Drought Contingency

[NeedMoreAmmo]

This is a great thread and extremely informative. Thanks to everyone.

[Irving]

Thought I would show a newly released video of the problem.

Honestly, I don't expect better from people who take vertical videos.

[Aloha_Shooter]

While it's true that the Eastern slope is buying its water from the Western slope, it's somewhat inaccurate to say the tax revenues collected on the Eastern slope benefit the entire state. Denver politicians vote for state funds to benefit Denver and the outlying regions be damned (except where such expenditures benefit Denver residents such as improving the roads to Western slope ski resorts). This isn't anything new; the old mini-series Centennial even demonstrated how Colorado has brought Western slope water to the Eastern slope to benefit agriculture and residential development in the last 2 or 3 episodes.

In the vast scheme of things, diverting the water makes a lot of sense -- certainly more sense for Colorado as a state than letting that water go downstream for Nevada and California to steal. Shortages in Colorado River outflow are far more a product of California's overuse (anyone remember how they tried to retroactively "fix" the Colorado River Compact 25 years ago to reflect how much more they had been taking?) than anything Colorado is doing. It wouldn't even surprise me if the survey referred to in the OP had its roots in California interests trying to reduce Colorado use in order to set the stage for another attempt at rewriting the CRC.

[Martinjmpr]

it's somewhat inaccurate to say the tax revenues collected on the Eastern slope benefit the entire state. Denver politicians vote for state funds to benefit Denver and the outlying regions be damned (except where such expenditures benefit Denver residents such as improving the roads to Western slope ski resorts).

That is simply the situation that exists in every state where you have a highly populated urban area and low population rural areas. The people in the rural areas bitch about how they don't have any political power because they get outvoted by the people in the urban area. People in rural Nevada bitch about Las Vegas. People in rural Arizona bitch about Phoenix and Tucson. People in Eastern Washington bitch about Seattle. People in Eastern Oregon bitch about Portland and Salem.

In Colorado, at least, the big cities on the Front Range contribute a huge amount of money to the Western slope because so many people come from the front range to ski, hike, camp, fish, hunt, etc, west of the divide. How much business would Vail, Aspen, Glenwood, Steamboat, and Gunnison be doing if there weren't a couple of million people just on the East side of the continental divide who were willing to go over the mountains and spend money? A huge proportion of businesses on the West side of the divide depend on customers from the East side.

Western slopers may hate to admit it but much of their livelihood depends on people coming over from the Eastern slope. Without the economic engine of the Eastern slope, the mountains of Colorado would look a lot like the mountains of Wyoming - sparsely settled by businesses that are hanging by a thread, lots of deserted buildings, boarded up main streets, etc. I realize there are probably people here who think they would be OK with that but having lived in Wyoming for 5 years I thought it was kind of depressing. The lack of thriving businesses means a lack of jobs, stagnant wages, college grads who have to leave the state just to find employment, etc. It's not pretty.

[D_F]

Using that logic Phoenix and Las Vegas are buying our water wth their federal tax money and all of Colorado should be happy for the opportunity to sell our resource. I live here for a reason, it isn’t always easy but youre very welcome to keep your tax money, tourism, politicians, traffic, and opinions in the city. Thank you very much.