Welcome to Decode Colorado.

I'm Tom Mustin for PBS12.

Water seemingly all around us but also an increasingly short supply.

In the next hour we'll explore the issue of water in Colorado, where it comes from, where it goes, how it's used, and who gets to use it.

PBS12 commissioned Colorado documentary filmmakers Alan Domínguez and Raúl Paz-Pastrana to capture the experience of living and working in the San Luis Valley and how water, or the lack of it is impacting their lives, their livelihood and the future of the region.

It was like an organic, theme to just talk about water in the valley, which is a microcosm of what happens everywhere else and what is happening.

And I think there you can see the two forces, you know, the main industry and trying to, you know, make it an industry for agriculture and cattle and other animals, and then people that are want to do a deeper way, which is natural to the land and how they are finding that balance.

And I think the valley was very a natural place for that.

I think what's what's changing is there's a there's a couple of things.

I think the way that agriculture handles our irrigation system with food, sprinkling through sprinklers, that's a different innovation.

It's been around for a while, but it just has different climate implications.

And I think it took a while for that to be seen.

And so I think now they're really trying to find the balance between different types of irrigation for different types of crops.

And also there's another another innovation to me is also just like looking at the kinds of crops are going to survive.

But not only in a place where there's, water scarcity, but also very high altitude.

So so that really dictates what kinds of crops are actually in very much, or what kinds of crops are able to be produced in abundance.

I think we're talking about it now because climate change just it just it's it's a wider effect and people are paying attention to it more.

And there's in the Valley, there's a real sense of, of a connectedness to things that have been done for decades and centuries.

And so I think it's looking back to the past to how we can best to plan for the future in terms of water, which is like the basis of all life right now.

I think a lot of people have been talking about it before.

It's been more amplified now, and some people are just beginning to talk about it.

Now that they didn't talk about it then.

And I think it's they're all saying like, you know, this problem has been happening for a while, some people, but then some people didn't.

And the best time was to talk then.

But the second best time is to talk now.

I think it should resonate with all of us, because mostly in the sense that that that water is, is also it's, it's it's specific to a place in a lot of ways.

So, I mean, I think the water that's flowing behind us, you know, the folks are the closest to it, are going to want to use it first.

And it's to me thinking about water as a commodity that can be bought and sold to me is a very foreign concept.

I don't I don't quite get, I can't quite get my head around that.

And it's almost like saying that the water that is scarce in the valley is somehow better put to better use another county.

To me that this is a very incongruous feeling to me.

I think what we didn't realize was, was how connected to caring for water is to tradition.

The secure systems have been in place for hundreds of years and really thousands of years.

We go back to indigenous traditions.

So I think that was just the resilience of, of of a method that is tried and true.

That is, that is repeated that, that it and it does work.

The water is drying in that area and everybody below it's going to dry as well.

And so they're starting to think in ways and how to use the water that's more beneficial to them into the future.

I think that that trend, at least in the people we interview, is happening.

And I think that that hopefully will spread to even to the other county that you mentioned earlier, because, I mean, if the water goes, it goes for everybody.

You know.

I think there's a lot of hope.

I think there's a lot of hope.

Just just realizing that that as modernity moves forward, that it's, you know, it's always helpful to be rooted in something that was that was here before us then that when that worked before us.

We're all in this together.

You know, this is just a small place in Colorado.

Very important, very, so very compared to the what's happening into the in the world, in this country and around the world.

And if we don't come together as a community locally and worldwide, we're not going to be able to tackle global warming.

And the scarcity of water.

You know, I want people to take that when we come together, when we build bridges instead of walls, we can we can have a more hopeful future.

Following the documentary.

PBS12 has assembled a panel of Colorado water experts for a roundtable discussion.

We'll examine the issues facing our state and what we can do about it.

There's a lot to cover, so let's begin to Decode Colorado.

I think we think for to the Navajo origin story.

And how the water giver, of course, teaches us of the importance of water to life.

A sacred source of life.

So we're looking at one of the sacred mountains .

Black belted mountain.

She gives birth to the two heroes of the Navajo creation story, the water Giver and the monster Slayer.

I think today we face a similar situation where our world needs to reconsider the sacredness of water and understand that we're here to protect water so that it can sustain life.

And these are peas.

This was the first rule.

These are the San Luis peas and, you know, once we read it, you'll be able to see where they're.

Im sixth generation.

1856.

I don't know exactly the date, but somewhere in there, they came in with their sheep and came up into this area.

And I grew up on the farm.

Helped my dad and I went off to New York, went to college, and then, oddly, decided I liked it here.

