Lend Lease Company, Windy Gap and the Role of the State

The State has spent millions of dollars developing the Statewide Water Supply Initiative (SWSI) as a means to understand and evaluate local, regional, and even statewide water supply options and needs. Although SWSI did a yeoman's job pulling together disparate data and information into a succinct presentation of the status of Colorado's water needs, it seemingly failed to find projects and processes that would address the expected gap between available water supply and the growing water demand of our thirsty residents. SWSI did list "identified projects and processes (called IPPs)" within its covers; however these three years later have yet to produce one IPP successfully.

Is this the fault of the State or the SWSI process? Perhaps,.. perhaps not.

Enter Denver-based Lend Lease Company, a subsidiary of an Australian development company, that has recently indicated that it will pull out of a 3,670 acre Arapahoe County development if a sustainable water source if not identified by the end of this year (see Lend Lease letter to the State Land Board at www.blogs.RockyMountainNews.com/rebchook). What is interesting about this developing water story is the lack of its mention in the SWSI report - that being that there are locations in Colorado that private developers will find "undevelopable" due to the lack of available sustainable water supply. Perhaps the State role is not to identify such situations, and leave these types of discoveries and business decisions to private investors and non-profits. It just seems that a Statewide water planning analysis should in some way indicate the challenge of delivering sustainable potable water as potentially limiting to private investment, at least in the short-term.

Water conservation is also of concern to the State, as evidenced by the news release from DNR Director Harris Sherman and CWCB Director Jennifer Gimbel on October 9th calling for more water providers to prepare water conservation plans and implement more meaningful water conservation. Why then did the SWSI Team not perform a very rigorous analysis of the role of water conservation in managing future water demands (it simply assumed that future demands would be reduced by 12% from current demands), or indicate the status of water conservation planning in the State (which as Director Sherman indicated, less than 25% of those that should have plans do). It should be the State's role to call out those entities that are not in compliance with the State's regulations, even though it is perceived by some as being unreasonably harsh.

Without the State shining a bright light on our lack of meaningful water conservation planning, we run into a situation that water providers are self-policed regarding water conservation. What is the result? As Gretchen Bergen points out in her Colorado Voices op ed piece in this Sunday Denver Post, "most Windy Gap (water) recipients lack progressive (water) conservation goals." In fact, some of those entities looking to increase transmountain diversions from the Colorado River via the Windy Gap Firming Project do not utilize something as simple and effective as inclining block water rates to discourage excessive water use, including Loveland and Broomfield. Appropriately priced water is one of the hallmarks of responsible water conservation programs. Greeley and Longmont have draft water conservation plans under review by the State; that leaves hundreds of thousands of North Front Range citizens without meaningful water conservation programs available to support their needs.

The key project proponent for the Windy Gap Firming Project, Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (or Northern Water), does not have the power or authority to require those entities that receive its transmountain diversions to have meaningful water conservation plans. This further begs the question regarding the State role in helping, and in some cases shaming, water providers into water conservation planning and implementation. Given that the IPPs contained in SWSI are not finding their way to ready implementation (in part due to a lack of meaningful local water conservation efforts), and that private developers are questioning the nature of available sustainable water supply in some location in the Front Range, doesn't more meaningful water conservation truly make sense allowing our communities to stretch their current water supplies and improve local water supply sustainability sooner rather than later?

Is it time for the State to bring out a bigger regulatory instrument, or will our water providers begin to read the writing on the wall without a legislative hammer? It doesn't look like we have a lot of time to figure this one out.