A Need for More Regional Water Management Organizations

Here is a reprint of a memorandum to the then IBCC members of the Metro Basin Roundtable Chips Barry and Doug Scott (with copies to Harris Sherman and Eric Hecox) from one of the Metro Roundtable members, Tracy Bouvette, dated March 5, 2008

I applaud Executive Director Sherman’s request that those in the Colorado Water Community step back from the current focus on water projects, and articulate their vision of Colorado in the future. It is entirely appropriate to have our State’s leaders frame any discussions regarding the cooperative expenditures of billions of taxpayer dollars in terms of where Colorado is and where it is going. This is not to say that without a collective vision we cannot pursue new water development projects, but it is vital that we collectively identify what is important to us as a State as we continue to share the most precious resources that drive our future economic and social well-being.

One key driver in Colorado’s future economy is obviously home sales: not just homes for our working families, but second homes for those that enjoy our State’s natural beauty and want to live part-time in Colorado. We put a great deal of value in having more homes built in Colorado, based on the ongoing and explosive growth supported in many geographies of the State, including the Front Range and headwater areas alike. We also should expect to see substantial growth in areas that will likely foster increasingly larger retirement communities like the Durango and Grand Junction areas. Growth is a mantra for many of our local economies, and that is generally associated with the growth of housing units and related services.

Does housing alone provide for the State’s economic needs of the future? Of course not. Jobs that survive in the long-term will need to be tied to other industries to keep Colorado vibrant and healthy – jobs that bring money into the State from those individuals that benefit from our natural resources and food stock; as well as jobs that compliment and support the needs of the local community.

Current jobs in tourism, manufacturing, professional services, agriculture and exploration of our natural resources (e.g., fossil fuels and minerals) will clearly be the linch-pin of our State’s future – particularly in those regions where natural and existing resources are available to support these jobs. Which of these areas of employment will grow in the future is not clear; however, each category has its own opportunity for growth. For example, we have become increasingly dependant on tourism to provide for seasonal and year-round jobs, create sale tax revenue to support local economies, and bring full-time residents and businesses to our State. We are blessed with breathtaking scenery in nearly every corner of the State, with increasing demands on us to deliver natural wonders to the world’s ever increasing population. To this point, we saw tourist trips (as domestic overnight trips) increase by 8% from 2005 to 2006 as the world came to enjoy our State’s natural wonders, parks, and other attractions. This is a trend that will continue as the State and our local governments continue to spend money advertising nationwide and abroad, luring tourists to our mountains and cities.

However, tourism is only a $14 billion industry in Colorado, making up about 6% of the State’s gross domestic product (GDP). On the other hand, seven of the top ten private employers in the State provide either goods (i.e., Walmart, Target, Safeway and Kroger) or health services (i.e., Exempla, Centura Health, and HCA – Health Services) (based on 2006 data). We are, in fact, very dependant on small businesses that support the local, regional and national service industry. To this point, information services (including telecom, internet services, software development and advertising) and professional services (including legal and engineering) represent nearly 32% of the State’s GDP. People move to Colorado to live and work in our magnificent State because of our natural resources and vast public lands, and presumably our moderate climate . Our ability to maintain, and where possible enhance, our public lands and provide enjoyable outdoor recreation opportunities will go hand in glove with our ability to continue to attract service industry jobs to our State. It would, therefore appear that the protection of the State’s environment including the appropriate maintenance, and where possible enhancement, of instream environmental and recreational flows will become increasingly important to draw these jobs to Colorado.

There is a great deal of optimisms regarding the potential for expanded oil and gas exploration in Colorado as a means to drive growth. Exploration of fossil fuels on the Roan Plateau and in the Piceance Basin, exploration and production in the southwestern portions of the State, as well in various other locations is expected to drive substantial growth of communities especially along the middle and lower Colorado River. Although mining and oil and gas exploration produced about $13 million toward the State’s GDP (about 5.6%), this economic sector is expected to grow to such proportions as to rival the information and professional services industries. However, development of the oil and gas resources will require a substantial amount of water to support drilling and exploration activities, for example. Produced water disposal, impacting stream flow quantities and qualities, will also create challenges for future water resources management. Therefore, the expected growth of this economic sector will need to be balanced with the values and needs of the information and professional services community, the agricultural community, as well as with second home owners - to name a few - such that the economic well-being of those impacted regions are not compromised.

