9367 ‎(2)‎

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9367
• Author: Colorado Water Workshop.
• Title: Proceedings
• USFW Year: 1992.
• USFW - Doc Type: Colorado Water Workshop July 22-24, 1992.
• Copyright Material: NO

Paul Frohardt: I was getting worried, I have never been to a water
law conference where the environmental representative was let off the
hook. I did not know if there was going to be any questions for Lori
or not.

Lori Potter: Jeris Danielson said on that fateful day, and I was
there, that he thought Colorado would use its remaining 800,000 acre-
feet, but it would use it in the stream. Furthermore, he said that
the water was worth more to Colorado left in the stream, flowing out
of the state, rather than taken out and developed in the traditional
consumptive sense. His comment, at least as reflected in my notes,
is that the chance of Colorado developing its remaining share is very
slim. After going through the forces and factors I enumerated in my
talk I would have to agree with him and agree that we ought to look
at the very real possibility that water is worth more to us left in
the stream, than it is irrigating some more alfalfa.

Question: You suggested that lack of money is one of the reasons why
we were not going to be able to develop this water. I suggest to you
that money does not seem to be stopping metropolitan areas from buying
up very expensive agricultural water rights and constructing even more
expensive ways to deliver them. I have to use the Two Forks example -
- money was not the thing that stopped that hundred of thousands of
acre-feet from being developed. I see that you are separating the
environmental defense piece of Sierra Club from the Sierra Club. I
want to know where you are going to be because I hear you, or people
of your persuasion, testify before committee hearings that they do not
like to see tumbleweeds blowing out in eastern Colorado. They do not
like the impacts on school districts and communities of the dry up
agriculture. It appears to me that the way you are going to resolve
some of that, and I think history speaks well in my case, is by
developing some of this water. I want to know if you are going to be
behind the development of some of that water, or whether you are just
going to dismiss development because of the notions that we cannot get
people together, we cannot get money, we do not have the political
clout, or whatever the excuse might be. I really would like for you
to more specifically address whether the Sierra Club is going to
support the development of that water, or not. It is the point I
think you are skirting a little bit.

Lori Potter: I would refer you to the story in today's Post about
water transfers from agriculture to metro-Denver. The environmental
community, the Water Board and other project proponents are united on
this issue. I would note that your question went, in part, to the
monetary costs involved. In fact, it has been the case that buying
agricultural water rights from willing sellers has been cheaper than.
developing new water projects. That is why it is happening,
naturally. Transactions of that type, which, as we can see in the
article I have indicated, have a broad consensus of people supporting
that type of development of water. That is where I think you will see
water developers and the environmental community coming together and
supporting water projects in the future.

John Carlson:

I do not know if it is on the topic, but a thought

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