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<br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Daye Miller <br />P.O. Box 567, Palmer Lake, CO 80133 <br />719-481-2003, Fax 719-481-3452 <br /> <br />December 8, 2005 <br /> <br />The Honorable Bill Owens <br />Governor, State of Colorado <br />State Capitol Building <br />Denver, CO 80203 <br /> <br />Dear Governor Owens: <br /> <br />Denver Post reporters David Olinger and Chuck Plunkett deserve great credit for their <br />investigative November 20, 21, 22, & 23, 2005 articles on Colorado's escalating water <br />management crisis. <br /> <br />Coloradans should be shocked to learn their state's water costs are the highest in the West. <br />Something is fundamentally wrong when a new home buyer pays $24,424 for a water tap in <br />Broomfield, as compared to $1,606 in Tucson and $5,435 in Las Vegas. This growing water <br />cost disparity is scandalous-especially when Colorado's high mountains produce most of the <br />renewable water used by all southwestern states. <br /> <br />Coloradans should also be alanmed that all competing Front Range growth proposals would <br />further dewater Colorado's vital fanming and tourist areas. This artificial shortage and dry-up <br />strategy is unnecessary and inexcusable. Colorado's entitled Colorado River Compact and <br />Aspinall Pool losses to California, Arizona, and Nevada could easily support several million <br />more people in Colorado. <br /> <br />Colorado could quickly correct its self-defeating water management crisis with a cooperative <br />emergency program to pump its wasted Colorado River and Aspinall Pool entitlements into high <br />altitude reservoir sites. These conserved state waters would then be available for efficient <br />gravity deliveries to urban, rural, and environmental users, when needed throughout both <br />slopes. Tap and user fees would decline, instead of escalate. <br /> <br />Incredibly, Colorado's advanced pumped-storage development options have been improperly <br />shunned by state and Front Range water leaders since 1990. Political pressures from a few <br />misguided activists have replaced nonmal strategic water planning practices used by all other <br />western states. . <br /> <br />I respectfully recommend aggressive Owens Administration actions in support of emergency <br />development of Colorado's threatened interstate rights and high altitude pumped-storage <br />capabilities. I also request a governor's appointment to Colorado's recently created Interbasin <br />Compact Committee (IBCe). I may be the only available Coloradan with twenty years of <br />dedicated statewide water planning experience. <br /> <br /> <br />Thank you for considering these constructive water management comments and requests for <br />strategic protection and enhancement of Colorado's cities, fanms, and environments. <br /> <br />~ <br /> <br />Dave Miller <br />Strategic Water Planner <br />