{"id":115898,"date":"2014-12-15T19:33:28","date_gmt":"2014-12-16T02:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/water-plan-starts-dialogue\/"},"modified":"2014-12-15T19:33:28","modified_gmt":"2014-12-16T02:33:28","slug":"water-plan-starts-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/water-plan-starts-dialogue\/","title":{"rendered":"Water plan starts dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gov.
Gov. John Hickenlooper holds up a draft of Colorado\u2019s Water Plan, delivered to him at the Capitol by James Eklund, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. The historic plan aims to develop water policy for the future. \u201cThis isn\u2019t lip service,\u201d Eklund said. \u201cWe\u2019re actually doing this.\u201d<\/span>Peter Marcus\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Colorado\u2019s Water Plan outlines $20 billion worth of projects to consider through 2050, according to James Eklund, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Voters likely would need to approve a tax increase.<\/p>\n

There also are legislative hurdles, with an aim to approach lawmakers for measures in the 2016 session.<\/p>\n

Policy officials would need to balance the interests of rural Colorado \u2013 where water is precious for agricultural needs \u2013 with the needs of the rapidly expanding Front Range and suburban communities.<\/p>\n

The backdrop has been private ownership of water rights. Colorado uses a \u201cprior appropriation\u201d system in which rights are granted to the first person to take water from an aquifer or river, despite residential proximity.<\/p>\n

Conversations through eight regional basin roundtables have been going on for about 10 years, meaning stakeholders were able to hit the ground running.<\/p>\n

The Southwest Basin Roundtable flows through two Native American reservations \u2013 the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute Indian reservations. The basin includes nine sub-basins, and eight flow out of state.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper ordered the plan in May 2013; a final plan must be completed by Dec. 10, 2015.<\/p>\n

Shortfalls in municipal water supply are expected by 2050. The result could be agricultural dry-up, fish and wildlife extinction and pressure on municipalities.<\/p>\n

The plan stops short of prescribing how the state should move forward. It doesn\u2019t mandate transmountain water diversions for Front Range communities, a contentious subject.<\/p>\n

It does, however, try to steer municipalities away from the practice of purchasing water rights from farmers when there is no diversion, leaving agricultural land dry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. John Hickenlooper holds up a draft of Colorado\u2019s Water Plan, delivered to him at the Capitol by James Eklund, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. The historic plan aims to develop water policy for the future. \u201cThis isn\u2019t lip service,\u201d Eklund said. \u201cWe\u2019re actually doing this.\u201dPeter Marcus\/Durango Herald Colorado\u2019s Water Plan outlines $20 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":115899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[94,481,295,294],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-115898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-gov-john-hickenlooper","tag-water","tag-water-supply"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115898"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=115898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}