Referendum A seeks to increase reservoirs

Voters will have to do some hard thinking before voting on Referendum A Nov. 4. Water storage is the key issue, under direction of the Colorado Water Conservancy Board, along with funding development of the storage projects.

A decision could be as tough as splitting H2O itself. Wording of the ballot item starts with debt - up to $4 billion - to buy $2 billion of future water projects for the state. That's big money by anybody's definition.

Proponents and opponents of the issue agree about one thing - Colorado loses too much water it has rights to downstream, where it flows out of the state.

State Representative Keith King cited some numbers at last week's Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce breakfast covering school board elections and ballot questions. Approximately 18 million acre-feet of water starts in Colorado, and the state owns water rights to nine billion. But the state can store only six billion, King explained. Agricultural business uses 85 percent of the water, with 15 percent having urban use, such as homes and industry.

Colorado's state legislature supports Referendum A, which would allow the creation and sale of revenue bonds for specific water projects (costing more than $5 million). This is such an important issue, said King. And it's very contentious.

The water capital improvement plan is organized in a way similar to the Colorado Housing Finance Administration (CFHA), which produces bonds it then sells for capital to support housing in the state. The funding mechanism for water projects through the Colorado Water Conservation Board is the same.

Support for Referendum A comes from Colorado's county levels, including El Paso County, as well as chambers of commerce, some of the water consortiums and trade groups and the Colorado Farm Bureau.

Our position is we need water storage development. We need water storage long-term, according to Chuck Berry, president and CEO of the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry. Its passing would allow the Water Conservation Board, with one member from each of Colorado's eight river basins and one from Denver, to decide what water projects to recommend to the governor, who has to pick at least one to start in 2005. Projects can include improvement to existing systems or conservation. The ballot question also allows public/ private interaction for water projects, missing now, said Berry. The Western Slope's Club 20, made up of 20 agricultural counties, also supports passing of Referendum A, he added, which shows its broad- based support.

Two years' drought has illustrated how important funding new projects is, said Cinamon Watson, spokesperson for Save Colorado's Water, which is campaigning voters to approve the question. Farmers up and down the South Platte can't conserve their way out of a drought. They need more water storage. And we need more capital to increase our storage capacity, she explained. We see a lot of projects coming forward with this as an impetus.

Whether state voters decide to let Colorado get into its greatest indebtedness in history or not, Referendum A has nothing to do with Environmental Protection Agency rules and regulations. No matter how new water storage projects, improvements to existing systems or increasing conservation is funded, existing standards shall be followed. Referendum wording requires mitigation of basins of origin for water infrastructure projects, for wetlands, threatened species and water quality.

Jeff Crank, governmental affairs director for the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, said the city doesn't want to end up in another drought year with restrictions more severe than seen so far. That will happen if we keep doing it the same way we've been doing it. We have to try something different.

One local attorney with three decades of water law experience disagrees.

The state of Colorado does need water development. That's pretty universally accepted, and I echo that, said Jim Felt, water attorney. Also important is efficiency of use of water resources and to store water being saved with greater efficiency, he said. The storage gives a physical supply, but an equally great function is timing of the use. Winter water storage or alternating years of storage for municipalities and agriculture are ways the timing element comes into play.

Do we need money to do this? I am not aware, in all my years, of any water project that failed for lack of money. Big projects have not failed because of a lack of funds; what has caused big projects to fail is environmental issues, he said.

Funding has some merit, but I'm not going to support this because I am concerned about the remedy - because it does not describe what projects they are going to look at.

The progress made by collaboration between interests might be stalled if Referendum A were to pass, putting projects in an order determined by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, Felt warned.

The process we have been building for 20 years will be undone and put in the hands of a board that can be influenced by political pressure.

Financing is not the issue. The issue is getting stakeholders to the table. The funding will follow if the stakeholders come to consensus, he said.

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