Manufacturing is also important to our State’s economy providing about $15 million to our GDP. We provide manufacturing to a broad range of buyers creating products that include industrial and electrical machinery, medical and surgical instruments, aircraft and spacecraft and related parts, organic chemicals and plastics, etc. We should expect that these jobs, while they may change with respect to specific products, will always be needed to support our local and regional economy. Additional manufacturing jobs may also be created as renewable energy opportunities are explored.

More people coming to Colorado, of course, means that we need more fuel and food to support the population. This shines a bright light on the importance of agriculture, mining, and renewable energy to our State’s regional and local economies. All of these three industries are vital to the future sustainable health of Colorado. We are blessed with fertile lands, rich oil and gas deposits, and renewable energy sources. Reaping the benefits of these riches will be a required component of any durable vision of Colorado.

Therefore, future water development will need to provide the reliable, safe, high quality water needed to support all of our needs, including:

Tourism and the natural environment to continue to bring money into the State from beyond our borders and to draw more permanent residents to our growing residential areas;
Municipal and industrial water supply for our working and service industry communities, our headwaters communities, and our retirement communities;
Agriculture such that food for our citizens can be grown and consumed without substantial implications on our carbon production, while at the same time creating jobs and supporting local economies (noting that agriculture also has an important role in State tourism as agritourism grows); and
Mining and oil and gas exploration to support ongoing and future mineral exploration in various locations across the State.

Clearly, future water development will require that a complex balance be struck between these vital, yet competing demands.

What is unclear is whether or not the parochial nature of Colorado’s water provider community can effectively meet the challenge of balancing these various and oft times competing water demands. Perhaps the greater question that needs to be clarified is not how can we work more collaboratively to balance the future water needs of these competing demands, but rather, do we have a system of governments and special districts that can effectively share and manage our resources to the benefit of all our diverse needs? It may be that the best solution for appropriately managing and allocating Colorado’s water given the competing demands and the need to preserve and protect all the key elements of the State’s economic resources will require some structural changes to how we build and operate large water projects.

With respect to those key issues raised in Executive Director Sherman’s January 15th Memo regarding the “economic base in each region” and how the “business as usual” scenario will impact our future water supply needs, it is likely that unless the status quo changes, water supply development (and even substantial amounts of saved water from water conservation efforts) will be used to support new homes in Colorado’s various geographies without appropriately balancing other vital consumptive and non-consumptive water needs – needs that support robust, resilient communities with diversified local and regional economies buoyed by long-term jobs that match the locally available resources and the related demand for goods and services. We see the majority of water development occurring at this time is to support growth, and there is no reason to expect that fact to substantially change without some degree of intervention or structural revision.

Municipal water providers, after all, are simply doing their job. It is no fault of these organizations that certain water uses are not necessarily equally represented in future water supply development and related financing discussions. Water projects require water sales to support debt service payments. These organizations are limited by their charters, by-laws and other organizational constraints, such that water resources management on a regional and/or statewide scale can become a patch work of intergovernmental agreements and memorandums of understanding, or worse, be regulatory driven.

What appears to be needed, therefore, are organizations with the authority and fiduciary responsibility to manage and allocate water resources to support a broader and more diversified set of uses such that some balance can be ascertained to support long-term economic needs beyond simply providing water for growth and/or municipal and industrial supplies - without creating “winners” and “losers.” Regional water management organizations, such as exist in Nevada, Arizona and California, may therefore be a vital component of our future water supply vision allowing for more representative and holistic management of our State’s water resources.

[1] America’s Best States, 2nd (National Policy Research Council); Most Preferred State to Live in, 4th (Harris Poll); Best Places to Live, various rankings for different cities (Money Magazine); Parks and Recreation, 6th (National Association of Parks Directors)

Another IBCC Discussion and the Federal Government

The role and effectiveness of the Interbasin Ccmpact Commission (IBCC) continues to receive substantial discussion at high levels across Colorado. For good reason. Legislators are becoming entrenched in the process; regualtors are receiving funding to keep the process going; and dozens and dozens of individuals and organizations are committing thousands of volunteer hours to keep the dialogue moving.

To the credit of the current administration, the discussion and related work products have been moved forward to a point never before conceived - in that most major basins have established true "needs assessments" that are framed in a consistent manner - utilizing available data to identify water supply needs based on expected water demands, past river administration, and currently identified projects and processes that local and regional planning entities have developed. Bravo. The discussion has also been recently framed by a collective visioning effort that has received substantial buy-in from a wide geography of users with seemingly diverse water interests including environmental groups. Double bravo.

