By Grant Schulte, The Associated Press LINCOLN, Nebraska— Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts announced a $500 million plan Monday to divert water out of Colorado under a 99-year-old compact between the states that allows Nebraska to seize access to Colorado land along the South Platte River and build canals. Ricketts said Nebraska would invoke its rights […]
water rights
Posted inBusiness, Environment, Growth, Housing, News, Politics and Government, Water
Renewable Water Resources wants Douglas County as the first customer for its San Luis Valley water export plan
By Chris Lopez, Alamosa Citizen For an initial payment of $20 million, Douglas County can become a partner of Renewable Water Resources in its plan to export approximately 20,000 acre-feet of water per year from the San Luis Valley, according to an RWR proposal to the Douglas County Commissioners. In its proposal to Douglas County, […]
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In the San Luis Valley, a community fights for its land, water and way of life
Every summer in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, a long, high desert valley ringed by mountains, Jose Martinez watches in admiration as water flows from an irrigation pipe across the contours of his land, feeding the 8 acres of alfalfa he grows near his home in San Francisco, a town of fewer than 90 people. The […]
Posted inClimate, News, Newsletters, Outdoors, Politics and Government, The Outsider, Water
Should river towns be forced to build costly parks to get recreational water rights?
American Whitewater floated a plan last year to expand protections for recreational river flows in Colorado. Maybe, the nonprofit protector of rivers thought, communities should not need to build whitewater parks to secure rights for recreational flows. “It definitely, you know, got some ears perked,” said Hattie Johnson, American Whitewater’s southern Rockies stewardship director. Colorado […]
Posted inClimate, Culture, Education, Environment, Equity, Health, Housing, News, Water
On the Navajo Nation, “putting seeds in the ground is our greatest act of resistance,” Fort Lewis students learn
SHIPROCK, NEW MEXICO — From foraging sweet berries in slickrock canyons to harvesting corn and fresh veggies from manicured fields and gardens, Kayla Yazzie learned about land from her great-grandmothers. Her childhood memories span the eastern portion of the Navajo Nation, from Tocito and Shiprock in New Mexico with her mother’s family, to St. Michaels, […]
Posted inBusiness, Climate, Economy, News, Outdoors, Water
The water supply of the San Luis Valley faces pressure as never before
They all remember when the San Luis Valley brimmed with water. South of San Luis, Ronda Lobato raced the rising floodwaters in San Francisco Creek every spring to fill sandbags that protected her grandparents’ farm. North of Center, potato farmer Sheldon Rockey faced so much spring mud that he had to learn to extract his […]
Posted inBusiness, Climate, Coloradans, Economy, Environment, News, Water
As drought in the West worsens, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in Colorado faces a dwindling water supply
TOWAOC — In late June, Simon Martinez drove along one of the dirt roads crisscrossing the parched rocky shrubland on the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Farm & Ranch Enterprise, a 7,700-acre agricultural operation owned by the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in the far southwestern corner of Colorado. In normal times, he would be driving past […]
Posted inClimate, Growth, News, Water
Drought forces Grand Junction to dip into Colorado River for drinking water for the first time in more than 50 years
For 65 years, the Ute Water Conservancy District serving Grand Junction and Mesa County has let the Colorado River flow on by, while drawing drinking water from pristine runoff 11,000 feet high on Grand Mesa. The severe, ongoing drought has now forced other plans. The utility has for the first time begun to mix Colorado […]
Posted inBusiness, Climate, Environment, Growth, News, Politics and Government, Water
Nevada farmers and conservationists balk at “water banking,” an idea also being weighed in Colorado
By Sam Metz, AP / Report for America CARSON CITY, Nevada — Rural water users are panicking over a proposal to create a market for the sale and purchase of water rights in Nevada, unconvinced by arguments that the concept would encourage conservation. Lawmakers on Monday weighed whether so-called “water banking” would be preferable to […]
Posted inClimate, Environment, Growth, Housing, News, Water
Aurora and Colorado Springs want more water. The proposed solution — a new reservoir — would have far-reaching impacts.
By Michael Elizabeth Sakas, CPR News While most people in Colorado live on the Front Range, most of the state’s water is on the Western Slope. That’s where the snowpack melts and makes its way into the Colorado River. Much of that water flows to places like Denver through a series of dams, reservoirs, pumps […]