Cooperation vs. Competition : Headwaters Magazine (Spring 2009)

The Colorado Foundation for Water Education prints a quarterly magazine that features articles on water resources of the state. The spring issue focused on the collaborative process, mandated by the Colorado legislature in 2005, the Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act, HB 1177.

The first article, Interbasin Compact Process 101, begins the issue with the history and contents of the Act and the two levels of citizen involvement--the grassroots basin round tables and the Interbasin Compact Committee, the administrative body that decides the rules and procedures under which the nine round tables operate.

The second article, Colorado's Water for the 21st Century Act: Finally Doing the Right Thing? recounts the history of water development, legislation, and negotiation federally and within the state. Colorado conforms to the prior appropriation doctrine, based on the principle of 'first in time, first in right', "once a person puts water to a beneficial use and complies with any statutory requirements, a water right is perfected and remains valid so long as it continues to be used" (Getches, 1990, p. 6). As prior appropriation state in the regulation of water resources, the author, George Sibley, wrote, "The sunny side of the appropriation doctrine is the democratic access it gives equitably to anyone irrespective of wealth to file on a water right; but its dark side is the adversarial and litigious 'every man, or city, for himself" culture it spawned'" (p. 5). According to the author, the failures of Homestake II and Two Forks prompted a more cooperative approach. The Front Range Water Forum, front range municipal water managers and proponents of the Two Forks project, wrote the Metropolitan Water Supply Investigation in 1999 that identified project that did not entail transmountain diversions of water to supply the east slope.

The Statewide Water Supply Initiative (SWSI), precursor of the Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act, analyzed water supply and demand on a basin by basin basis. Conducted during one of the state's most severe drought, SWSI applied a bottom-up structure for assessing the state's water resources. SWSI produced a set of reports, which many of the round tables of the Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act process adopted as their baseline.

Guided through the legislative process by Rep. Josh Penry from the Grand Valley and Sen. Jim Isgar from the San Juan River Basin, The Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act underwent a number of revision. The legislature ensured that the Act supported grassroots participation, that it included all basins, and that major water stakeholders had a voice. Quoted in the article, Judge Greg Hobbs stated, "we are no longer developing a water resource; we are learning how to share a developed resource" (p. 7).

"Envisioning an alternate future: IBCC takes aim at status quo approaches to water planning" (p. 8), the third article, addressed visions that IBCC members had of the state's future and the role that water played in the evolution of that vision, the forces impacting the vision--population growth, climate change, and energy development in the state. Strategies to guarantee sufficient water to realize a viable future included conservation, agricultural transfers, and new water development.
Although the major municipalities, such as Denver and Aurora, have instituted conservation policies, the basins and the IBCC continue to articulate agricultural transfer and new water development strategies.

The late major article, "A Numbers Game: What the Technical Work Surrounding the Interbasin Compact Process Reveals" (p. 11), starts with the Colorado water resource gap, identified by SWSI, 630,000 acre feet in 2030. The Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act directs the basin round tables to specify each basin's consumptive and non-consumptive needs assessment. The article cited the studies conducted by the round tables to measure the status of identified projects and process to increase water supply, the requirements in the 'Energy Development Water Needs Assessment', and those of the 'Colorado River Availability Study'. Finally, the issue provided a snapshot of each of the round tables, the major players, interests, and concerns.

Getches, D. H. (1990). Water Law in a Nutshell, 2nd ed. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co.