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Page 2 of 6 <br />summer to avoid killing trout stressed by the lack of water. <br />"I've lived here since 1976, and I've never, ever seen it where it was in early July," said Granby <br />lawyer Rich Newton, an avid fisherman. "There are times when I have looked at it and wanted to <br />cry." <br />The state's headwaters counties have an uneasy relationship with the sprawling Front Range. <br />While residents chafe at being treated like a water colony, economic statistics show how tied they <br />are to Colorado's eastern cities. <br />Last year, the second -home market eclipsed the $7 billion tourism industry as the top driver of <br />regional income in the headwaters, with a significant fraction of buyers hailing from the metro <br />area. Front Range skiers have become a larger part of the state's $2.5 billion skiing industry, <br />accounting for 35 percent of skier visits in 2003. <br />But some 480,000 acre -feet of water is piped from the main stem of the Colorado River to the <br />South Platte and Arkansas River basins every year, by far the most exported from any one area <br />of the state. <br />Winter Park's relationship with Denver is even more tightly wound. The city owns the local ski <br />resort, which it has leased to ski giant Intrawest. But Denver's water diversions have jeopardized <br />Intrawest's planned 1,100 -unit development at the mountain's base. <br />Denver can legally divert almost all of the water that comes off the peaks above the resort. <br />Not even the rivulets are spared. They splash off the mountains into a waiting ditch that runs <br />along the maintenance road and get slurped up in a Denver -bound pipe. <br />Under the state's "first in time, first in right" water law system, Denver Water has the right to <br />take virtually all the water it can use. And Denver built its diversions long before the era of <br />environmental laws. <br />Meanwhile, state water planners predict new residents, lured in part by Colorado's high country, <br />will continue to flood the northern Front Range, increasing demand for water by 50 percent by <br />2030. <br />"If Denver wants to be Denver, they've got to have this water," said Bruce Hutchins, who <br />supervises one of Winter Park's water suppliers. "They've got to have it." <br />Diversions increasing <br />However, that doesn't have to be at the expense of Grand County, said Michael Bennet, Denver <br />Mayor John Hickenlooper's chief of staff. He noted that Denver Water is working to help Grand <br />County build a reservoir in the valley to help solve its water woes. <br />"We recognize Winter Park and other recreational opportunities in the high country are hugely <br />important to Denver's own economic interests," Bennet said. "It is fantasy to believe that this <br />state can solve its water problems unless we can figure out ways to work together." <br />But officials in Grand, Summit, Eagle and Pitkin counties fear that the next round of Front Range <br />water projects will be the tipping point that drains the lifeblood from the headwaters region. <br />One recent study projects that in 25 years, the four counties will lose at least 50 percent of their <br />water to the Front Range. <br />http: / /www.denverpost.com/cdalarticle /print /0, 1674 ,36 %7E23447 %7E2335775,00.html 8/16/2004 <br />