EDITOR’S NOTE: Sam Mathews, a sophomore at Kent Denver, won first place for this essay submitted to the Global Student Challenge, sponsored by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington, D.C.
On the arid plains of Colorado, where climate change and a surge in population are rapidly draining existing water supplies, cooperation and innovation may offer new solutions to an old problem: How to slake a thirst as big as the Rocky Mountains.
From the hard-working farmers of the Eastern Plains and drought-stricken Southwest, to the Front Range cities of Denver and Aurora, Colorado’s economy and population are dependent upon water derived from the annual snowpack and existing aquifers. But according to a March 2011 report from the Surface Water Supply Index, Colorado will suffer an annual shortfall of 1 million acre- feet of water by 2050.
With the average American suburban family draining an acre-foot of water annually, that means Colorado is facing a million-family shortfall in coming decades.
While nobody has a comprehensive solution to the Rocky Mountain water shortage, the key may be as simple as making more from less. Colorado’s water supply comes from a multitude of natural sources as well as artificial ones: ground wells, snowpack, and external piping, to name a few. But these sources won’t be able to meet the future demands of Colorado’s population.
Aquifers are an obvious source of water, but present their own difficulties, according to Wayne Forman, a Denver attorney specializing in water law. “Some counties are largely reliant upon non-renewable, non- tributary ground water,” Forman says. “That water is declining in supply and is becoming uneconomical to access . . . . These supplies are dangerously close to being virtually inaccessible in 20 to 30 years.”
While Colorado’s populous Douglas and Arapahoe counties struggle with non-sustainable water sources, other counties fall victim to the changing nature of the Rockies’ famous snowpack. Eighty percent of the region’s surface water supply comes from melting snowpack, according to the Colorado Climate Center. But that pack is melting earlier each spring.
Although many analysts point to increasing population as the villain of Colorado’s water drama, the truth is more complex. “Plant growth is much more consumptive than showering or washing dishes,” Forman points out. “Eighty percent of Colorado’s water is used by agriculture, which does not return much, if any, of the original supply. On the other hand, 90 percent of indoor water use is recycled.”
Current water regulations actually encourage agricultural waste. Ranchers and farmers are required to use their annual allotment, or lose water rights in the future. Often, this means irrigating fallow fields or growing crops that find no market. Although a drop in the water supply will impact farming communities and the industry’s livelihood, those cuts will inevitably come: “If there’s going to be a solution to our water shortage, it’s got to come from agriculture,” says Jim Lochhead, the CEO and manager of Denver Water.
In one of the fastest growing areas of Colorado, a “green” solution may hold the key to sustainability in coming decades. Aurora, a rapidly expanding suburb of Denver, has implemented a pilot program known as Circuit Recycling, and the benefits are significant enough that the city believes it may be able to meet the predicted shortfalls that other Coloradans fear.
Addressing the impending shortfall of water will likely require a combination of all of these partial solutions: limits on municipal consumption, reform on how agriculture uses water, and sophisticated recycling programs.
This commentary was edited for space. For the full essay, go to challenge-samuel- mathews.
