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the gazette <br />COLORADO SPRINGS SATURDAY, MAY 25, 2002 <br />BRINGING IN WATER <br />High altitude reservoirs are <br />the answer to our troubles <br />Colorado Springs officials claim residents may be <br />forced to drink their re- cycled waste water, if the <br />city's water plans are not soon approved by Congress <br />( "Water from waste / Colorado Springs faces pros- <br />pect of resorting to treated supplies," The Gazette, <br />May 18). Unfortunately, this alarmist tactic is a <br />smokescreen to hide a major planning oversight. <br />The National Environmental Policy Act requires <br />objective environmental and economic comparisons <br />of all reasonable alternatives when making impor- <br />tant water development decisions. Why is Colorado <br />Springs planning to pump additional water from an <br />enlarged Pueblo Reservoir and overdepleted Arkan- <br />sas River, when a superior Upper Gunnison water <br />source and high altitude reservoir alternative have <br />been available for many years? <br />As the West's primary headwater state, Colorado <br />is fortunate to have the wet -cycle snowmelt and gla- <br />cier- carved reservoir sites needed to protect cities. <br />farms, and environments throughout multiple river <br />basins during the damaging multi -year droughts. Re- <br />grettably, Colorado Springs and other Front Range <br />cities have refused to accept these basic hydrologic <br />facts. <br />About five million Southern Californians are now <br />thriving on Colorado's unused legal share of the Colo- <br />rado River. This self-defeating Colorado condition is <br />being permanently institutionalized by misguided <br />planning notions that assume all multi -basin water <br />storage projects are politically incorrect. <br />Colorado desperately needs leadership with the <br />foresight and courage to unite its warring water fac- <br />tions behind an emergency program to develop the <br />state's invaluable, but overlooked High Altitude Res- <br />ervoir Capability. With managed deliveries of sur- <br />plus snowmelt by gravity from HARC sites, Colo- <br />rado's cities, farms, and environments can soon <br />enjoy high- quality, low -cost drought protection <br />throughout the new millennium. <br />Dave Miller <br />Palmer Lake <br />