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| 1/30/2010 6:00:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Ritter taps water experts
Governor seeks ideas to address growing demand for resource
Joe Hanel
Journal Denver Bureau
DENVER - Gov. Bill Ritter wants water experts to have some ideas in place to address Colorado's water future by the time he leaves office in 11 months.
Ritter called on the Interbasin Compact Committee to speed up its work and finish at least a few long-term scenarios for the state, which is expected to double its population to 10 million by 2050.
"One obvious question really shouts from the rooftops: How do we provide all the people in the state with clean water?" Ritter said at Thursday's annual convention of the Colorado Water Congress.
In the absence of a statewide plan, Front Range cities have been buying up water rights from Eastern Plains farmers. The "buy and dry" practice is the state's default water plan, Ritter said. Conservative estimates predict Colorado will lose half a million acres of agricultural land by 2030.
"I don't believe that's an acceptable future for the state of Colorado," Ritter said.
The Legislature set up the Interbasin Compact Committee in 2005 to help find better ideas and build trust between the relatively wetter Western Slope and the dry east.
The group moved slowly for its first years, but it gained traction in the last year, said Steve Harris, who represents Southwest Colorado on the IBCC.
"The last meeting, we had more direction and focus than the two years I had been on there," Harris said. "It's obvious (Ritter) wants to keep that momentum going."
The governor called for the IBCC to meet six times this year, instead of their usually quarterly meetings, and to develop two general "portfolios" for meeting Colorado's future water needs under average conditions.
Those portfolios will involve a mix of conservation, new projects and transfers from farms to cities.
Portfolios for trickier scenarios - like a drier climate and higher population growth - will be more controversial, in part because more water would be needed from the Western Slope.
The group is not picking which projects to build, so it will not endorse, for example, the highly controversial "big straw" to take Colorado River water from the Utah border to Denver.
Eric Wilkinson, an IBCC member from the South Platte River Basin, said Ritter's schedule will mean a lot of work, but it will be worth it. The alternative is to keep drying up farms.
"That's the slinky in the system, unfortunately," Wilkinson said.
Reach Joe Hanel at joeh@cortezjournal.com.
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