Despite decades of evidence, there is still a false binary choice being hoisted upon Coloradans by municipalities and water development entities — either we almost completely dewater our rivers as they flow through lower elevation communities, decimating river health, river recreation and local economic opportunities, or we provide municipal water to rapidly growing suburban cities on the Front Range.
Instead, our state government should help prioritize river restoration by championing in-channel water delivery projects.
Water should be left in river channels until it reaches the nearest adjacent diversion point to its delivery location. Hundreds, if not thousands of ditches, tunnels and pipelines already exist, and basin-wide assessments of these diversion points were done under the Colorado Water Plan. The filtration technology exists to clean water for public use and methods for filtering out pollution at its source in gutters, sewers and from farm runoff are a win-win to install, as they would help maintain water quality in rivers, plus create less filtration issues as downstream municipalities divert water from lower points in watersheds.
In a recent representative case, Larimer County commissioners voted May 8 to finalize a project authorizing a 1041 permit for the Thornton Water Pipeline. The newly approved plan would divert water out of the Cache la Poudre River via a pipeline near its canyon mouth and take it parallel to the river (eventually even crossing the river 12 miles downstream) and deliver it to an existing pipeline near Interstate 25, and eventually to the city of Thornton. The Thornton Water Pipeline’s original 1041 permit was unanimously rejected by the county commissioners in 2019, after which Thornton sued Larimer County and lost in district court, a ruling Thornton appealed and lost again.
Thornton came back with an alternate pipeline route, but the same plan to further dewater the Lower Poudre. The commissioners reported feeling “handcuffed” by the district court’s ruling that stated Larimer County had the right to reject the project plan, but also stating that the county could not demand using the river channel as a condition of future approval.
This is the kind of archaic logic that prevails in water court and continues to send Coloradans down a path of dying rivers, further depriving them of their critical instream flows. As we come face-to-face with greater demands on decreasing water resources across the state, the ability to approve projects based on restoring rather than further destroying a community’s river should be on the table.
Thornton’s water delivery plan, by not choosing an in-channel delivery option, violates multiple criteria in the Larimer County Land Use Code, including a proposed project’s need to demonstrate “how it mitigates impacts on rivers, streams and wetlands to the greatest extent possible” and the need for mitigation to “follow a hierarchy to first avoid impacts to resources of highest value, second minimize the impacts that are unavoidable and finally mitigate the impacts that occur” (LUC 10.9.1. E and F). Yet, the state courts directed the county to accept those violations rather than embrace a tremendous river restoration opportunity. If we’re going to build new water infrastructure, why would we want to build an unnecessary pipeline that would further deprive our river of its essential flows?
There are numerous laws that require water development projects to consider and provide mitigation for impacts to the environmental and economic health of communities. An argument can be made that diverting significant instream flows before it is necessary is always going to run afoul of laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act, and various Clean Water Act laws at the state and federal level. Water projects are often delayed multiple decades because of court challenges under these laws and could avoid most of these costly setbacks by starting with plans that keep water in rivers.
The state should offer guidance that water conveyance be done via a river’s natural channel wherever possible. Creating incentives for nature-based solutions should be a no-brainer and would put Colorado in a position to lead Western states in addressing climate change and restoring rivers. To accomplish this:
1) The Colorado Water Quality Control Division should implement statewide upgraded pollution filtration at source points to rivers, including industrial and agricultural discharges, municipal sewer systems and other reclaimed water sources.
2) Our state legislature should direct the Colorado Water Conservation Board to prioritize projects that restore and protect river flows, and develop guidance for existing project proposals to shift their conveyance methods to natural river channels and upgraded water treatment facilities.
3) The Colorado Department of Water Resources should provide direction to the Colorado Water District Court and Water Commissioners signaling that local governments can and should require water projects to send waters downstream until reaching the nearest adjacent diversion point to their final destination.
Colorado already has taken major steps to protect our rivers and creeks, because as a state we recognize the value of healthy watersheds to our economy, our health and well-being, and the water we drink. As a state, we need to prioritize keeping water flowing in rivers and stop relying on antiquated systems for water delivery that leave riverbeds dry.
Evan Stafford lives in Fort Collins and is the communications director for the nationwide nonprofit river stewardship organization American Whitewater.
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