One particular Land trust project of direct benefit to fishermen is the Moyer Ranch in Lake County. This easement opened up over a mile of both sides of the Arkansas River to public access, as well as ensuring that one of Lake County’s most senior water rights stayed with the land.

The intention is to make this event an annual happening, in doing so extending its reach to encompass other outfitters. Guides who participated in the event were Bill Dobson, Rob Whitman, Don Puterbaugh, Kevin Potter, Jerry Graves, Will Yinger, Greg Felt and Hayden Mellsop. Photos courtesy of Mike Wilbur, who has previously worked for Time / Life.

Contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, in creating the district, the city did not overstep its authority. Instead, it joined more than 20 communities around the state in exercising their state-granted right to protect their town’s drinking water supply.

Without exception, as outlined in the enabling state legislation, each of the 20-plus towns – from small towns like Basalt, Craig and Pagosa Springs to larger cities like Grand Junction, Fort Collins and Denver – have passed similar measures that, by state law, allow them to protect their waterworks and water supply from injury and pollution up to five miles above the point from which the water is taken.

For a case study of the benefits of protecting water supply, one need look no further than March 2008, when 1,300 people got sick and one person died from a Salmonella outbreak, the source of which was Alamosa’s water supply. Animal contamination of one of Alamosa’s ground water storage tanks meant that for three weeks 8,900 residents had to depend on one gallon of bottled water a day until the town was able to flush and disinfect its water lines and restore municipal water service. Restaurant owners, whose margins are already thin, were hardest hit as costs rose because they had to buy bottled water and pre-packaged ice from sources outside the town just to be able to serve the few brave souls who dared to eat out. While the exact conditions that precipitated the water crisis in Alamosa may not be present in Salida, the point is this: polluted municipal water supplies can have devastating effects on a community. So if we can, by law, put extra layers of protection in place, why wouldn’t we?

A City of Salida 2009 Drinking Water City of Salida 2009 Drinking Water Consumer Confidence Report for calendar year 2008 ranks this community’s susceptibility rating, meaning the possibility of contamination to any of our three main water sources, as either moderately high or high. The city water portfolio includes one surface water and two groundwater sources. Potential sources of pollution come from the following: sewage treatment plants, septic systems, existing / abandoned mine sites, high and low intensity residential development, pasture, row crops mixed forest, septic systems, road grading and above ground storage tanks. So if the new regulation impacts the golf course development on property formerly known as Friend Ranch or any other new development that could potentially pollute our city’s water sources, I say, “hooray.”

Not only do I disagree with anyone who calls on City Council to rescind the resolution establishing the water protection district, I fervently hope this action is just the start of more good things to come with respect to water in this community and the greater watershed around us.

To borrow from a statement recently made by a man in the Roaring Fork Valley where citizens and stakeholders are joining together to create a watershed management master plan, “We can propose some regulatory changes that could have some impact, but the real change will be based on people having a different relationship with water and a culture of water responsibility becoming part of our regional ethic. That cannot be mandated.”

I hope that City Council’s action to proactively protect Salida’s water for this and future generations is just the start of a community-wide paradigm shift in the ways we think about and plan for water for water quality and supply into the future.

More people die from unsafe water than from all forms of violence, including war, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, calling for better protection and sustainable management of one of the Earth’s most precious resources.

The Secretary-General said that the poor “continue to suffer first and most from pollution, water shortages and the lack of adequate sanitation,” even while world leaders have the “know-how to solve these challenges and become better stewards of our water resources.”

On the occasion of World Water Day, the folks behind the Story of Stuff today released a short animated film which tells the story of bottled water and “manufactured demand” which talks about how corporations get Americans to buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week when water from a tap is almost free.

Narrated by Annie Leonard, The film explores the bottled water industry’s attacks on tap water safety and its use of environmental-themed marketing to cover up the mountains of plastic waste it produces.

From the Story of Bottled Water:

Globally, more than 1 billion have little choice but to use potentially harmful sources of water, leading to what the World Health Organization calls “a silent humanitarian crisis.” Meanwhile, many Americans, who generally have access to safe and abundant water from the kitchen tap, drink bottled water despite the enormous waste of money, energy and resources it represents.

