Legislators and leading experts in Colorado’s competitive water-rights system say it is time for new and growing cities along the Front Range to consider banding together, possibly as a metropolitan water authority, in an effort to bring down the high costs of delivering water to residents.
“I start with the premise that what we’re doing isn’t working,” said House Speaker Andrew Romanoff of Denver. “It’s not a good, sustainable, long-term strategy.”
And though there is no organized effort underway to assemble a metro water authority, the lawmaker says it’s time to begin the discussion.
“If we can save money by pooling our resources,” he said, “that could overcome that turf battle.”
Such an effort would require unprecedented cooperation by Denver suburbs who have been using federal funds and local charges for water hookups to stockpile water rights for years.
But several water experts said a central authority is a logical step.
“Knowing what we know now, it would make such good sense to have a Front Range-wide water authority, charged with the responsibility for providing water throughout the area,” said David Getches, the dean at the University of Colorado’s law school and former state director of natural resources.
“We need to do something drastic, and not just more hoarding by a few cities with a big tax base,” he said.
Stockpiling called absurd
Critics say the mad dash for municipal water, conducted in competition and secrecy, has helped push Denver-area utility fees to record levels and encouraged absurd stockpiling.
Getches cited purchases by the city of Thornton, a city of 106,000 that regional forecasters say could grow to 185,000 in the next 25 years. The city hired a broker in secret and bought enough water for 300,000 two decades ago, but court battles and delivery obstacles have kept the city from using it.
The purchases, documented by The Denver Post in a series of articles last week, drove up water bills for Thornton residents and swelled the price of water for other cities.
Like Thornton, Broomfield also bought through a water broker to acquire rights to billions of gallons of water.
When it did so, the price of water in that section of northern Colorado shot up 628 percent in 3 1/2 years.
A result is that, in Broomfield, it costs $24,424 for a new user simply to hook up to water service – more than twice the amount charged for a water connection by any city outside Colorado in an American Water Works Association survey. Other Front Range suburbs also charge between $10,000 and $20,000 for connections.
Peter Binney, the utility director for Aurora – another big buyer of water – said rising prices and demand are posing extraordinary challenges for small towns and water districts that can ill afford long pipelines and new treatment plants.
“If nothing else, the law of economics” will demand greater cooperation, he said. “We’re going to have to look at some form of regionalization” to replace “the Balkanized way we’re doing it.”
No state log of records
Beyond dealing with competing interests on the Front Range, any effort to create a metro water authority also would need to take into account statewide political pressures.
If a central water authority is not accompanied by sound urban planning, “you become like Los Angeles,” Getches said.
And on the Western Slope, the prospect of “a behemoth water power agency is very scary,” he said, “unless you build in some kind of protection” for areas of the state where water is plentiful and cities are scarce.
Lawmakers also say they were surprised to learn from the Post series that the state does not require an ownership registry of water rights.
Though the state keeps records on the location, amount and appropriation date of every water right, it doesn’t track changing ownership.
The lack of such records creates a fog that benefits those brokers and attorneys skilled in ferreting out the information, who charge hefty bills for their services.
And there are other concerns.
“I come from an end of the state that would like to see us keep our water (for agricultural use),” said Rep. Buffie McFadyen of Pueblo West, who sits on a House committee that deals with water issues. “It should concern us that, like property, there’s no central location to go to find out by whom the water right has been purchased.
“It would help southern Colorado to help us see when speculators are buying water.”
Another member of McFadyen’s committee, Mary Hodge of Brighton, started a process last week in which she plans to interview the state’s water engineer and some water lawyers and owners to ask questions about the benefits of such a registry.
But another member of the committee, Ray Rose of Montrose, says that the registry isn’t needed and that he would oppose efforts to create one.
“I haven’t seen any examples of (anyone) taking advantage of the system,” Rose said.
Also, legislators say the state’s strapped budget could prevent creating a new recording system.
Staff writer Chuck Plunkett can be reached at 303-820-1333 or cplunkett@denverpost.com.
Staff writer David Olinger can be reached at 303-820-1498 or dolinger@denverpost.com.
