Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Marian Goodland.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
She is with Colorado Politics and she has written a
long article, very very informative about what I say is
the most important, most boring topic in the history of Colorado.
But when I say water and water rights is the
number one issue in Colorado, I am not exaggerating.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Marian, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
First of all, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Mandy, I'm happy to be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Well, I'm glad to have it.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
And let's start a big picture because we have a
lot of transplants.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Like you know, I got here eleven years ago.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It never occurred to me that I didn't own the
water rights at my house, right.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
That's just so foreign to me. So let's start at
the beginning.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Right now, negotiations are going on between whom about what.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Lots of different parties who are involved in this one.
This has to do with the shortages that of the
Colorado River that have been getting worse and worse because
of climate change, drought, lack of snowfall, lack of rainfall.
This has been going on now for twenty years. We
are in a twenty year megadrought that a lot of
people say is like one that you get every two
(01:06):
thousand years.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
That's how bad it is.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
And the issue here is that there are seven states
that share the water from the Colorado River and they
and for the last one hundred and two years, since
nineteen twenty two, there has been a compact that has
governed who gets what now. When the Colorado River Compact
was signed one hundred and two years ago, there were
(01:30):
only about seven million people in those seven states.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Now there's about forty.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Million people in those seven states, but the numbers haven't changed.
What's changed, however, is the hydrology how much water the
river can supply. Now, Colorado is in what's called the
Upper Basin States, and that includes US in Utah and
Wyoming and New Mexico, and then you have the lower
basin states, which is Arizona, Nevada, and California.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
And California is the big dog in this one.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
They have the most senior water rights and the most
and they get the most water out of the Colorado River.
So what happens is that the Bureau of Reclamation sort
of manages the operations of the river and they do
it through two big lakes reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Lake Powell is sort of the water bank for Colorado
(02:18):
Lake Mead is the water bank for the lower Basin States,
And there's a lot of difference between how both these
two entities, upper and lower Basin, how they evaluate how
much water they're getting. For a long time, the lower
basin states were taking a lot more water than they
were actually entitled to, and the Upper basin states kind
(02:41):
of fussed about that. And we're now in this situation
with this drought that and we're getting ready to have
new guide operating guidelines in how the river is managed.
And this is a process that is being managed by
the Bureau of Reclamation, which is part of the Department
from the Interior, and they have been trying now since
two thousand and one to get these two entities, the
(03:03):
Lower and Upperbation States, to kind of agree on what's
going to happen when these guidelines that we're under right
now expire at the end.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Of twenty twenty six. And there is no agreement. These
two sides have just never.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Never come to an agreement on how these things are
going to work. So the Bureau has had to take
something of a harder role in sort of forcing everybody
to get along. And this week, they issued what they
called alternatives, and basically they're going to adopt one of
these alternatives or maybe a combination of them, that are
(03:39):
going to establish just how much.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Water goes to each one of the basins.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
How much is the upper basion going to get, how
much is the lower basin going to get? And this
is important, and this is important to every color run
Just keep it in mind when you turn on your tap,
your shower, your sprinkler heads, eighty percent of that water
is coming from.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
The Colorado River.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Now, you might ask, how did that get all the
way over from the Western Slope, which is where the
Colorado River starts, all.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
The way to Denver.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
And over many many years, many many decades, what's happened
is that there's been these big tunnels that have been
built on the western slope. They go through the mountains
and then they come out on the on the eastern
side of the Continental Divide, and they feed water into
the South Platte River and some of the other and
some of the other rivers in northern Colorado. And that's
(04:31):
that's how you get your water, folks. That's water coming
from the Colorado River.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
So what happens to the.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Colorado River should matter to everybody because if we wind
up with cutbacks water cutbacks, which is part of the
conversation that's going on right now, it's called a compact call,
that's sort of the technical name. If the lower basin
states feel like they're not getting their fair share, they're
going to demand it from basically from the upper basic states.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
And that's what the Dereau of Reclamation is.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Trying to avoid, is a compact call and a big
what would be a very big legal fight.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
So here's my question, and it's a question that everybody
who isn't familiar with this is going to ask.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
So I'll just take the head as the dummy.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
What if we just said it's our water and we're
not going to share it with you.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
How far back does this compact go?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
And why does California have so many rights in the
first place, when in my mind, California should be investing
in desalinization and getting their water from the ginormous Pacific
Ocean coastline.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
That they have, and they are.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
There is some deal desalination projects going on in the
southern California.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
It's not like they aren't trying it.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
But California has had what are known as senior water rights,
which means that they claimed them first, they get to
have them first. And that's water law that goes back
in Colorado all the way back to eighteen seventy six,
and in many other states the same thing. Whoever claims
those water rights first gets to have them. And that's
why we can't shut off, shut off the tap and
(06:04):
say we're not going to send any more water down there.