Hat tip: John Graham at Chaffee Citizens for Sustainability

In a similar vein, check out “Plastic Bag”, a creative short film shown at the Telluride Film Festival in which a plastic bag ponders its immortality. By Ramin Bahrani (Chop Shop, Man Push Cart), narrated by Werner Herzog and original score by Kjartan Sveinsson of Sigur Rós.

The study will investigate the availability and sustainability of groundwater and calculate the water needed to recharge underground resources.

District General Manager Terry Scanga said that this information is a vital part of any discussion about current and future water use. “Determining the amount of water available will give municipal and land use planners a tool by which they can gauge sustainability,” said Scanga. The information will also help the District anticipate the need for new water projects.

The complex groundwater study will be conducted in phases and may last as long as a decade. Over the next year the Conservation District will also be installing new gauging stations in the Valley to gain a better understanding of surface water.

The District has partnered with the US Geological Survey, as well as local government entities, for these projects.

The money from the Colorado Water Conservation Board is part of $3.3 million awarded to 14 projects intended to help Colorado communities identify and meet critical water supply needs.

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“How’s it going?” I asked. [ My standard tail wag. ] “We’re doing OK, getting a few” they replied, although by their tone and expression, you could tell they were a little disappointed. “Yeah, us too” I replied, pretty sure that we were doing better than them judging by their hang dog looks. After they were gone, Ardele said ” I know why they’re not doing any good.” “Really?” I replied, thinking she had picked up some major flaw in their rowing or casting technique. “Yep,” she said, “they don’t have any beer.”

And there in lies the secret to success on the river. Now, I am not advocating rampant drunkeness on the river, but rather realizing that if you focus too much on the destination, you can lose your appreciation of the journey. A bit of Buddhist detachment has its place on the river, as elsewhere in life. And it is amazing how the fish seem to come when you adopt this approach. At least they did on Sunday.

The action on dries like stimulators and pmxs was good right off the bat from our launch just above town. We also fished a bead head dropper above town, and it seemed primarily the smaller fish were active on those. Below town we switched to a double dry rig, and all the bigger fish took dries. Ardele also caught the Arkansas River trifecta – a cutthroat, a rainbow and a brown. Since filming this, the river level has dropped significantly as a result of the end of this year’s augmentation program for the rafting industry. In my experience, this generally leads to a few days of patchy fishing as the fish get used to new flows and new holding positions. Once things have settled down, however, it should be back to business as usual as the fish feed and fatten before fall and the spawn.

The Euphrates is drying up. Strangled by the water policies of Iraq’s neighbors, Turkey and Syria; a two-year drought; and years of misuse by Iraq and its farmers, the river is significantly smaller than it was just a few years ago. Some officials worry that it could soon be half of what it is now.

The shrinking of the Euphrates, a river so crucial to the birth of civilization that the Book of Revelation prophesied its drying up as a sign of the end times, has decimated farms along its banks, has left fishermen impoverished and has depleted riverside towns as farmers flee to the cities looking for work.

And…

At a conference in Baghdad — where participants drank bottled water from Saudi Arabia, a country with a fraction of Iraq’s fresh water — officials spoke of disaster.

“We have a real thirst in Iraq,” said Ali Baban, the minister of planning. “Our agriculture is going to die, our cities are going to wilt, and no state can keep quiet in such a situation.”

Forecasters have long warned that water will become an increasing source of tension in the world, and lack of it has the potential to contribute to growing instability and violence.

In this somewhat-academic TED talk, Jared Diamond talks about why societies collapse, calling water a “ticking time bomb”.

He notes that “an unsustainable course will get resolved one way or another in a few decades”.

In April, Gov. Ritter signed legislation sponsored by State Rep. Marsha Looper, R-Calhan, which allows residents not connected to municipal water systems to harvest rainwater from up to 3,000 square feet of rooftops, provided they get a permit from the Colorado Division of Water Resources. Applications may be submitted beginning July 1.

An article in the Colorado Springs Gazette makes it clear that collection is only legal for residents on wells and that cultural understandings of water in the West are unlikely to change quickly:

If you live in the city, don’t install a barrel under your gutter spout just yet. The legislation lets residents on wells collect rain and establishes 10 pilot projects for new developments. Residents on municipal water still can’t legally collect rain, and water suppliers are leery of legislation that would let them.

