Don’t dry up the San Luis Valley

Thanks to The Denver Post for the update on the most recent criminal activity occurring in San Luis Valley, which is the outright theft of water rights from San Luis Valley residents and property owners. In response to Sean Tonner’s request for “better ideas” regarding alternatives to his current scheme, I offer up this option: Mr. Tonner, how about you get in your truck and drive east over La Veta Pass back to your office in the Tech Center and start looking for a new job. Stealing water doesn’t help to resolve any issues facing current and future Colorado residents or planet Earth.

Draining the San Luis Valley deep water aquifer is the worst idea imaginable. As the very wealthy areas south of Littleton found out, aquifers go dry. The refresh rate of those aquifers are about 1/10,000th the rate of pumping (maybe less).

Developers don’t care; they are only interested in a fast buck. Where will those developers be when users’ taps go dry in 10 or 20 years?

The pumping would cause current users to drill deeper to continue their water availability. Who would pick up that tab? The San Luis Valley is an important source of food and income for Colorado. We as a nation need to protect the economies of areas like the San Luis Valley. If you want more water, go where there is a constant supply. Load those empty coal trains with water. Build new businesses where there is water. Do the right thing for once.

After reading Bruce Finley’s Sept. 16 article, it’s easy to see that the issue isn’t about water. To the contrary, the real issue is that the Front Range is now over-populated and can no longer support its current rate of growth.

Call me negative, but the 22,000 acre-feet of water per year that Front Range developers want to take from the San Luis Valley is literally a drop in the bucket compared to what their future demands will be.

Our growth-and-change agenda will not cease until every last drop of water is sucked from every stream and every aquifer in Colorado. Our water shortage will be further exacerbated by our Great American Southwest trending toward a drought cycle that will severely limit both our water and our growth.

Here in our own semi-arid Arkansas Valley, the stress that newcomers are placing on our infrastructure and our water supplies is a major concern among many long-time residents. I imagine that long-time residents of the San Luis Valley will eventually experience those same concerns.

The fact that we can move large volumes of water from one part of our state to another does not mean we should. We’re not only taking away from our local ecology, we’re also drying up our productive ranch and farm land.

In the end, our Front Range will consist of a high-density population stretching from Fort Collins through Pueblo while our precious farm and ranch lands will simply dry up and blow away.

Our water is our inheritance, and we should preserve it for future generations by treating it as such.

To the fine and wonderful people of the San Luis Valley, I urge you to stand your ground on the water grab by the Front Range. You have been there before; you stood firm, and you won. You can do it again.

Let’s see. You have to dry up 50,000 acres of irrigated land to replenish the shallow aquifer and prevent violation of long standing water agreements. That is land used to produce food for more than just Colorado. However, the Front Range needs more water so it can grow more.

Yet Front Range communities continue to water needlessly consumptive lawns and gardens to keep the place looking like a community in the Midwest. Very little conservation occurs here and I am as much to blame as most everyone else here. So, if the Front Range wants to grow and needs more water then we should have to suffer at least as much as you do with the drying up of land in the San Luis Valley. If you have to implement heavy conservation to avoid violating long standing agreements with New Mexico and Texas, then we should have to do the same to produce more efficient water consumption in the Front Range communities to support growth. It is only fair.