It's known as the law.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Of the river, and we don't really have a say
in it.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Okay, so let me ask this Mirian because we kind
of talked about this. I feel like people will start
to notice and pay attention and really engage on water
issues when more edicts come down from local governments about
what kind of grass you can have or maybe not have,
or new developments requiring zero escaping to lower the amount
of water that is coming. And when you talk to
(06:32):
people from California.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
They have.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
A water scarcity mentality that is far different than ours.
I mean, they are so water conscious. I have friends
that I mean the extremes they go to to protect
their water. So I think the people of California are
getting it. But is it time for us to get
it too.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
And our legislature actually is already pushing forward with this.
They put in turf replacement, a turf replacement program in
the last legislative session.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
These things right now are all optional. Everything's you know,
they're not mandating it.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
But if we don't start getting smart about conserving water,
we could very well be in the same situation that
other states are. Nevada Las Vegas, for example, does a
phenomenal job of educating its residents about saving water, and
they have very very strict regulations about landscaping, and they're
(07:31):
even putting in regulations about pools, which is a big
deal in Las Vegas.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
You know, about the sides of pools that you can have.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
So that so that they're doing their part to conserve
Nevada takes actually less water from the Colorado than any
of the other states, but they're actually way ahead of
everybody else on conservation. Colorado has got to get smart
about conservation too. Now, keep in mind that most of
the Colorado River water and most of the water.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
In Colorado goes to feed agriculture.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
So that's also a really big part of the conversation
around conservation is how do you get farmers to work
with governments and some of the other things that are
going on right now.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
In order to help conserve water.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
And that's a really really difficult conservation or conversation because
farmers want.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
A farm, they want to grow their crops. What's part
of that conversation.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Right now is trying to convince them to grow crops
that use less water. Instead of growing alfalfa, for example,
there's other kinds of hay that you can grow that
has the same nutritional benefits and same uses but doesn't
use as much water.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
So that's also a really big part of the conversations.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
What do you do about egg which is a huge
economic driver in this state.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Well, we just had a guy on with the new
Colorado Israeli Chamber of Commerce and we talked about them
working with farmers for drip irrigation systems to lower their
water footprints. So there are things happening in that respect.
But I do know that, I mean, nobody wants to
say sorry, you can't grow us our food. But let
me ask you one more question, Marian, and that is
(09:08):
if the if all of these groups, the tribes and
the states, and the upper Bays and the lower basin,
they can't come to a conclusion. Am I reading this
right that the Bureau of Land Management is basically going
to say we're going to pick one for you.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
It's a Bureau of Reclamation that who's in charge of
all of all of this, and they have come down
in the past it says, if you can't work things out,
we will work it out for you. But that also
could mean spending a lot of time in the courts
and this problem not getting solved in twenty twenty six
or twenty twenty seven when these sidelines are supposed to
(09:45):
come out. So there's a lot of pressure on everybody
who's doing these negotiations.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
And thank you for bringing in the tribes.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
There are thirty tribes who also have a city in
this so does Mexico.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
There are two states in Mexico to get water from
the Colorado. So the hope of the Bureau rec.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Of Reclamations that everybody can figure out something that will
work for everybody.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Right now, we've got.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
These four alternatives that they're going to be looking at
in the next month, and in a month from now
we'll know kind of where they're headed with all of this.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
If you want a more detailed deep dive. I linked
to a great article that Marianne did in Colorado Politics
and the Denver Gazette on the blog today. Marian thank
you so much for taking some time to sort of
walk us through this today.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
You're very welcome. Thank you for having me on. I
get really excited when I get to talk about water.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I can tell you you're the only person ever is
excited about it.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
But it's infectious. Mariann, thanks so much.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Thank you, Maddy, thanks for having me on.
