There was widespread concern that Northern Colorado was being targeted as a “sacrifice zone” for Denver-area municipalities without recognizing that those water supplies were needed locally for Northern Colorado. Our region was already on high alert as Thornton was seeking to change the water rights that it had acquired in the mid-1980s in Colorado’s Division One Water Court around the same time the MWSI was commissioned.
In a letter dated Jan. 25, 1996, then-Northern Water General Manager Eric Wilkinson recommended substantial changes to the Phase II Report of the MWSI to acknowledge Northern Colorado’s concerns about water leaving our region. Here are some key statements from his comment letter:
“Northern Colorado has invested resources in developing and protecting a diversified economy that includes a significant irrigated agriculture component. These irrigated lands are not only important from an economic perspective but also provide critically important open space and wildlife habitat. The water supplies used to irrigate these lands also provides a source of drought protection for Northern Front Range municipalities and water providers. These water supplies cannot be transferred to the Metro area without causing significant adverse effects to Northern Colorado.”
“The entities in the Northern Front Range region do not feel that the region should be identified as a source of a significant supply of water for the Metro area for the future and that those waters should remain in their native basins for use in those areas.”
“These water supplies are viewed as essential to the future sustainability of the economies of the basins of origin of these water supplies.”
Wilkinson concluded the four-page letter strongly, expressing additional concerns with the MWSI process and the study’s focus on Northern Colorado water supplies being used to meet the Denver Metro area’s needs:
“The District and Subdistrict object to the implication throughout the report that a primary source of future water supplies for the Metro area is the existing locally needed water supplies of Northern Colorado. These assertions are repeatedly made throughout the report, with little or no mention in the report of the ramifications such action would have on the Northern Colorado area, its water supplies, its economies and infrastructure, its viability, vitality, sustainability, and in short, its future.”
The same fundamental concerns about water leaving Northeastern Colorado for the Denver Metro Area that were raised in the mid-1990s still exist today. Just as the Draft MWSI Phase II Report failed to address the ramifications that water transfers would have on Northeastern Colorado, Northern Water and others are concerned that entities in the Denver Metro Area are not appropriately considering, appreciating or mitigating the impacts that water transfers today could have on our economy, environment, quality of life and sense of place. Northern Water will continue to raise awareness about long-standing concerns regarding water transfers out of our region and explore solutions for safeguarding water resources for the benefit of Northeastern Colorado – both now and into the future.