So I came home and, I've been farming with my dad.

I've done other things as well, but kind of trying to take over and step into that situation on our family farm.

When your dad was here, did they grow other things besides alfalfa?

Oh, you know, Los Sauces used to grow beans, corn.

There's still bean machines out there where they used to combine the beans, you know, and sell beans from Los Sauces that field peas, sweet peas.

And we had water year round.

Anyway, it's all getting less and less, harder and harder to farm or ranch.

We sometimes undervalue ancient techniques, and we're always rushing to adapt to modernity.

The acequias have been around longer than any other form of irrigation.

And I think in in the seven villages here in the Culebra watershed, people are very committed to the acequia way of life.

In northern New Mexico.

In southern Colorado, acequia farmers are among the longest lived protectors of the nation's, agricultural biodiversity.

By growing corn like this high elevation, short season variety called incineration, there's their high elevation.

Resistant to drought.

They can tolerate extreme UV radiation.

You have to keep in mind that the intensity.

I think that UVB radiation increases by about 11% for every thousand feet gained in elevation.

So we're like 80% more intense UV radiation here than sea level.

So if we're going to face the challenges of climate chaos, we really do need to learn to value this agro biodiversity knowledge that acequia farmers and traditional indigenous farmers have been keeping for thousands of years.

Our corn needs to continue adapting to climate chaos because there's a lot of changes going on, and the upper Rio Grande, the watershed, not the least of which is reduced snowpack like significantly reduced snowpack or snowpack, has seen a 30 to 80% reduction in depth.

As if that was bad enough, the moisture content of the snow is less than it used to be.

It's like you're getting a powder, ski powder snow in May and June, and that's not normal.

So climate chaos has made it very difficult for us to predict well, from one year to the next what kind of irrigation season we're going to have.

But the long term trend is the reduction of the depth of snowpack and a reduction in the moisture content of that snow.

My family had sheep and they just herded their sheep up into the especially up into the high country.

It was a very like traditional way of, of living was have your sheep down in the valley during the winter and feed them and keep them warm, and then move them up into the high country in the summer.

And that was kind of like the traditional way that people were herding their sheep and moving them around.

Very different climate then, actually like it was a lot wetter.

And, my great grandfather used to say that, but the grass was so tall out on the prairie that it would brush the bellies of the horses, which now you think about that, right?

And you look out there and you think, wow, I can't imagine a time when there was that much water.

I mean, I think in AG right now, there's this push for like, get big or get out, and I don't want to get big and I don't want to get out.

So I've tried to be really creative and like, how do I stay as a small producer.

So basically I figured out that if I can make every animal count for more, then that helps my bottom line.

And it also helps the environment because, right, I don't have to like overgrazed.

I don't have to push my numbers.

You know, I can have like a smaller bunch and still make money off of it.

I do a variety of value added products.

I do, raw wool actually.

This sells for people who are fiber artists, and they want to do their own, processing.

And then I also do.

This is kind of like the next step along in the process.

This has been cleaned and carded.

This is the natural color of the sheep.

And then yarn, of course, which is ready to be knitted or crocheted or woven.

And these are all my natural colors that I breed.

I breed my sheep to have, you know, this natural color variation.

Climate change.

Even though we talked about it as a future thing, it has already happened and has been happening.

We are getting warmer and we have been since like the 1950s.

And so it's interesting how we're talking about like climate change, like it's in the future.

But I think what we're seeing in the southwest is climate change has already been in progress.

And then you have long term drought.

Traditionally they were mostly doing flood irrigation, open ditches, lots of trees.

You know, there wasn't really the actually the focus on like clearing brush and flattening land.

But that actually happened a lot later because a lot of the Hispanic communities kind of worked with whatever it was, you know, what they had there, and they used the natural topography to bring water to places.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We had less water over the years.

Oh, yeah.

Sure.

It's diminished a long ways, even my dad, when I asked him when he was about, died on me, when he was 90 years old, 91, I asked my dad what changes did he see here in the valley.

He said less water and he's right.

Theres less water.

And it's been coming on us for a long time.

Yeah, not just 20 years.

When my dad's family came here in 1900, 1819, the late 1890s, it was Paradise.

I mean, there was water everywhere.

In fact, when they started farming the valley, they started making drain ditches to take the excess water away from the farm grass.

That's true.

That's very, people couldn't even get out on their farm ground to farm because the sub was so much water.

But that's what you call liquid gold out here on the plateau.

And there's my floats, the white one and the red one.

Now that it's cloudy, we're not getting solar to operate the solar pumps.

So what we do now, the we supplement the solar power by overriding it with a generator.