Marian Goodland.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
She is with Colorado Politics and she has written a
long article, very very informative about what I say is
the most important, most boring topic in the history of Colorado.
But when I say water and water rights is the
number one issue in Colorado, I am not exaggerating.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Marian, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
First of all, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Mandy, I'm happy to be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Well, I'm glad to have it.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
And let's start a big picture because we have a
lot of transplants.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Like you know, I got here eleven years ago.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It never occurred to me that I didn't own the
water rights at my house, right.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
That's just so foreign to me. So let's start at
the beginning.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Right now, negotiations are going on between whom about what.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Lots of different parties who are involved in this one.
This has to do with the shortages that of the
Colorado River that have been getting worse and worse because
of climate change, drought, lack of snowfall, lack of rainfall.
This has been going on now for twenty years. We
are in a twenty year megadrought that a lot of
people say is like one that you get every two
(01:06):
thousand years.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
That's how bad it is.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
And the issue here is that there are seven states
that share the water from the Colorado River and they
and for the last one hundred and two years, since
nineteen twenty two, there has been a compact that has
governed who gets what now. When the Colorado River Compact
was signed one hundred and two years ago, there were
(01:30):
only about seven million people in those seven states.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Now there's about forty.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Million people in those seven states, but the numbers haven't changed.
What's changed, however, is the hydrology how much water the
river can supply. Now, Colorado is in what's called the
Upper Basin States, and that includes US in Utah and
Wyoming and New Mexico, and then you have the lower
basin states, which is Arizona, Nevada, and California.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
And California is the big dog in this one.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
They have the most senior water rights and the most
and they get the most water out of the Colorado River.
So what happens is that the Bureau of Reclamation sort
of manages the operations of the river and they do
it through two big lakes reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Lake Powell is sort of the water bank for Colorado
(02:18):
Lake Mead is the water bank for the lower Basin States,
And there's a lot of difference between how both these
two entities, upper and lower Basin, how they evaluate how
much water they're getting. For a long time, the lower
basin states were taking a lot more water than they
were actually entitled to, and the Upper basin states kind
(02:41):
of fussed about that. And we're now in this situation
with this drought that and we're getting ready to have
new guide operating guidelines in how the river is managed.
And this is a process that is being managed by
the Bureau of Reclamation, which is part of the Department
from the Interior, and they have been trying now since
two thousand and one to get these two entities, the
(03:03):
Lower and Upperbation States, to kind of agree on what's
going to happen when these guidelines that we're under right
now expire at the end.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Of twenty twenty six. And there is no agreement. These
two sides have just never.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Never come to an agreement on how these things are
going to work. So the Bureau has had to take
something of a harder role in sort of forcing everybody
to get along. And this week, they issued what they
called alternatives, and basically they're going to adopt one of
these alternatives or maybe a combination of them, that are
(03:39):
going to establish just how much.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Water goes to each one of the basins.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
How much is the upper basion going to get, how
much is the lower basin going to get? And this
is important, and this is important to every color run
Just keep it in mind when you turn on your tap,
your shower, your sprinkler heads, eighty percent of that water
is coming from.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
The Colorado River.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Now, you might ask, how did that get all the
way over from the Western Slope, which is where the
Colorado River starts, all.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
The way to Denver.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
And over many many years, many many decades, what's happened
is that there's been these big tunnels that have been
built on the western slope. They go through the mountains
and then they come out on the on the eastern
side of the Continental Divide, and they feed water into
the South Platte River and some of the other and
some of the other rivers in northern Colorado. And that's
(04:31):
that's how you get your water, folks. That's water coming
from the Colorado River.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
So what happens to the.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Colorado River should matter to everybody because if we wind
up with cutbacks water cutbacks, which is part of the
conversation that's going on right now, it's called a compact call,
that's sort of the technical name. If the lower basin
states feel like they're not getting their fair share, they're
going to demand it from basically from the upper basic states.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
And that's what the Dereau of Reclamation is.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Trying to avoid, is a compact call and a big
what would be a very big legal fight.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
So here's my question, and it's a question that everybody
who isn't familiar with this is going to ask.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
So I'll just take the head as the dummy.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
What if we just said it's our water and we're
not going to share it with you.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
How far back does this compact go?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
And why does California have so many rights in the
first place, when in my mind, California should be investing
in desalinization and getting their water from the ginormous Pacific
Ocean coastline.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
That they have, and they are.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
There is some deal desalination projects going on in the
southern California.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
It's not like they aren't trying it.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
But California has had what are known as senior water rights,
which means that they claimed them first, they get to
have them first. And that's water law that goes back
in Colorado all the way back to eighteen seventy six,
and in many other states the same thing. Whoever claims
those water rights first gets to have them. And that's
why we can't shut off, shut off the tap and
(06:04):
say we're not going to send any more water down there.
