U.S. Water News Online
DENVER -- Leaders from 27 Front Range cities signed a pact pledging to conserve existing water supplies before turning to eastern Colorado farms and the Western Slope for help.
Organized by the Metro Mayors Caucus, the agreement outlines broad principles of water conservation, such as utilizing best management practices and recognizing the environmental and economic impacts of new water projects on mountain communities.
More than anything, local officials say, the agreement is a significant show of good faith that Denver area cities are serious about saving scarce Western water.
"We recognized that with the drought finally looking like it may be over that citizens may forget about conservation," said Centennial Mayor Randy Pye, chairman of the mayors' caucus. "We need to constantly remind them just how valuable water is in the West and that conservation is critical to our future. This agreement does that."
Modeled after the Mile High Compact, an agreement that addresses unchecked growth in the Denver area, the water pact has been in the works for about eight months.
"All of this work is not in response to a drought," Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said. "It is a sustained, focused effort that takes into account the long-term benefit of the state."
While 27 of the 31 caucus members endorsed the pact, Thornton and Brighton are involved in legal water disputes that prevent them from signing right now, Pye said. Commerce City and Edgewater also have yet to sign.
The signing of the pact follows the release of the Statewide Water Supply Initiative, which found that Colorado likely will add another 2.8 million people by 2030. As a result, it will need at least another 202 million gallons of water annually.
Currently, about 80 percent of Colorado's water supplies fall in the form of snow on the Continental Divide's west side. But about 80 percent of the population lives east of the divide.
Fulfilling that need in the last century required massive construction projects to ship water from west to east, leading to bitter resentment among some residents of the Western Slope.
Reeves Brown, director of Club 20, a coalition of governments and businesses in the state's western 22 counties, said he hadn't heard of the Front Range water pact but will be interested in seeing how it is executed.
"I think it's a good thing that the metro-area leaders recognize this issue and are trying to be visionary about it in the long term," Brown said. "At the same time, I don't think there are lot of people on the Western Slope who are going to look at this and say, 'Good. We must be safe now."'
Still, some water watchers say the pact provides a solid foundation for future discussions about water use in Colorado.
"... I think it's good that Front Range communities are articulating clearly that there's more conservation and efficiency in their water planning," said Bart Miller, Western Resource Advocates' water program director.
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