{"id":2450494,"date":"2019-10-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-30T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/demand-management-groups-multiply-in-colorado-water-fight\/"},"modified":"2019-10-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T06:00:00","slug":"demand-management-groups-multiply-in-colorado-water-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/demand-management-groups-multiply-in-colorado-water-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Demand-management groups multiply in Colorado water fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"swift-gallery p402_hide\" readability=\"6.7303703703704\">\n<ul id=\"imageGallery-315242-764\" class=\"gallery list-unstyled\">\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/10\/waterdemand-atd-103019-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/10\/waterdemand-atd-103019-1024x684.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Brent Gardner-Smith\/Aspen Journalism | The east-side outlet of the Twin Lakes tunnel, which is operated by the Twin Lakes Reservoir and Canal Co., a member of the Front Range Water Council. The FRWC recently declined to meet with members of a Colorado Basin Roundtable group about demand management.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"0\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"11\">\n<p><strong>The east-side outlet of the Twin Lakes tunnel, which is operated by the Twin Lakes Reservoir and Canal Co., a member of the Front Range Water Council. The FRWC recently declined to meet with members of a Colorado Basin Roundtable group about demand management.<\/strong><br \/>Brent Gardner-Smith\/Aspen Journalism<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/10\/waterdemand-atd-103019-1024x684.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"The east-side outlet of the Twin Lakes tunnel, which is operated by the Twin Lakes Reservoir and Canal Co., a member of the Front Range Water Council. The FRWC recently declined to meet with members of a Colorado Basin Roundtable group about demand management.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/10\/waterdemand-atd-103019-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/10\/waterdemand-atd-103019-1-1024x516.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Brent Gardner-Smith\/Aspen Journalism | The Government Highline Canal, near Grand Junction, delivers water from the Colorado River, and is managed by the Grand Valley Water Users Association. Representatives from the Grand Valley Water Users Association invited members of the Front Range Water Council to discuss demand management, but the FRWC declined.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"1.5\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"14\">\n<p><strong>The Government Highline Canal, near Grand Junction, delivers water from the Colorado River, and is managed by the Grand Valley Water Users Association. Representatives from the Grand Valley Water Users Association invited members of the Front Range Water Council to discuss demand management, but the FRWC declined.<\/strong><br \/>Brent Gardner-Smith\/Aspen Journalism<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/10\/waterdemand-atd-103019-1-1024x516.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"The Government Highline Canal, near Grand Junction, delivers water from the Colorado River, and is managed by the Grand Valley Water Users Association. Representatives from the Grand Valley Water Users Association invited members of the Front Range Water Council to discuss demand management, but the FRWC declined.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"caption-toggle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/demand-management-groups-multiply-in-colorado-water-fight\/#\" class=\"show-captions\">Show Captions<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/demand-management-groups-multiply-in-colorado-water-fight\/#\" class=\"hide-captions\">Hide Captions<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">GLENWOOD SPRINGS \u2014 The state of Colorado\u2019s investigation into the feasibility of a demand-management program has spawned the spinoff of several additional groups to study the issue, underscoring persistent tensions between the Western Slope and Front Range water managers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In June, the Colorado Water Conservation Board named 74 people \u2014 most of them experts in their fields \u2014 to nine workgroups charged with helping the state study whether a water-use reduction plan is right for Colorado. Now, some roundtables and conservation districts are forming their own grassroots stakeholder groups to study demand management outside of the state\u2019s formal process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">One of those is the Colorado River Basin Roundtable. The stakeholder group, chaired by Kirsten Kurath, who is general counsel for the Grand Valley Water Users Association, invited Front Range water providers to an informal meeting on Monday to discuss demand management and address some assumptions about the contentious topic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Although representatives from Northern Water and Aurora Water initially accepted the invitation, a subsequent letter from the Front Range Water Council made it clear that Front Range water interests were circling the wagons and closing ranks. The FRWC is an ad-hoc group made up of representatives from Front Range urban water providers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In a letter signed by FRWC chair and Denver Water CEO James Lochhead, the group declined Kurath\u2019s invitation to the meeting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cWe feel it is best at this point not to have \u2018official\u2019 side meetings regarding demand management and what a demand management process\/program may look like because, particularly with press present, such conversations may lead to confusion and may undermine the state process,\u201d the letter reads.