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Few things frustrate me more after nearly a quarter century of being involved in Colorado's public issues than the knee-jerk East Slope/West Slope back and forth that consumes most political and policy arguments.
Politicians at all levels raise that flag. It's red meat for the masses because it work. We're anxious to chew on it, raw or well done, because it's easier to point fingers. But it delays the more tedious work of forging solutions.
Nowhere does the East Slope/West Slope division manifest itself more than with water issues. That's why it was so frustrating to sit in the Grand Junction City Council Chambers Tuesday evening for the Colorado River District's annual State of the River meeting, anticipating even before a presentation on the economic value of water the feeding frenzy that followed.
Commissioned by the Front Range Water Council, a group of 20 water providers serving most of the state's population, the study purports to show the economic value of water used in their service area is nearly 20 times the value of the water we use over here on the Western Slope. And we fare better in their comparison than other regions in our state. The daisy chain of calculations used to reach that conclusion constitutes a house of cards built on a shaky foundation. The immediate and negative reactions from the audience of 60 or so locals were understandable.
The fatal assumption in dividing total economic activity in a region by the amount of water necessary to fuel that activity was not in the numerator, the dollar value of goods and services produced and sold, but in the denominator, the amount of water used. Instead of using the amount of water consumed in the region, the economic activity was divided by the total amount of water pulled from rivers, streams and ditches or pumped out of the ground.
There's a big difference. Here it is in more understandable terms.
That means that when Carlyle Currier or any of his fellow ranchers irrigate a hay meadow up around Collbran or down near Loma, we're charged with 100 percent of what they pull out of the ditch at their head gate, not what actually goes into the ground to nurture their grass or alfalfa. The reality is that when Carlyle and his compadres are done irrigating their crop, most of the water they pull out goes back into the ditch. As much as 85 percent in the case of mountain hay meadows, a little less in the fields in the Lower Valley depending on what crops are being raised.
In the math of the Front Range water providers, those return flows don't exist. Their calculations charge the Western Slope and other regions where agriculture is a bigger part of the economy than the Front Range metro areas with using every drop of water that goes past a head gate. The ditch is dry when they're done.
The explanation given was that the only measurement available across the board is at the head gate, which is true. There's no “tail gate” that measures return flows. But their measurement still fatally compromises their study.
“Garbage in, garbage out.”
I try not to guess at motivations. But I learned Tuesday night that 72 percent of the water the members of the Front Range Water Council provide already comes from the Western Slope. And, despite laudable efforts at efficiency and conservation, they'll need more water to accommodate expected growth. They might conceivably benefit from showing their water use is more valuable than ours.
What's unfortunate is that we do need better informed discussion around water issues. But the Front Range Water Council shot itself in the foot by taking the unnecessary step of putting a flawed dollar value of $132,000 an acre/foot on the water they provide and only $7,200 on the water we use on the Western Slope. The presentation last Tuesday in Grand Junction and earlier before the Colorado Water Congress reopened old wounds other Eastern Slope leaders like the late Chips Barry, Denver Water's GM, and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper have worked hard in recent years to heal.
Despite protestations from the study's sponsors and consultant, that genie is now out of the box and won't be put back soon. They've tossed gasoline on the embers and seem surprised by the flames.
The new wounds they've inflicted will take time to heal. Time that might have been better spent on solving rather than exacerbating the water problems facing all of Colorado.
Jim Spehar represented Western Slope municipalities for eight years on the Board of Directors of the Colorado Water Congress and earlier in life learned which end of the shovel goes in the ditch while irrigating out on 21 Road. Your comments are welcome at jimspehar@bresnan.net.
Politicians at all levels raise that flag. It's red meat for the masses because it work. We're anxious to chew on it, raw or well done, because it's easier to point fingers. But it delays the more tedious work of forging solutions.
Nowhere does the East Slope/West Slope division manifest itself more than with water issues. That's why it was so frustrating to sit in the Grand Junction City Council Chambers Tuesday evening for the Colorado River District's annual State of the River meeting, anticipating even before a presentation on the economic value of water the feeding frenzy that followed.
Commissioned by the Front Range Water Council, a group of 20 water providers serving most of the state's population, the study purports to show the economic value of water used in their service area is nearly 20 times the value of the water we use over here on the Western Slope. And we fare better in their comparison than other regions in our state. The daisy chain of calculations used to reach that conclusion constitutes a house of cards built on a shaky foundation. The immediate and negative reactions from the audience of 60 or so locals were understandable.
The fatal assumption in dividing total economic activity in a region by the amount of water necessary to fuel that activity was not in the numerator, the dollar value of goods and services produced and sold, but in the denominator, the amount of water used. Instead of using the amount of water consumed in the region, the economic activity was divided by the total amount of water pulled from rivers, streams and ditches or pumped out of the ground.
There's a big difference. Here it is in more understandable terms.
That means that when Carlyle Currier or any of his fellow ranchers irrigate a hay meadow up around Collbran or down near Loma, we're charged with 100 percent of what they pull out of the ditch at their head gate, not what actually goes into the ground to nurture their grass or alfalfa. The reality is that when Carlyle and his compadres are done irrigating their crop, most of the water they pull out goes back into the ditch. As much as 85 percent in the case of mountain hay meadows, a little less in the fields in the Lower Valley depending on what crops are being raised.
In the math of the Front Range water providers, those return flows don't exist. Their calculations charge the Western Slope and other regions where agriculture is a bigger part of the economy than the Front Range metro areas with using every drop of water that goes past a head gate. The ditch is dry when they're done.
The explanation given was that the only measurement available across the board is at the head gate, which is true. There's no “tail gate” that measures return flows. But their measurement still fatally compromises their study.
“Garbage in, garbage out.”
I try not to guess at motivations. But I learned Tuesday night that 72 percent of the water the members of the Front Range Water Council provide already comes from the Western Slope. And, despite laudable efforts at efficiency and conservation, they'll need more water to accommodate expected growth. They might conceivably benefit from showing their water use is more valuable than ours.
What's unfortunate is that we do need better informed discussion around water issues. But the Front Range Water Council shot itself in the foot by taking the unnecessary step of putting a flawed dollar value of $132,000 an acre/foot on the water they provide and only $7,200 on the water we use on the Western Slope. The presentation last Tuesday in Grand Junction and earlier before the Colorado Water Congress reopened old wounds other Eastern Slope leaders like the late Chips Barry, Denver Water's GM, and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper have worked hard in recent years to heal.
Despite protestations from the study's sponsors and consultant, that genie is now out of the box and won't be put back soon. They've tossed gasoline on the embers and seem surprised by the flames.
The new wounds they've inflicted will take time to heal. Time that might have been better spent on solving rather than exacerbating the water problems facing all of Colorado.
Jim Spehar represented Western Slope municipalities for eight years on the Board of Directors of the Colorado Water Congress and earlier in life learned which end of the shovel goes in the ditch while irrigating out on 21 Road. Your comments are welcome at jimspehar@bresnan.net.