“All the water was spoken for here in the Arkansas Basin 100 years ago or more,” said Kevin Lusk, water supply engineer for Colorado Springs Utilities. “If the water falls as rain, that’s water that was going to get to the stream system, and somebody already has dibs on it, and if somebody intercepts that, it’s the same as stealing.”

However, a 2007 study cited by the New York Times in their article yesterday on the subject shows that only 3 percent of rainwater falling in Douglas County actually made it into streams and rivers; the vast majority either evaporates or is captured and utilized by plants.

According to the Gazette, proponents of rainwater collection hope that legislation authorizing rainwater harvesting in the 10 development projects will provide data showing minimal impact to streams or downstream water rights, paving the way for residential rooftop collection within municipal boundaries.

Therefore, in this context, it should come as no surprise that water is at the crux of the battle between a small rural community trying to hold onto its water and the world’s largest food and beverage manufacturer who would like to extract that water to slake American consumers’ thirst for bottled water.

The latest chapter in the war for water in the West unfolded April 21 in Buena Vista, CO, as consultants sparred and the public weighed in on the ramifications of Nestle Waters North America proposal to harvest water from rural south central Colorado, truck it 2-1/2 hours to Denver to bottle and sell under Nestle’s Arrowhead spring water brand.

Custom raft manufacturer Ron Farris drew loud applause from the overflow capacity audience at the public hearing when he told the Chaffee County Board of Commissioners, “We don’t have enough water to let any more of it leave our county.”

Farris noted Nestle’s proposed water extraction was equivalent to the water used by 700 residential homes and that for a sustainable future, “keeping water in our county is a priority.”

Farris also challenged freshmen Commissioners Dennis Giese and Frank Holman to live up to their stump speeches citing Holman’s campaign pledge this past fall to not let more water flow out of the county on his watch, and quoting Giese from a recent public meeting saying “Green is the color of the future of our county.”

Of primary focus during this most recent hearing on Nestle was the question of wetlands impacts. At issue was whether pump tests conducted by Nestle were of sufficient duration and type to adequately predict the effect of Nestle pumping nearly 200 acre feet of water annually from the spring.

Geomega and another county consultant, W.W. Wheeler and Associates Inc., agreed that Nestle’s pump tests were not of sufficient duration to adequately predict longterm effects.  In particular, Kolm explained Nestle’s pump test measured groundwater impacts but not the impact on the wetlands.

Nestle project manager Bruce Lauerman defended a 72-hour test as sufficient and explained “it is not in Nestle’s interest to have an unsustainable situation.”

Indeed Nestle recently doubled estimated project costs – including well digging and construction of pump houses, a pipeline and loading station construction – from $4 million to $8.2 million.

To protect Nestle’s investment, Lauerman also noted he is on the hunt for other springs in Colorado to help ensure “redundancy in operations”so Nestle has a portfolio of water resources in case the Chaffee County springs get contaminated, become affected by a localized drought, and for occasions when the Chaffee springs operations need to be shut down for maintenance.

The public also pleaded with commissioners to demand more baseline scientific data from Nestle. Among those stressing this point were John Graham, one of the founders of Chaffee County Citizens for Sustainability, a group formed in reaction to the Nestle proposal, Frederick Lee speaking on behalf of Chaffee County Democrats, 30-year Chaffee County resident Jim Ruggles who claimed tests taken after the largest snowfall on record would be an historic anomaly, and retired USGS hydrologist Gene Rush.

Rush said that in his professional opinion, the four-month duration of one of Nestle’s pump tests was “grossly inadequate,” and that it was the wrong pump test to predict the extent of the dewatering zone that Nestle’s pumping operations could create. Rush later told the Citizen his biggest fear is that Nestle’s plans to monitor its pumping operations will only produce after-the-fact data that Nestle will argue in court. “We need to settle these issues up front because there’s a big imbalance between the legal resources of Chaffee County and Nestle,” Rush said noting Chaffee County likely couldn’t afford to get into costly court battles with Nestle.

Rush’s fears are not entirely unfounded, since public records show Nestle has engaged in protracted legal battles over its water projects in rural Fryeburg, ME and Mecosta County, Michigan.