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Kurath said she was extremely disappointed and discouraged by the response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIt seemed like a great opportunity as part of our workgroup to invite folks from the Front Range Water Council and chat with them about what we are thinking about demand management,\u201d Kurath said. \u201cWe do need to work at relationship-building between these historically adverse parties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">So, why is demand management a touchy subject that highlights tensions between Colorado\u2019s West Slope and Front Range? It may be because some in Western Slope agriculture worry that Front Range water providers, backed by a reliable pot of money from their rate-paying customers, can simply pay ranchers to fallow fields without having to reduce their own water consumption. Some Western Slope agricultural water users have voiced concerns about how to create a demand-management program that reduces water use equitably across all sectors, not just agriculture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">On top of that, some fear that if fields are no longer producing crops, a cascade of unintended consequences for the local economy could be the result. The Colorado River Water Conservation District and the Southwestern Water Conservation District are studying the secondary economic impacts of demand management.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cWhat are the economic impacts should someone decide not to grow a crop?\u201d said Frank Kugel, executive director of the Durango-based Southwestern Water Conservation District. \u201cWhat about the tractor-supply store, the feed stores, the restaurants and the workers that work on those farms?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Adding to the controversial nature of demand management is Colorado\u2019s social and cultural backdrop. At the heart of a demand-management program is a reduction in water use on a temporary, voluntary and compensated basis in an effort to send as much as 500,000 acre-feet of water downstream to Lake Powell to bolster water levels in the giant reservoir and, indirectly, to meet Colorado River Compact obligations. Under such a program, ranchers and farmers could get paid to leave more water in the river.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">But Andy Mueller, general manager of the CRWCD, said the concept of intentionally saving water goes against the age-old Western water adage of \u201cUse it or lose it.\u201d Some irrigators believe their water right, which is seen as a property right, could be considered abandoned if they don\u2019t use their entire share of the water all the time, although it is rare in Colorado for this aspect of the law to be enforced by the state.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cWe are asking people to change 150 years of cultural, family, political traditions,\u201d Mueller said. \u201cWhat we need to do in the water-policy world is help provide people with security and confidence they are not unintentionally damaging themselves for the future and that they are protected and have economic certainty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">To this end, the river district also is forming a demand-management stakeholder group of its own. Mueller said the goal is to convene a group of roughly 30 water users to figure out how their interests would be protected if a demand-management plan is implemented.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIt\u2019s a really critical thing for our actual water users to be driving the train because they know how their farms work,\u201d Mueller said. \u201cIf you get ideas from them, they are much more likely to work in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Although some might assume that the easiest way to save a large amount of water in a demand-management program is to take it from Western Slope agriculture, Front Range water providers say that isn\u2019t the case. Lochhead said that Denver Water would participate in a demand-management program along with everyone else using \u201cwet water,\u201d not just by throwing money at the problem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Brad Wind, general manager of Northern Water, agreed that water savings solely from Western Slope agriculture isn\u2019t the solution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI get the impression from some West Slope entities \u2026 that they think the whole burden of demand management is going to come on the backs of the West Slope,\u201d he said, \u201cand honestly, I don\u2019t think anybody on the Front Range Water Council is saying that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">These were some of the issues Kurath was hoping to clear up in a meeting with her stakeholder group and Front Range water providers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cWe just wanted to explore that with folks,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a real disappointment to me to have them decide they didn\u2019t want to participate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\">Editor\u2019s note: Aspen Journalism collaborates with the Aspen Times and other Swift Communications newspapers on coverage of rivers and water. For more, go to aspenjournalism.org.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/demand-management-groups-multiply-in-colorado-water-fight\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The east-side outlet of the Twin Lakes tunnel, which is operated by the Twin Lakes Reservoir and Canal Co., a member of the Front Range Water Council. The FRWC recently declined to meet with members of a Colorado Basin Roundtable group about demand management.Brent Gardner-Smith\/Aspen Journalism The Government Highline Canal, near Grand Junction, delivers water [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2450494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 10:57:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}