It's known as the law.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Of the river, and we don't really have a say
in it.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Okay, so let me ask this Mirian because we kind
of talked about this. I feel like people will start
to notice and pay attention and really engage on water
issues when more edicts come down from local governments about
what kind of grass you can have or maybe not have,
or new developments requiring zero escaping to lower the amount
of water that is coming. And when you talk to
(06:32):
people from California.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
They have.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
A water scarcity mentality that is far different than ours.
I mean, they are so water conscious. I have friends
that I mean the extremes they go to to protect
their water. So I think the people of California are
getting it. But is it time for us to get
it too.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
And our legislature actually is already pushing forward with this.
They put in turf replacement, a turf replacement program in
the last legislative session.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
These things right now are all optional. Everything's you know,
they're not mandating it.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
But if we don't start getting smart about conserving water,
we could very well be in the same situation that
other states are. Nevada Las Vegas, for example, does a
phenomenal job of educating its residents about saving water, and
they have very very strict regulations about landscaping, and they're
(07:31):
even putting in regulations about pools, which is a big
deal in Las Vegas.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
You know, about the sides of pools that you can have.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
So that so that they're doing their part to conserve
Nevada takes actually less water from the Colorado than any
of the other states, but they're actually way ahead of
everybody else on conservation. Colorado has got to get smart
about conservation too. Now, keep in mind that most of
the Colorado River water and most of the water.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
In Colorado goes to feed agriculture.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
So that's also a really big part of the conversation
around conservation is how do you get farmers to work
with governments and some of the other things that are
going on right now.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
In order to help conserve water.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
And that's a really really difficult conservation or conversation because
farmers want.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
A farm, they want to grow their crops. What's part
of that conversation.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Right now is trying to convince them to grow crops
that use less water. Instead of growing alfalfa, for example,
there's other kinds of hay that you can grow that
has the same nutritional benefits and same uses but doesn't
use as much water.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
So that's also a really big part of the conversations.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
What do you do about egg which is a huge
economic driver in this state.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Well, we just had a guy on with the new
Colorado Israeli Chamber of Commerce and we talked about them
working with farmers for drip irrigation systems to lower their
water footprints. So there are things happening in that respect.
But I do know that, I mean, nobody wants to
say sorry, you can't grow us our food. But let
me ask you one more question, Marian, and that is
(09:08):
if the if all of these groups, the tribes and
the states, and the upper Bays and the lower basin,
they can't come to a conclusion. Am I reading this
right that the Bureau of Land Management is basically going
to say we're going to pick one for you.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
It's a Bureau of Reclamation that who's in charge of
all of all of this, and they have come down
in the past it says, if you can't work things out,
we will work it out for you. But that also
could mean spending a lot of time in the courts
and this problem not getting solved in twenty twenty six
or twenty twenty seven when these sidelines are supposed to
(09:45):
come out. So there's a lot of pressure on everybody
who's doing these negotiations.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
And thank you for bringing in the tribes.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
There are thirty tribes who also have a city in
this so does Mexico.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
There are two states in Mexico to get water from
the Colorado. So the hope of the Bureau rec.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Of Reclamations that everybody can figure out something that will
work for everybody.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Right now, we've got.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
These four alternatives that they're going to be looking at
in the next month, and in a month from now
we'll know kind of where they're headed with all of this.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
If you want a more detailed deep dive. I linked
to a great article that Marianne did in Colorado Politics
and the Denver Gazette on the blog today. Marian thank
you so much for taking some time to sort of
walk us through this today.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
You're very welcome. Thank you for having me on. I
get really excited when I get to talk about water.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I can tell you you're the only person ever is
excited about it.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
But it's infectious. Mariann, thanks so much.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Thank you, Maddy, thanks for having me on.
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