Colorado and the West is running out of water . . . (Denver: suite, land)

[CosmicWizard]

jazzlover wrote:

If you want to know why people who actually live AND make a living in rural Colorado can develop such a bitter hatred for ignorant metropolitan residents, the posts from some of those very people above will tell you why.

The reason WHY anyone would develop such a bitter hatred as you CLAIM is irrelevant, but the impact of such behaviour is to poison themselves and the people around them. But more likely, it's just you projecting your own bitter hatred into the hearts of others. Personally, I've not met any of these people. As far as I know they don't even exist. And if they do, birds of a feather flock together...like attracts like....and all that good stuff. You all deserve each other!

[jazzlover]

Cosmic,

People do tend to get bitter when they see the economic livelihood of their community--and often times their friends--being destroyed by the actions of others--especially when those actions are often motivated out of ignorance and greed. Rural Coloradans have been trying to bargain for reasonable compromises with the metro water users for decades, but--for the most part--the only give-and-take in the conversation has been that the metro areas take the water and rural Colorado has had to give it up. I've spent decades in the middle of Colorado's water wars and, not surprisingly, I have a very low view of what the metro areas have done to rural Colorado. Mike and his metro buddies can pontificate about it all they want, but they haven't been out in the trenches in that fight--hell, most of 'em haven't even been here long enough to understand what the fight is about.

[CosmicWizard]

jazzlover wrote: People do tend to get bitter when they see the economic livelihood of their community--

My dear friend jazz.....Unfortunately you are absolutely right about that. You've honed in on human nature at a very low stage of development. Time for all of us to grow up and move beyond such immature behaviour. Nothing worthwhile has ever been accomplished with bitterness. It usually leads to fights, and wars, and the destruction caused by those outdated activities.

[smdensbcs]

Bitter hatred is not the way to win friends and influence people. Sadly, I've learned all I need to know here about Colorado rural attitudes to put an end to my former practice of generally giving these folks a discount on the professional services they routinely ask me to perform for them. One does not feel quite so generous when one knows how deeply one is despised based on factors beyond one's control - whether one is rural or urban, where one was born, the color of one's skin, etc. I'll still do my part to conserve water, but no more "rural folk discounts" from this bitterly hated urban dweller.

[Tekkie]

Thanks for the thread. I have only been living in this state for a little over four years now and this is a growing concern with me as well. This summer has been particularly brutal on our water supply. I am also working with an individual who runs rafting trips through various rivers in the state and he often tells me how low the water levels have been this year, which makes it particularly difficult for that industry as well. Thankfully, we had some rain on the front range this week, but we are still a ways off from replenishing our water supply. Hopefully there will be some advancements in science and technology that will assist us in this looming crisis. I recently met someone who is studying hyrdology at the School of Mines. Perhaps some brilliant minds from that program will be able to lend us a helping hand.

I love this state and hope that new technologies will allow us to overcome this petulant but serious obstacle.

[Mike from back east]

Jazz, you grew up in ag which is fine, but if what you know is ag, then everything had better look like a farm to you, because if doesn't, and if there's a house on that plot and a green lawn, you revert to the attitude of a six year old who sees an unknown bug on the sidewalk and shouts EWW - A BUG - KILL IT.

There's enough farm and ranch land around this nation to more than feed us, and tens of millions more outside the USA, without trying to farm the desert and semi-desert areas, pour water on it like no tomorrow, use 90% of the states water in the process, then blame "lack" of water on urban areas. What a hoax you seek to perpetuate.

I have a FIL in his eighties, he grew up in the country of NC, moved to the big city of DC to make a living, but kept moving further out to get away from people. He's retired now and living in a rural area of WV where he's well away from people and can "work" all he wants with his chainsaw and bushhog and JD tractor and JD snowblower and log splitter and his building full of tools - - but he DOESN'T bitterly badmouth those who don't share his affinity for the rural life or know how to configure a dado on a table saw, etc. He accepts the world as it is, enjoys the life he has chosen for himself, and wastes no time wailing about change or the choices of others.

We all need to be of value to this site, whose main focus is to be a useful tool for those needing relocation info. Your value to this board is your long term view of the state, the benefits and the areas of concern for newbies. There is no site like this one, where people can get honest info from residents, with the kind of honesty that realtors are not allowed to express in many cases.

IMO you need to conduct yourself along the lines of a chap named Roger Welch, who used to do a wonderful series of vignettes on the Sunday Morning tv show; his spots were called "A Postcard from Nebraska" and we loved them all. Welch chronicled the sturdy rural farm people of Nebraska, and it's land areas, in such a way that you admired the state and its people. He wouldn't have lasted one show if he had spewed the bile you do regularly, and when you do, you lose credibility and come across as a bitter old fool whose angry postings are to be disregarded. You catch more flies with sugar than vinegar.

[CosmicWizard]

^^^Great perspective Mike!

[jazzlover]

The difference between many rural Coloradans and the people living in the metro areas is that, for those metro residents, the issue of water is nothing more than some abstract concept--there are whole lot of people between where their water comes from and where it runs out of their tap and, for the most part, they need not worry about the tap running dry. For many, if not most rural Coloradans, the issue of water is not an abstraction--it is a very real and very direct connection. And, the prospect of them losing some or all of their water is a very real threat.

It would be interesting to see the metro folks' reaction if the tables were turned--if those metro residents were constantly outmaneuvered and outbid for their water, with the result that many would wind up without any--and be told "too bad," you just need to with a lot less, do without, or just leave. Were that to happen, I suspect that those "metropolitans" reaction would not be the genteel "oh, let's just get along," "let's all sing Kumbaya" reaction. It would likely be angry and, yes, bitter.

To be fair, there are many metro residents who understand the demands that they are placing on Colorado water supplies and the impacts that is having on rural Colorado. In fact, many of those folks are former rural Coloradans, forced to move to the metro areas for jobs--some because the rural agrarian Colorado economy that employed them is withering under the constant onslaught of urbanization. Unfortunately, those concerned folks are increasingly drowned out (excuse the pun) ina cacaphony from people who don't understand Colorado's water situation, and, frankly don't even want to understand it. This thread has been going for five years and those people still don't get it.

[Mike from back east]

When we pay our monthly water bills, there is NOTHING abstract about it, and anyone who lives here "gets it" almost instantly that this is a dry region and water resources are limited. I don't know why you persist at insisting everyone is an "idiot" on this issue, other than you like to rant to hear yourself rant.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

We all need to be of value to this site, whose main focus is to be a useful tool for those needing relocation info. Your value to this board is your long term view of the state, the benefits and the areas of concern for newbies. There is no site like this one, where people can get honest info from residents, with the kind of honesty that realtors are not allowed to express in many cases.

So, honesty and truth is welcomed as long as its doesn't actually discuss any controversial issue on matters of great importance to the future of a place. And, woe is the poster who has the audacity to challenge popularly held, but likely flawed, points of view.

Who is being disingenuous and little less than truthful here? Not me.

Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first, it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident. ~Arthur Schopenhauer