Citizen's Guide to Colorado's Environmental Era

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11P. 1� t Y '_' By Rose L.aflin and Brian Werner The Cache la Poudre River means different things to different people, and their perceptions have changed over time. The Cache la Poudre was once the engine for an agricultural society whose success lured settlers to Northern Colorado from all over the world. As this population diversified and urbanized, the river's value became more than just economic. Some residents wanted to protect and recognize the river corridor as a unique recreational and heritage area. In the late 20th century, intense negotiations led up to two special federal designations for the Cache la Poudre —as a Wild and Scenic River and a National Heritage Area. The discussions and compromises that led up to these designations revealed the changing values of those who care about this river, and the difficulties they face in finding a balance between its protection and use. The Cache la Poudre River is one of the fin- est examples of the development and evolution of a working river anywhere in the United States. The Poudre, as it is locally known, begins at the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park and flows through a canyon of its own making before dropping nearly a mile in elevation to the plains where it joins the South Platte River. The river represented life and opportunity to Native Americans and 19th century settlers inhabit- ing a dry and unpredictable environment. Beginning in the 1860s, settlers diverted water away from the plains portion of the Poudre and irrigated small plots along the bottomlands. The river facilitated irrigated agriculture in an era when Americans. scoured the West looking for fertile land of their own to farm. In 1870, Union Colonists settled on the river's eastern reaches and founded the town of Greeley. They con- structed the first large canals off the river and gained national attention as much for their adventures with large -scale irrigation as for their experiment in com- munal living. The dry summer of 1874 ignited a dispute over the Poudre's water between Union Colony residents and those upstream in Fort Collins. This friction prompted the codification of Colorado water law, based on the doctrine of prior appropriation. Prior appropriation meant that those who had a prior claim to water, or were first in time, had first right to the water. This dif- fered from the system used in the more humid, eastern parts of the United States where only landowners next to a watercourse held the rights to its water. In the 1880s and 1890s, irrigators built larger and longer canals along the Poudre, including some at high elevations that diverted water from other rivers. They also constructed dozens of reservoirs to store water for late summer when the river's flow dwindled. The Poudre had one of the first and most extensive reservoir systems in Colorado and a method of exchanging water among all its users that was widely admired and emulated. With the Poudre's waters tapped and flowing according to human will, agriculture boomed in the surrounding region and attracted new resi- dents. Completed in the 1950s, the Colorado -Big Thompson Project diverted Colorado River water beneath the Continental Divide to several Front Range rivers, including the Poudre. Industries and municipalities thrived alongside agriculture in the Poudre valley with this additional Western Slope Gradually, towns around the river grew into colleges became universities; and businesses sand suburbs flourished where irrigated fields and water. . cities;