Addressing another flank of the battle over water, Terry Scanga, speaking on behalf of the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District, took issue with Nestle’s plan to replace the spring water it takes from the Upper Arkansas River Basin with water leased from the City of Aurora. Nestle recently received Aurora City Council approval for a 10-year lease of 200-acre feet of water with an option for another 10 years. Aurora retained its right to interrupt the supply in the event of a severe drought.

Scanga explained that an intergovernmental agreement between Aurora and the UAWCD and the Southeast Colorado Water Conservancy District is “intended to compel Aurora to maximize the use of its water supplies to meet demands of it citizens and thereby reduce reliance upon Arkansas River Basin water.”

Scanga contends that in a drought year, which historically happens every five to seven years, Nestle’s lease from Aurora would effectively deplete Aurora’s ability to meet its municipal needs triggering a water lease from the Upper Arkansas Basin at a time when the Basin would be “most vulnerable to the deleterious impacts of drought.”

The next public hearing on Nestle will be today, April 29 starting at 1 p.m. The hearing will recess at 5 and resume at 6 p.m.

Thank you commissioners for being here, no thanks to you, the members of AIG, oh, I mean Nestle.

After many meetings and hours of discussion it seems that Nestle reps would have you believe that they are a friendly community oriented business that just loves Chaffee County. I was not at the last meeting but got the news from others that the discussions went on for hours with all the mind numbing boring details of this deal hidden in legal jargon, but was seen as primarily aimed at running out of time dissuading public commentary. Well, we’re here tonight to tell you we’re here and we’re staying to comment and staying to live in this community. Who of you from Nestle lives here? No one? Okay… who plans to move here if this project goes through?

The prime intent of the bottled water business has been to contaminate tap water in the psyche of the public in order to boost the image of bottled spring water and thus billions in profits thru age old and technological advertising coercion.

The pitch sounds good and polished, but that doesn’t tell the local story of Nestle’s national and international problems in other communities. This presentation has all the tendencies of Karl Rove’s use of semantics to cover the true intent of the desired outcome, which is detriment for profit. This has been polished to the nth degree by lawyers, and some smart people, but it still stinks. The developers from the front range who pitched Vandeveer as any other exit off the interstate said, “We’ve done this 100 times and we can do it for you here.” Well, we didn’t want that here, and we don’t want this project here either.

We want the natural resources to stay here, or at least not be raped for the sake of this level of corporate greed and worldwide pollution, and utter lack of commitment to the future. This is basically water wrapped in oil in the form of plastic, a petroleum product, and all aspects of this venture are tied to more oil and energy waste instead of less.

Application compliance is not synonymous with community good. What we the people want is less Reagan-esque strict adherence to the rule book and more Andy Griffith compassion and common sense.
To the Nestle folks, if this project goes thru, in your lives away from our close knit community, you will be feeding your children with money that is derived from water that would be used to grow food to feed our children in this county. In fact you already are and have been in so many places for so long.

We in Colorado as the new shining ‘held up to the light’ example of the whole west due to exposure in the political arena of late are desperately striving to enter the 21st Century after 8 years of the retardation of ethics, conscience, and civic responsibility. With a purposeful mindset towards the greater good for community, country, and planet, WE are working hard to accomplish positive goals. All of Nestle’s plans, business dealings, double talk, and intent are, to me and many others, obviously profit and exploitation driven and without soul.

There’s an old saying in the South, “Don’t piss on my head and tell me it’s raining.”

I as a resident of Salida strongly, emphatically, suggest the Commissioners deny any permit to Nestle.

Jimmy Descant
Salida, CO

This quote was posted in the Salida Citizen by Nestle Waters North America. (Nestle Waters: For the Record, March 14th 2008). I question the comprehensive sustainability plan of a company who will produce over 490 million plastic bottles a year from the Nathrop spring alone.

This is not a company concerned with the environment. This is a company who takes pure spring water and turns it into garbage. If our County Commissioners are honest in their assessment of this project, they can rest assured that it does not fall within the guidelines of the 1041 permit.

Read about the massive amount of waste plastics produced each year in America and the fallacy of recyclable plastic water bottles.