However, one key stakeholder appears not to be at the table in a manner that is meaningful and required. That is the largest single landowner in the state that controls, to some extent, the majority of the land from which our water supply is derived - that being the Federal government. Certainly the local National Forest Service and Parks Service, as well as BLM and BRec, staff have been included in the discussion, but no key Federal decision-maker is a member of the IBCC.

This may be by design. But is it a key failing in the effort of identifying the future vision for the state, and the related water needs, if the key land owner is not present?

Their is a reasonable argument both ways regarding inclusion of the Federal government. There are good reasons for Colorado's citizens to try and work through the various thorny issues without the 800 pound gorilla in the room, since we have a number of local and regional issues that only we can identify and characterize. The needs assessment, for example, which looks at needs, does not as of yet deal with estimating watershed yields - that is another study (at least for the Colorado River). So having no federal representation helps to ease the discussions and allow (perhaps) for a more open sharing of ideas and concerns.

But not having the Federal government hinders development of any true resolution to key issues like managing beetle kill areas, or impacts of large fires, or evaluating forest management techniques to improve forest health while increasing watershed yield.

"Despite being portrayed as a villain, timber harvesting in the form of thinning can substantially counteract the impact of fire regrowth on water yield. The benefits of regrowth thinning have been widely studied throughout Australia. In Melbourne's catchments, strip-thinning trials have shown that up to 2.5 million litres a year of additional run-off can be generated from each hectare of thinned regrowth. A program of thinning the 1939 regrowth could add billions of litres of water to our storages.

Western Australia has been quicker to take advantage of thinning as a water management tool. Earlier this year, a $20 million, 12-year thinning program was initiated in a substantial segment of Perth's catchment following four years of exhaustive public and stakeholder consultation. Every 1,000 hectares thinned is expected to deliver an additional one billion litres of run-off into the Wungong Dam a year."

This is an extract from an opinion piece by Mark Poynter first published in The Age and just republished by On Line Opinion, entitled 'Fired-up Forests, Have More Impact Than the Loggers'. Read the full article here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5213

Interesting, quite a bit of the research prepared to discuss the relationship between forest management and watershed yield is somewhat aged (see New Mexico SEO Literature Listing), but it does exist. No doubt Colorado State University is looking at this as this is written (as well as other State schools).

Another key issue that Colorado's water providers and interests on the IBCC are going to have to face is who is going to pay for the expected future water supply projects, which include everything from structural storage to instream restorations to species management and protection. I have heard figures as high as $6 billion just for infrastructure will be needed by 2030, but their are others that likely have a more accurate number than that. If $6 billion is close, then what is the infrastructure cost from 2030 to 2050? Another $6 billion? $10 billion. We just aren't used to talking about these kinds of costs.

To wit, funding for the kinds of projects currently being discussed by the IBCC is not going to be easily raised without some kind of Federal support. Any project that includes federal lands, wetlands or waterways with Federal jurisdiction, and/or federal facilities will also carry a need for Federal dollars to support planning and evaluation efforts. This further indicates that relative importance and value of having Federal organizations involved upfront in the planning and analyses that are ongoing within the State. We simply are going to need their help.

The bottom line is that meaningful progress on this as well as numerous other issues with a Federal nexus will need to be addressed head on for the IBCC to get to closure - closure meaning a resolution to more sustainable water supply for the current and future citizens of Colorado. The Federal government, especially the Department of the Interior, but perhaps the US Army Corps of Engineers, and the US EPA may also need to be "on the team" earlier, rather than later, to help us get solutions that are both feasible and timely.

Just my two cents.

What is it about water conservation?

What is it about water conservation that makes folks (chiefly old school water providers) so nervous in Colorado? There are a number of possible touch points, but frankly none of them hold up to intelligent scrutiny. When dealing with a valuable resource, it always makes sense to manage its use, and continually evaluate and re-evaluate the potential for wasteful and unwise practices. But a more thorough discussion of what this means is certainly warranted.

To begin with, water conservation needs to be looked at from both the perspective of the water provider and the water customer. Let's begin with water customers - those folks that use water in their homes (or businesses). I will not go into agricultural water use here, that will be saved for another day.

Water customers historically have not had a lot to worry about regarding their water use efficiency since water has been extremely inexpensive, and wasteful water practices came will little, if any, negative repercussions. Only situations that caused water damage - either from small leaks or from large leaks - were of substantial concern. Of course a leaking toilet can be annoying, as can a leaking faucet (think of those old Bugs Bunny cartoons with Elmer Fudd trying to sleep with the incessant drip, drip, drip), but the cost of the water was rarely, if ever a consideration in a water customer's decision to fix the problem.

