The city of Cortez has approved a resolution supporting the Colorado Water Plan – a grassroots effort to meet the growing need for water across the state.

Back in 2013, former Gov. John Hickenlooper issued an executive order directing the Colorado Water Conservation Board to develop the Water Plan to help meet the rising demand for water. But if the plan is to succeed, it will need more sustainable state funding, water advocates say.

So at the most recent City Council meeting in December, Nathan Goodman of the nonprofit Conservation Colorado asked councilors for their public support of the plan – and to ask state legislators to prioritize funding for it.

“This is a crisis,” Goodman said at a work session prior to the council meeting. “And one that we really need to be creative and proactive to confront, and preempt. We don’t want to run into the situation where suddenly we have to be making these hard decisions.”

He called the Water Plan a “really comprehensive road map” to help “build resiliency against expected water scarcity and to guarantee our water security moving into the future.”

The plan operates through the ground-level work of nine separate basins, with their own local governing bodies called “roundtables.”

Much of the water scarcity issue has to do with the state’s rising population, Goodman said. The number of residents living in Colorado rose from 1 million in 1930 to almost 5.7 million in 2019, and is projected to double by 2060.

Based on those projections, there is an expected water scarcity of 560,000 acre-feet per year by 2060, Goodman said – throwing water security for 1.5 million households into jeopardy.

Cortez is in the Southwest basin, which includes Montezuma, Dolores and La Plata counties, with its upper border running from above Nucla, through Telluride and just east of Pagosa Springs. According to the Colorado Water Plan, the Southwest basin’s municipal and industrial water demand is expected to increase between 17,000 and 27,000 acre-feet by 2050.

Right now, 70-80% of precipitation falls west of the Continental Divide, but 80-90% of the state’s population lives on the Front Range, Goodman said.

“As we see people moving to the state, that proportion likely won’t shift an incredible deal,” he said. “And already we have 24 tunnels that divert water from the West Slope to the Front Range.”

The Colorado Water Plan could mitigate the impact of transmountain tunnels by supporting water conservation projects and helping the Front Range to better sustain itself, Goodman said.

After Hickenlooper’s 2013 executive order, state and local water agencies gathered 30,000 comments, spent 30 months on drafts, formed the basins and compiled a final version of a plan, which was signed into action in 2015. It sets ambitious goals, including closing the water supply-demand gap to zero by 2030, conserving and storing 400,000 acre-feet of water by 2050, and attaining 400,000 acre-feet of water storage by 2050.

The plan also sets goals that agricultural economic productivity keep pace with state, national and global needs; public engagement improve; critical watersheds and prioritized rivers be covered by protection and management plans; and communities incorporate conservation in land-use planning.

However, the plan needs about $100 million annually, and Conservation Colorado is encouraging local governments to push state legislators to seek permanent funding, Goodman said.

Locally, plan funds have been used to help fish migrate through the Redburn Ranch Diversion project along the Dolores River, restore the Telluride Valley floor from mining degradation and establish the Mancos River Restoration and Resilience Group.

The vote passed 4-2, with Councilor Sue Betts and Mayor Pro tem Orly Lucero opposing the resolution. Councilor Ty Keel was absent from the meeting.

“Under the uncertain effects of weather and drought in our area we feel it is imperative that we invest in our state’s water future,” the resolution reads.

Goodman also asked the council to support expansion of Regulation 7 protections, which regulate emissions and leakages in oil and gas extraction. Currently, the protections apply only to the Front Range, but Conservation Colorado hopes to enforce them statewide. That vote split 3-3.

Goodman pointed to the Four Corners methane hot spot – a methane cloud over the region.

“This is actually fairly damaging to our air quality, so any way we can seek to limit or mitigate the methane that already sits in our low-lying atmosphere will be beneficial to our public health,” Goodman said.

He added that enforcing the protections could increase oil and gas yields by requiring them to patch their leaks.

The council response was mixed.

“If this was an issue that the companies were losing money because of these leaks, wouldn’t that have been an issue that they would have addressed by now?” asked Councilor Gary Noyes.

Goodman replied said data shows thousands of such leaks across the state. More frequent inspections could help companies catch the leaks early on, he said.

The council voted 3-3, with Mayor Karen Sheek and councilors Jill Carlson and Mike Lavey in favor of the resolution, and Noyes, Lucero and Betts opposing it.

ealvero@the-journal.com