Upper Colorado River, Colo., courtesy of Ken Neubecker
The following is a Letter to the Editor submitted to The Denver Post about the state water plan:
Re: “Colorado girds for proliferating people and increasingly scarce water,” Nov. 9 news story.
As a county commissioner representing one of the state’s headwaters areas, I would like to point out several misconceptions in your article on Colorado’s water plan.
The idea that the plan should protect agriculture by taking more water from the West Slope is ill-founded. More diversions put West Slope agriculture at risk with no guarantee that such diversions would slow the loss of East Slope agriculture.
And the West Slope is not OK with moving more water through transmountain diversions. West Slope basins are united in their concern that diverting additional water may injure the West Slope economies and the environment that attracts people to Colorado.
Our statewide economy is one — negative impacts on the Western Slope affect the entire state. Our future depends on local leaders throughout Colorado figuring out how to conserve, reuse water, and manage future growth before thinking about further depleting our mountain streams.
Kathy Chandler-Henry, Eagle
The writer is an Eagle County commissioner.
This letter was published in the Nov. 17 edition.
