Colo. water war goes to the polls

DENVER -- The proposed "Big Straw Project" shows just how contentious the fight over water has become out West.

Concerned that too much of Colorado's most precious commodity is running downstream to other Western states, Governor Bill Owens proposed damming the Colorado River at the Utah border and pumping the water back over the Continental Divide to Denver through a pipeline acting as a giant straw.

While less extreme, a proposed referendum on today's ballot that would help finance Colorado water projects has the same intent. Referendum A, a $2 billion loan program, would allow the Colorado Water Conservation Board to issue bonds for new private and public water projects. It also would appropriate $2 billion for interest payments. Proponents say Colorado needs new reservoirs and dams to keep the water in the state.

"Water has always been a `get your gun' issue in Colorado," said former governor Dick Lamm, now executive director of the Center for Public Policy at the University of Denver. Referendum A "is just the latest battle in a very long war," he added.

Drought, struggling farmers, and booming suburbs have made the West thirstier than ever.

Saying the state needs to learn from the recent drought, Owens is the referendum's most visible supporter, so much so that Referendum A is called "The Governor's Water Initiative."

"Colorado has a lot more rights to water than we actually use," Owens said in an interview with the Denver Post. "That means in the good years, prior to this drought, we had a lot of water that we had rights to that we simply didn't store. As the reservoirs filled, the water simply went downstream."

Colorado is entitled to more than 16 million acre feet per year but stores only 6 million acre feet per year. Owens and other supporters of the referendum say Colorado water should support state agriculture and growth rather than Californian lawns and Las Vegas fountains.

The Colorado River Compact of 1922 divides the Colorado's water among the seven states of the river's basin. Some states, like Colorado, do not use all the water they have rights to, while others, like California, use more than their allotment.

"California has grown dependent on water that they don't have the rights to," said Mark Smith, an economics professor at Colorado College who specializes in water issues. "Whole communities have been built with the idea that water will always be there -- and it may not be."

Last month, the US Department of the Interior reached an agreement that will force California to cut back its use of Colorado River water.

Opponents of the referendum say it has too many unknowns.

"We're going to pay $4 billion to build what? And we're going to pay this money to whom?" said John Powers, executive director of the Colorado Environmental Coalition. "We're voting on a blank check that is for unknown projects. Knowing how inefficient government spending is, do the taxpayers of Colorado really want to give the state a blank check?"

Lamm and the state's two other living former governors have expressed opposition to the loan program. "It's simply too much money to give to the governor without any stipulations," Lamm said.

Lamm added that he doubts the state government can handle the money and responsibility that Referendum A would give.

"The Big Straw proposal is such a grievous concept," he said. "It shows how the governor tends to go off a little half-cocked about things related to water.

"What we're talking about here is not a thoughtful coalition on how to mitigate the drought."

Water is disputed within, as well as across, Colorado's borders. The majority of the state's precipitation falls west of the Continental Divide, while about 80 percent of the population lives along the Front Range, east of the Divide.

"The Governor says he doubts that Referendum A money will be used for transmountain diversion," Powers said. "I think that's disingenuous. I think he knows that some of that money will be used in just that way."

Groups opposing the referendum include the Colorado River Water Conservation District, Audubon Colorado, the Colorado Mountain Club, and the Colorado Rivers Alliance.

Supporters include the Colorado Home Builders Association, the Colorado Cattlemen's Association, the director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, and several chambers of commerce. Supporters of the $2 billion bond have raised $788,254 to the opponents' $315,000.

While not venturing a guess on the outcome of today's vote, Smith is certain of one thing: Water wars will continue to be waged in the West. "Water is people's destiny and their hope in the West," he said. "It can't be proven with an economic model, but emotionally, people equate no water with no hope. They see holding onto water as holding onto their future."