So when I start that, the solar pump down here in the and he'll.

Well, we'll start pumping water into the systems.

And when they get to a certain level, they pump the water three and a half miles west, and they actually go up 700ft in elevation, where I have two storage tanks and a couple of tire drinkers.

And from those drinkers, that's where the cows have to have water.

They have to you have to have water.

You can't run out.

If you run out, they'll spread out and die.

So you guys don't own the land.

You own the right or the allotment.

On the BLM you just have a right to use the grazing on it.

All this grazing permits was, were, made by the Homestead Act, and it gave, people a right to homestead out here.

I had my grandmother homesteaded out here in 19, 1902.

We talk about climate change, and I'm we're deeply affected by it.

In the southwest, you don't normally get 2 or 3in of rain in June.

So sometimes it's early, sometimes it's late.

And, right now this is like paradise.

I was telling my grandson we were up there watching the cows.

We moved him into a new, water hall and the sage in the winter.

That was six, 7 or 8in tall.

As we were eating our sandwiches.

There I go.

I've been to Waikiki, and to me, this is prettier than Waikiki.

Watching our cows eat this fabulous pasture because it doesn't happen every year.

It's so random.

You get an enormous amount of water, snow, rain, or you don't get any.

That's the biggest fear in that.

Farmers are ranchers.

Life is the weather can knock you out of a hurricane, knock you out, knock you out of the business.

I'm 72 and I can almost count them on one hand.

The good years and on the other hand, a lot of bad years.

‘02 was so bad out here, so dry.

And, you know, you get dry years more than you do.

Good years.

I'm going to go look for the beef.

I'm missing eight cows and eight calves.

I got to go see if I find them.

Off I go.

So a couple of years ago.

It's really interesting.

It caught my attention.

It was, a community event centered around the idea of resilience and mental health.

And then they also offered free, well testing for heavy metals, and then, I had just put in the well here, and I wanted to I wanted to get the water sample and dad wanted me.

And we ended up sampling this well here.

And it turned out that, it was high in arsenic, which is like a known issue with some of the wells out here.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so, they wanted to include this.

Well, and a multi-year study for monitoring heavy metals in relationship to our, you know, groundwater and precipitation, our water cycle.

And, so they and they aim to, to monitor a thousand wells across the valley for like a multi-year study and home sampling across the years.

And they wanted to see if that with a drawdown of water, there was an increase in heavy metal concentration, thinking that heavy metals were released.

When there's less water, it's like they're here all the time.

The metals are.

That's just part of the geology of the land.

But that like human interference and like, and our use of the aquifer was causing them to be released like something in the chemistry of the soil.

Wow.

So they're just gathering and they're still gathering data for that now, but they're thinking that there is a relationship, some sort of correlation, which is a huge public safety concern.

And so like, you know, cows drink this water, we drink this water.

I don't know if anyone who filters their water.

You have a situation, as you can see here, toward our watershed, the the culebra.

Branch of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

That snow is our water.

I can tell you a story.

That snowfield that you see on the left side, is known as El Aguila or the Pajarito.

And depending on the timing of when it appears, you know, what kind of irrigation season they're going to have.

If it shows up too early.

People are going to fight over water.

But if the snowfield shows up late June, early July, we're going to have a good year.

And this year it was, early June, a little early, but better than last year when it showed up in May and we knew we were going to be miserable.

And indeed, we had very little water last year.

There's a lot of pride, about acequias, the incredible knowledge it takes to be a good flood irrigator.

It's an art, but with very smart adaptation, of modern technology, like these irrigation pipes that I'm using.

By using this irrigation pipes, I can control erosion.

I can control the rate at which the water is flowing a lot easier.

And still get the benefits of flood irrigation with the minerals that are suspended.

In my well water It's an openness to modernity.

But without abandoning ancient norms of governance and the wisdom, the ecological wisdom.

Flood irrigation when appropriate.

So I think we're becoming more of a hybrid system.

Some of the acequias now, instead of being earthen works, are either lining them or they are, sending the water and pipes to the next user.

I approached a neighbor and said, Will you grow an acre out of your 50 acres instead of all 50 acres of itself?

I make it 49 acres or 1001 acre of, food crops for the market.

And I've actually gotten very little resistance.

People are.

Yeah.

You're right, Peña.

My grandfather used to do that.

But guess what?

Last year we had ten farmers signed up.

Only three of us had water.

That's climate chaos.

And more land into production.

So more water has to go out to production.

So with the sprinklers, they, they were able to do that Do you guys think that there needs to be innovation in flood irrigation?

Like does it does the method need to change or do like are people like needing to say I.

