As part of the water committee, I attended the annual Colorado Water Congress conference in August. There, the governor and members of his administration promoted the development of a Colorado \u201cwater plan.\u201d The governor mentioned that in five to 10 years, he\u2019d like to see a national water plan. A number of western states have water plans, but they vary in content and significance to overall water management. Some seem to be more ceremonial than action-oriented.<\/p>\n
Colorado historical water law and regulations are extensive already and based on the concept that water is a property right. For many who work the land, their water rights are the most valuable property they own.<\/p>\n
I understand the desire to plan for Colorado\u2019s water future. I also understand the merit of looking at the impacts of mostly Front Range \u201cbuy and dry\u201d scenarios, where those in agriculture are offered large sums for the transfer of their water rights to growing cities which leaves the formerly productive ag land high and dry, literally. Still, it\u2019s unclear what the content of the governor\u2019s desired water plan would be and what it means to those of us on the Western Slope. I hope and expect that the fall\u2019s water meetings will help provide that detail and I\u2019ll want to hear from those in my senate district as to their thoughts on this as well.<\/p>\n
The legislative wildfire meetings will pick up on the work we did through the wildfire commission that I chaired last year. As a member of this new interim committee, created by a bill that I sponsored last session, we are recognizing the long-term and very significant challenges Colorado faces with our forest health. We\u2019ll need to address the hazards of catastrophic wildfires that are burning congested urban areas like Colorado Springs and Fort Collins, as well as the rural, remote regions of our state. Sound forest management must guide our policies.<\/p>\n
I hope the wildfire committee will discuss the obvious, which is how do we better mitigate our wildfire risks, but most central to be considered is the health of our forests. There\u2019s an absolute intersection of Colorado\u2019s forest health and water quality and supply, so besides the public safety issues at stake, we must address the unhealthy current condition of our forests before they burn to ashes.<\/p>\n
Recall elections affecting two of my senate colleagues will be decided mid-September. I\u2019ve been asked what I think of recalls, especially those stemming from votes rather than politician malfeasance. My view is, recalls are the citizens\u2019 right and it\u2019s my task to prove my worth to those whom I represent, not just at regular elections, but every day that I\u2019m in office. If I\u2019m serious when I urge citizen engagement in the democratic process, as I regularly do, there\u2019s no room to add, \u201cbut, only if you agree with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ellen Roberts represents Senate District 6 in Colorado\u2019s General Assembly. The district encompasses Montezuma, Dolores, La Plata, Archuleta, Montrose, San Miguel, San Juan and Ouray counties. Contact Sen. Roberts by phone at (970-259-1589, or email ellen.roberts.senate@state.co.us<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" part of the water committee, I attended the annual Colorado Water Congress conference in August. There, the governor and members of his administration promoted the development of a Colorado \u201cwater plan.\u201d The governor mentioned that in five to 10 years, he\u2019d like to see a national water plan. A number of western states have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[188],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-58337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-dolores-star"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58337","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=58337"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63005,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58337\/revisions\/63005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58337"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=58337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}