By Will Cornelius
The Surveyor

Despite a record year of rainfall in Colorado, ensuring there will be enough water in the Front Ranges for everyone in the future is far from certain.
“What I really want to impress on the audience today is that water is the fuel for our economy. And as we lose water from this region, we’re losing not just the water, we’re losing the economic activity that that water generates,” Pat Wells told a large audience at the Northern Water Fall Symposium on Nov. 15 at the Embassy Suites in Loveland. Wells is a water strategy specialist for Northern Water who spoke about the impact of water scarcity on communities across Northern Colorado.
In a higher interest rate environment, Wells said buying a new home now with a 30-year mortgage in the region could add $300 to $400 a month to a mortgage payment in water costs alone. “As you increase competition, you’re going to see more challenges with water affordability,” Wells mentioned while also highlighting the decline in agriculture across Northern Colorado since the mid-1980s. According to his calculations, since 1987, the region has lost 195,000 acres of irrigated agriculture.
Wells’ speech touched on a common topic throughout the day, adequately providing a dwindling water supply to a growing population in the Front Ranges.
At midday, a panel discussed the status of the Colorado River and what the future may hold. “There’s only one part of that equation that we really have any control over and that is the demand component. And our demands are consistently lower than the lower basis demands,” said Becky Mitchell, the Colorado Commissioner for the Upper Colorado River Commission.
Negotiations on water rights and the Colorado River have pitted the upper basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico against the three lower basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada. Mitchell, as one of the negotiators involved with the future of the Colorado River, said that the lower basin states collectively used almost twice the amount of water the upper basin states used. She said this made demands on cutting water for people in Colorado a “hard pill to swallow.”
Bennett Raley, a Colorado-based water attorney also on the panel, did not rule out a legal fight over the Colorado River. “I’ll start with the unpleasant observation that I believe that litigation has to be on the table as we move forward,” he stated. The sentiment among the panel was that the lower basin states were not doing enough to reduce water use while demanding that the upper basin states further reduce water use.
With less water flowing down the Colorado River and more people moving to nearby population areas, something will have to change in the future. “So, to be blunt, it’s a zero-sum game,” said Raley.
One of the long-term solutions in Colorado has been to build reservoirs to create backups of water. West of Carter Lake, Northern Water is around halfway through constructing the Chimney Hollow Reservoir. Updates on the construction of the massive reservoir provided a glimpse into the gargantuan scale of the endeavor. Joe Donnelly, the project manager for construction at Chimney Hollow, said that 62,000 tons of quarried material are added daily to the main reservoir dam. Currently 142 feet high, when completed the main reservoir dam will stand 350 feet high.
Since the groundbreaking in August 2021, the timeline for the construction of Chimney Hollow Reservoir has increased by about two months and $65 million Donnelly said.
While 2023 has been a wet year in Colorado with water concerns subsiding slightly, the mood of the conference was focused on the uncertain future and dealing with risk. Wells finished his talk by asking what kind of ‘dog’ Northern Water should be.       The audience’s answers were telling about how people in northern Colorado feel about protecting water. Two-thirds picked a Border Collie because it works hard and keeps the herd together, while one-third said a German Sheppard because it is loyal and wary of newcomers.