A call to study water storage

PUEBLO - Sen. Ken Salazar hopes a simpler path will finally lead to federal funding for a stalled feasibility study on whether more water can be held behind dams in the Arkansas River Basin.

Government agencies throughout the region have argued for years about how stored water will be bought and sold by those who hold rights to it, putting the brakes on a study of whether more water can be stored.

Salazar’s compromise, offered at a meeting here Saturday, would study storage concerns and not delve into what he described as “intractable” problems of how that water would be used.

Warring sides of the water issue say Salazar’s plan will likely refloat a water storage plan that’s been beached for a decade.

“I think this will work because the main thing is to find out whether this is even feasible,” said Harold Miskel, vice president of Southeast Colorado Water Conservancy District, who had balked at other measures that coupled storage studies with lengthy provisions on how stored water is used.

Under Salazar’s plan, the federal Bureau of Reclamation would study a pair of existing water storage proposals to expand dams at the Pueblo and Turquoise reservoirs and would also examine building a dam on Fountain Creek, south of Fountain.

He said damming the creek could provide flood control and water storage while also helping to improve the quality of water reaching Pueblo by blocking sediment.

Colorado Springs Vice Mayor Larry Small said he’s behind Salazar’s plan.

“It would get us focused on supply and storage,” he said.

Salazar waded into the water problems of southern Colorado in 2005 but has been unable to get the feasibility study started.

At the heart of water-use arguments that have stalled studies is whether agricultural users can sell their water rights to cities.

Colorado Springs and some other agencies using water from the Arkansas River are backing a plan that would allow cities to lease water from farms, but wouldn’t allow them to permanently buy water rights from agricultural users.

Terry Book, of the Pueblo Board of Water Works, said his agency, which supplies Pueblo’s household water, wants to be able to permanently acquire water rights from farmers.

A second issue is a Colorado Springs plan to pipe 78 million gallons of water per day from Pueblo Reservoir and return a like amount of treated sewage water and storm runoff to the Arkansas River through Fountain Creek.

That proposal has set off alarms in Pueblo, downstream, over water quality concerns.

Salazar said the bickering among local governments has delayed a study of something that everyone acknowledges they need — more water storage.

“Let’s just do a simple study,” he said. “I can’t believe it’s taken us 10 years.”

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0240 or tom.roeder@gazette.com