Anyone who knows western movies and books, knows that in the west, gold might be king, but water is the ultimate power. Who owns the water, owns the world, which is what the land barons in the westerns knew, and why they tried to steal as much as they could.
Today, especially in overblown states such as Colorado, that still holds true. Because of the water war lessons from those westerns, one knows never to sell one’s water rights.
Um, no. Not true. I was shocked when I returned to Colorado after spending time in California taking care of my aged father, to find that so many ranchers in Southeastern Colorado had sold their water rights to front range cities so those large cities could continue to grow. It made sense to them — their children didn’t want their way of life, and so they took the money and . . . well, I don’t know what they did with it. All I know is that there is a heck of a lot of land around here with no water rights. (Until recently, even the rain that fell on your property in Colorado didn’t belong to you — it belonged to the state and whoever held the rights to that water.)
And the front range cities continue to fight for water to enable them to grow.
Which brings me to today’s topic: The Arkansas Valley Conduit Project. I’m sure most of you had never heard of the project until the bill to finish the project was vetoed. You’d think with all the hoopla over the veto, that the project itself was cancelled, but it wasn’t. If Colorado can dig up the money, they can continue to dig the conduit, which is supposed to deliver filtered water to Southeastern Colorado. Despite what everyone seems to believe, the project itself wasn’t vetoed, merely the method of repayment of the loans.
The project was authorized by the Federal Government in 1962, but since the participants couldn’t make the construction cost repayment schedule, nothing was ever done, and so the project languished. In 2009, the repayment terms were reduced: instead of 100% of the cost to be repaid to the Federal Government, only 35% would need to be repaid, and participants had 50 years to repay the money.
In 2020, the project received an additional $28 million federal funds to finish designing and to begin building the project. The controversy today is that a new bill (H.R. 131, the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act) was introduced and passed by both the House and the Senate, which allowed for an additional 50 years to pay the loan, as well as a 50% reduction in the interest, and it’s that bill for the repayment schedule that was vetoed.
Nothing in that veto blocked the project. If the money can be found, the project can be finished. The only problem is, the total cost of the project is estimated as $1.4 billion dollars. (So far, $249 million has been spent.)
The conduit is to be 130 miles and to serve 50,000 people. So, do the math. $1.4 billion comes down to $11 million a mile, and a whopping $28,000 per each recipient of the water. Huh? Does that make sense? I know people need clean water, but in the past 70 plus years, many of the towns the water was supposed to serve have developed their own filtration systems, so it’s possible that the number of recipients would be even less. (But I don’t know since no one is talking about that since it doesn’t fit the narrative. The other thing no one is talking about is the final cost to the consumer. Water in Colorado is already expensive. Because of the cost of the conduit being picked up by the final users, it’s possible no one will be able to afford the water, if in fact, there is any water.)
Meantime, in the 73 years since the pipeline was conceived, the population of Colorado has grown from 1,753,947 to 5,773,714, mostly in the cities. (In certain areas in Southeastern Colorado, the population has declined significantly.) Because of the continued growth, the water wars have heated up, with front range cities demanding more and more water. Practically every inch of water in Colorado is already allocated, so there’s no guarantee that if the conduit is ever built, there will be any water to run through the pipes to the outermost reaches of Colorado. (And that’s not even taking into consideration low snowpack years.)
I also can’t help but remember other Colorado boondoggles. The Denver International Airport and all the cheating that went on back then (people who were behind the project bought up the land from unsuspecting owners for a pittance and sold it to the developers for a fortune) as well as all the problems building it, such as cost overruns and a ridiculously expensive baggage system that never was able to be fixed. Then there was the whole Silverado Savings and Loan fiasco. And now there’s the push to make Colorado 100% electric, when in fact the system is so overworked and so old, that in a recent windstorm, power had to be shut off to 100,000 people due to fire risk. Some people were out of power for days. It seems to me that this conduit follows in those same unsavory footstep.
This is not a very cheerful first-day-of the-new-year post, but I needed to get all this out of my head so that I can prepare myself for following through with my resolution of staying away from news and politics and all other issues that irritate me. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I keep the resolution — it certainly would do wonders for my peace of mind, especially since I can’t do anything about anything.
Wishing you a happy, healthy, and peaceful new year, and the strength to follow through on any resolutions you might have.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.
Pat Bertram is the author of 
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