Today, water waste has substantially more impact on the water customer's pocketbook. More efficient hot water delivery systems, lower water use washing machines and dishwashers, low flow shower heads and faucets all save not only water but fuels for heating water. With skyrocketing fuel prices, water use efficiency increasingly supports better home and business financial management. Given that home indoor water use, and many, many commercial and industrial indoor water uses are linked to heating water, any water conserving technology or best management practice has value that reduces energy, as well as, water consumption.

Outdoor water use is a whole other beast. In Colorado, roughly 50% of municipal water supply is used for outdoor uses - chiefly landcape irrigation. While no one suggests that aesthetically pleasing grasses, flowers, trees and shrubs, and recreationally available grass-scapes are undesirable, it is how these landscapes are planned, constructed and most importantly maintained that is a topic of substantial discussion and consternation. Grass for the sake of green, watered indiscriminately and wastefully is simply unacceptable in today's day and age. Although some communities and individual water customers feel a certain entitlement for cheap, free flowing lawn irrigation water, in numerous locations around the State, over watering of lawns has detrimental water quality impacts on those rivers and streams that receive irrigation return flows. In addition, there are a number of communities that utilize non-renewable groundwater and/or tributary groundwater (which requires treatment and augmentation) that can ill afford wasteful irrigation practices. Any community that pays to pump water to irrigate thin strips of grass along roadways and sidewalks, which invariably causes substantial amounts of water to flow into streets and gutters is clearly wasting community resources in a manner that is increasingly unacceptable to our citizens.

However, customers often do not understand the ramifications of their habits (such as their overwatering, watering on pavement and/or watering during rainstorms), and it is the duty of the water providers, non-profits, school districts, and the State to provide the education needed to enlighten and teach our citizenry about their responsibility to act in accordance with the realities of our water supply limitations. Even though most locations in Colorado utilize inclining water rate structures that "penalize" wasteful outdoor water use, a substantial number of home and business owners are oblivious to the workings of their automated sprinkler systems, and therefore their outdoor watering habits are controlled by a microchip that was programmed either by someone else or long enough ago that the owner no longer remembers what the watering intervals are or how to change them. Although many water providers benefit from increased water sales revenue due to these poor water irrigation practices, these clearly irresponsible practices must be controlled and eliminated. They are just not acceptable in communities that consider themselves aware and sustainable.

From a water provider point of view, indoor water savings can be a double edged sword. Many Colorado communities have direct flow water rights from rivers and streams, without dams and reservoirs. For many of these communities, reduced indoor water use may negatively impact the quantity and quality of wastewater returning to the community's wastewater treatment plant, and may have negative implications with regard to treated wastewater return flow credits that water providers rely upon to give them operational flexibility during periods of reduced streamflow. In simple terms, some communities with direct flow rights see water conservation as unnecessary since they perceive themselves to be in a "use it or loose it" kind of situation. (Noting that communities with dams and reservoirs can store "saved water", but communities without storage expect saved water to simply flow downstream to the next diverter.)

Increasingly, water conservation for the direct diverter communities makes sense, because there are increasing energy and treatment costs associated with delivering high quality drinking water to water customers and maintaining compliance with wastewater treatment plant discharge permits. As energy and chemical costs continue to increase, water conservation to reduce these costs will make sense.

Outdoor water conservation also makes sense for all of Colorado's communities, since for most locations, irrigation water is potable, and therefore comes with the tranpsportation and treatment costs. Even for those communities fortunate enough to have raw water supplies available for irrigation, pumping costs are substantial and are only going to be increasing.

But water conservation is more than the management of energy and treatment costs, or the wise preservation of non-renewable and/or limited resources. It is an increasingly important political position that all of Colorado's communities must embrace. Although most of Colorado's Rivers leave the State at one location, the most contentious river, the Colorado River, leaves the State in many locations given the number of transmountain diversions that carry water from the Colorado River Basin to the Rio Grande, South Platte and Arkansas Rivers. This reality ties and links Colorado's communities and water providers together like so many Lincoln Logs in a cabin. And much to the chagrin of Colorado's parochial water providers, they are inextricably linked via the Colorado River to communities like Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles - communities that have aggressive water conservation programs and initiatives.

Given all these reasons, and more that I have not fully explored in this post, it makes no sense for Colorado's communities to buck water conservation. Improved water use efficiency saves water customers money. It also saves on overall energy and treatment costs. Perhaps, most importantly, it provides the State and all its water providers the necessary political positioning that we need to deflect arguments from potential detractors that we do not know how to best manage one of our beautiful State's most precious natural resources. The importance of this positioning cannot be over emphasized.