Western Slope Fears Future Trickling Away: The Denver Post

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Page 1 of 6 The Denver Post Western Slope fears future trickling away As Front Range slakes thirst, headwaters towns are forced to limit growth By Theo Stein Denver Post Staff Writer Sunday, August 15, 2004 - Winter Park - A few miles above this modest resort town, a rectangular concrete cavern owned by Denver Water swallows the Fraser River. What Denver releases back to the river is a trickle, hardly enough to wet the riverbed. Yet this strangled stream is the only water supply for the Winter Park ski resort. The rest of the river slides down a huge pipe, destined for the Front Range. Nearby, the smaller Jim Creek, still boisterous with snowmelt on a late- June day, disappears into another concrete hole. On this creek, Denver takes it all. These catchments, part of a massive plumbing system of some 30 diversions and interconnected pipes ringing the Fraser River headwaters, help explain a striking paradox: Some of the snowiest mountains in Colorado rise above the valley. Yet Winter Park officials have told builders they are running out of water to serve new development. Now, Denver Water and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District are firming up plans to pump more water from Grand County to proposed new reservoirs that would be built on the east slope. That could make every year a drought year in the Fraser Valley, experts said. "We're trying to sustain a town here," said Grand County Commissioner James Newberry. "We feel like this is all the water we can give. Pretty soon we won't have anything left but dust in our veins." As the state's powerful Front Range region moves to quench its thirst after five dry years, the water -rich Western Slope worries that its future is about to disappear down a long pipe to Denver. Publicly, local officials say they are hopeful of finding win -win deals that allow some water exports while protecting their quality of life. Privately, there's increasing concern about getting steamrolled by the Front Range. And every new demand for water increases their anxiety. Meanwhile, many Winter Park residents wonder if the five -year drought is a harbinger of their future. In 2002 and again this year, the combination of low snowpacks and Denver diversions often reduced the Fraser to a limpid ribbon of water. Savvy local fishermen now abandon the river in http:/ /Www.denverpost.comlcdalarticle /print /0, 1674 ,36 %7E23447 %7E2335775,00.html 8/16/2004