read Cadillac Desert is an excellent one--though the book is 30+ years old, it very accurately describes the Western water dilemma in great detail.

[Josseppie]

Up date on Pueblo's search for more water.......



"The Pueblo Board of Water Works next week will consider rejecting bids by Aurora to purchase the Columbine Ditch and enter a long-term water lease."

The link: http://www.chieftain.com/articles/2009/02/14/news/local/doc499684f010c4a001075419.txt


Pueblo has more then enough water to last through this century!

[reginhild]

Originally Posted by CosmicWizard

I've lived in water rich places and I've lived in Colorado. Anyone who has done the same, is not going to mistake Colorado as a place with plenty of water. If you take the land area ( in square miles ) of NY and CO and multiply that by the average annual precipatation here's what the numbers look like:

NY: 47,213.79 square miles * 40.5 inches = 1,912,126
CO: 104,000 square miles * 17 inches = 1,768,000

Granted this is just a very rough way to look at it that gives a gross estimate at best, but I think it makes my point that just because Colorado is a BIG state in land area, the amount of precipitaion it receives on an annual basis is less than the much smaller states of the east that receive far more precipitation.

You seem to be confusing the issue more than helping!

e.g.: if you took all the deserts in the world and added up their rainfall and multiplied by the square miles you would probably get over 2,000,000 inches of rain! Does this make all the deserts in the world more wet than NY? - No. Just don't use misleading numbers when trying to make a point - it will still confuse people.

O.K., now a bunch of people are going to go around saying that there are not water problems in deserts because they have more water than NY State!