U.S. Water News Online
DENVER -- A Senate committee in the Colorado legislature has cut $500,000 from a study of statewide water projects for the so-called ``Big Straw'' plan to reuse water from the Colorado River after members questioned whether it would ever be built.
Sen. Ron Teck said the state needs to take steps now to prepare for the next drought.
``I'm not saying Big Straw is viable or something that can be done, but I'm convinced if we can put men on the moon, we can solve some of the technical issues that are brought up in moving water. I think this is probably one of the more creative solutions I have seen to trying to solve the water problems in this state,'' Teck said.
Sen. Terry Phillips, D-Louisville, said the study is a waste of money.
``I feel it's more fantasy than anything else. Putting men on the moon is far different than trying to make water flow uphill,'' Phillips said.
Phillips said the money should be used to repair dams and expand current capacity.
The other studies left in Senate Bill 110 will review logging and the impact on water supplies and compile a list of water supplies in each of the seven major water basins. It now goes to the full Senate for debate.
The multibillion-dollar ``Big Straw'' project, also called the Colorado Return Project, would pump at least 400,000 acre feet, or enough for about 2 million people, from the Colorado River at the Utah border east to reservoirs like Dillon that serve metropolitan Denver.
Colorado has never taken its full share of about 3.75 million acre feet because it lacks adequate storage facilities, using only about 3 million acre feet of that total.
The committee also approved Senate Bill 73, which would allow well owners to pump water this year as long as they file a plan within three years to offset their water use by returning some water to the South Platte River.
Sen. Dave Owen, R-Greeley, said the bill was not an attempt to overturn the state's 150-year-old policy of first use. He said it was designed to provide time to work out disputes over South Platte water while the state suffers through one of the worst droughts in recorded history.
Sen. Ken Chlouber, R-Leadville, said the bill would pit farmer against farmer for existing water supplies.
``People have defended first in time, first in right to the death. What we are kind of doing with this bill is trying to pick who is going to be the least hurt and buy three years of time and hope it will rain. If you do that, you might put senior water right holders out of business,'' Chlouber said.
Owen said there is no guarantee if well users give up their water to senior rights that those users will fare any better.
Owen said the Great Western sugar plant closed in Greeley and laid off 38 people, and if the wells are shut down, there will be an estimated $131 million loss to the farm economy in northern Colorado.
Most of the wells in question are owned by members of Groundwater Appropriators of the South Platte, which had resisted a requirement that they file operation plans in water court.
Group members had thought their well operation plans were legitimate because the state engineer approved similar plans in other areas of the state.
Work on the agreement began after a water judge ruled in December that the state engineer did not have the authority to approve the well owners' operation plans. That dispute is currently before the state Supreme Court. Owen said the bill would not affect the outcome of that fight.
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