Setting water priorities

Setting water priorities

Pueblo Chieftain: When Colorado water buffaloes tried to estimate the state’s future water needs, they only looked at what they thought municipal and industrial users might need in the future. They paid scant attention to agriculture, except to accept the orthodoxy that ag water would be the source of the resource for cities.

Does anybody except the avaricious water barons think that Colorado can do without agriculture?

Enter Reeves Brown, a Beulah rancher and member of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District. Mr. Brown chairs an Arkansas basin water roundtable committee that is seeking to build statewide support for securing future water supplies for agriculture.

He says his committee is trying to establish a baseline value for the use of ag water. “We need to find public support for the value of water,” he told a recent roundtable meeting.

A survey of more than 6,250 households in 17 Western states showed the public has an aversion to drying up farms to provide more water for cities. Buying farm water placed dead last in short- and long-term solutions to urban water needs.

It seems the public is ahead of the water buffaloes in appreciating the value of agriculture. The water barons in the big cities along the Front Range should take notice.