Category: Transmountain Diversions

Should Aurora’s 22 years of “unlawful use” of water from the Fryingpan River basin shrink the size of the city’s transferable water right? Pitkin County thinks so.

A “draft conceptual agreement” about a potential new transmountain diversion that would move more water from the Western Slope to the booming Front Range is renamed a “conceptual framework for discussion.”

“The basic history of water in Colorado is ‘It’s mine, leave me alone,’” Russel George told an audience in Grand Junction recently. “Of course, that never worked. And it doesn’t work today.”

“This is conceptual,” said Bruce Whitehead, who serves on the Southwest Basin roundtable. “We haven’t sold the ranch, and I don’t think, intend to. It was really to set up a dialogue about, yes, go ahead and say it, transmountain diversions.”

Members of the Colorado River Basin Roundtable concerned that a “draft conceptual agreement” is being oversold by the head of Colorado Water Conservation Boar.

Should Aurora be penalized for using water from the Busk-Ivanhoe system for municipal purposes for 22 years without a decree to do so?

Pitkin County, River District plan to appeal decision to Supreme Court

Faced with a growing population, representatives of water interests on the Front Range want to plan for additional diversions, or “new supply,” from the Western Slope. Still in doubt is whether that water is available.

“The notion that increasing demands on the Front Range can always be met with a new supply from the Colorado River, or any other river, (is) no longer valid,” the roundtable’s position paper states.