Leadville – Aurora is fighting what it calls an unjust reputation as a heartless water-grabber that soaks up water rights from rural communities with little regard for history and townspeople.
“There is a lot of misperception,” said Doug Kemper, Aurora Utilities manager of strategic resources planning.
For four decades, Aurora has bought water rights in the Arkansas, South Platte and Colorado river basins to serve its growing population. Critics say Aurora is putting farmers out of work and damaging local economies.
But Aurora says it offers fair compensation for water rights while helping communities.
City officials point to their work in Lake County, where Aurora has helped to preserve open space and is working to save historic buildings.
“We have a responsibility to be a good neighbor to these people,” said Melissa Elliott, Aurora Utilities spokeswoman. “Water development is about relationships with people and their communities, too.”
In 1998, Aurora paid $2.6 million for the 1,900-acre Hayden Ranch in Lake County. The land sits in the foreground of Colorado’s two tallest peaks, Mount Elbert and Mount Massive. The bucolic ranch includes the Arkansas River, elk calving ground and migrating-bird habitat.
But what caught Aurora’s eye was the 1,100 acre-feet of water. An acre-foot is generally believed to be enough to serve the needs of two families of four for a year.
Community members worried that Aurora would become an absentee owner or, worse, divide the property into 35-acre ranchettes.
Historians were concerned about the ranch’s 16 decrepit farm buildings. The buildings were reminders of the ranch’s working past, when it provided feed for mules, horses and oxen during Colorado’s 19th-century mining boom.
“These ranches were critical,” said Mike Conlin, coordinator with the Lake County Open Space Initiative. “They literally provided the fuel for the boom. These (buildings) are icons of the history of this valley.”
No organization wanted to take on the parcel. Bulldozing the structures would be an affront to the valley’s history. Fixing them would be too costly and too time-consuming.
Aurora found an answer.
The city joined with Lake County to create the Lake County Open Space Initiative, a collaboration that involves two dozen state, federal and local agencies and preserves about 7,600 acres, including the Hayden Ranch.
On Wednesday, Aurora will sell the parcel with the buildings to Colorado Preservation Inc. for $1,000.
Colorado Mountain College will then use the buildings as a lab for its newly created preservation course. The college wants to further document the structures, shore them up and use grants and student labor to rebuild them.
“The reason we are able to do this is because of the city of Aurora,” said John Marrin, campus dean of Colorado Mountain College.
“It would have been easy for (Aurora) to put the ranch on the market or do nothing with it,” said Mark Rodman, executive director of Colorado Preservation Inc. “The fact is that they are willing to work with the community.”
Staff writer Jeremy Meyer can be reached at 303-820-1175 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.
