Golf Courses vs. Healthy Rivers

A couple of weeks ago AW staff and several like-minded river folks attended the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) meeting in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. We joined together to let the board know that the upcoming state water plan must ensure that healthy rivers (and the communities that depend on them) are treated fairly in the plan. Sounds pretty non-controversial, right? Wrong. 

 

Our comments about the importance of healthy rivers for recreational enjoyment and river-dependant economies in Colorado, triggered a conversation that sounds a little like something out of Alice in Wonderland. In a nut shell, here’s how it goes: 

 

River advocates: "Rivers are important; we need to protect them for the active recreational opportunities they provide and for the local economies that depend on them. And we shouldn’t drain the last of them to send more water to the Front Range cities"

 

Front Range utilities: "Oh yes we should." 

 

As hard as it is to believe, that’s the argument coming from Front Range water leaders . Here are a few choice quotes: 

 

"Back yards are our recreational amenity," Mark Pifher of the Front Range Water Council. Pifher uses that "amenity" language to try to equate blue-grass turf with the majesty of the boating and angling opportunities provided by the Colorado River, and to imply they deserve the same protections as our rivers do.

 

Joe Stibrich, of the Aurora Water Department, said suburban and urban dwellers have a right to expect a "reasonable residential experience" that includes irrigated lawns, public parks and sports fields, and golf courses. Joe equated the experience of irrigated turf with that of the river flows that Coloradoan’s want to preserve in the mountains.

 

And to top it all off, attorney Patricia Wells, who represents the city and county of Denver on the CWCB, said (in all seriousness) that golf courses should be added to the state water plan’s section on recreational and environmental projects. She went on to write a three-page objection letter to the CWCB for even daring to consider restrictions on lawns. 

 

It’s hard to know where to cooperate with these folks, so I will leave it at this: diverting Western Slope rivers for landscaping is getting pretty close to an environmental crime. None of that water will ever make it back into the rivers that sustain fish, paddlers, communities and farms on the Western Slope. There is plenty of water to sustain our cities and suburbs, but only if it’s used wisely. Utilities should be thinking about how to re-use and conserve, how to live within our means, and how to ensure that our last wild rivers don’t end up as dry arroyos.

 

If you agree, please share our visual – we want to get the word out about the threats to our rivers, and how we can stop them in their tracks.