Would say.

Yes.

You think so?

If you want mass and crop and a lot of biomass and bales, you want to do sprinkler over flood.

Oh yeah, it does a lot better.

But the only thing with sprinkler it doesn't recharge the water down on the aquifer, like the flood.

So then that's the only problem.

How do you manage the decision like yeah both.

That's more efficient but the more efficient.

Yeah.

But the water that was back then back in the it come all the way down to the rivers over here.

No they don't.

That water don't make it to the river.

So do you think.

There's still gonna be generational farming and ranching.?

Oh, yeah.

Big farms.

But here in the Valley, we're sort of unique.

But down here , it's family operated.

Yes.

I'm trying to work with this, understanding that things are maybe not going to get better.

They might, but probably not.

And so if we can have perennial pastures with grazing animals on them, grazing animals huge like, can really rebuild soil in ways that we can't do with crops.

And also having those perennials and those living roots in the soil just offer like a level of drought buffering, because we've had years like where we lost crops, we couldn't water them.

And so I think that's kind of like what I want to focus on is like, how do you create systems that building soil moisture?

How do you work with this really not really great soil, and try to build up maybe some sort of resilience to drought and especially with like organic matter and water retention.

I tie in like modern ideas with old traditions, but old timers, there was a reason they did sheep and there was a reason they did like they were pastoral.

And I think a lot of it was because they were trying to live in this dry area.

And they knew that if you focus on crop production, you're not always going to be able to weather those storms.

And so I kind of tie into those ideas of like, why were the old timers using sheep?

Well, it's because they do great high altitude.

They're the only animal that still gains weight in the winter.

Their wool gets longer if gets cold.

So you get better growth.

If you have a cold winter.

If we're going to have climate chaos adaptations, one good place to start would be the sake, yes, but because we are a model for trying to adapt.

So we're growing our drought resistant crops.

We planted drought resistant lentils this year, for example, that we've never grown here before because of demand by the local community.

We're you know, I think we're a model.

We become a template.

Well, now, not just in terms of the, agro biodiversity, the types of seeds that we grow, but the governance structure that we represent, the one irrigator, one vote principle, the principle of shared scarcity, that in times of drought and everyone uses less so everyone can have some, including more than human beings.

That's how acequias have always been managed.

I have a lot of concerns because, you know, we're seeing, water speculation, even though we are in the situation we are in, we are still seeing speculators come into our communities, and they want to buy up water to take to the city so that people can have their lawns.

And I think that, like, that's not going to go away.

And it's probably just going to get worse because Colorado is one of the fastest growing states in the nation, and there's just so much pressure on a limited resource.

And the end.

Water is not a commodity.

It's a cultural, ecological and spiritual resource, to be sure, for all people in some sort of equitable manner, including sharing it with more than human beings.

Incredibly powerful stories and a lot of issues to explore.

I'm joined today by Jim Lochhead former CEO of Denver Water and currently serving on the board of directors for the Water Foundation.

Sarah Klahn, water law attorney and member of the Water Trust Board of directors.

And Tom Romero, law professor at the University of Denver and faculty director for the Interdisciplinary Research Institute for the Study of Inequality.

That's a long title.

Very impressive.

Great to have you with us.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

So we just saw this documentary, how big an issue is it?

Let's start with you, Jim.

Well, the documentary is a great storytelling on a number of issues that we're facing in the West and water.

With the advent of climate change, with competition for water among cities and rural areas, among states, among the west slope, the east slope.

The show just kind of in a little microcosm of the San Luis Valley, hits on a lot of those different things.

And Sarah, you're a water law attorney, so your title alone tells us this is an issue, correct?

Yes, it is.

It is an issue.

And that's kind of what I do.

We try and, resolve these problems within a framework of something we call the prior appropriation system.

And the issue is kind of are, they kind of stand apart from that because of the different tradition from which their, property interests arose.

Okay.

And so you do you and the legal part.

What kind of legal issues do you see here when you hear about the water stuff that's going on?

I mean, in many ways, we think about, water.

It's probably the most important property, right?

In the state and the foundation of property.

We don't live here, we don't have development.

We don't have the ability to drink water.

We don't have the ability to farm, and ranch.

Without having a right to water.

So I would say it's probably if we're thinking about one of the most important legal issues or the foundational legal issue in the state, it's all revolves around water.

Well, and it looks like, you know, it's a kind of a finite asset.

We were in the documentary.

They were talking about how Douglas County was trying to take some of the water from San Luis Valley.

I mean, does that happen a lot?

Do you all see that?

Were other other cities or towns try to get water from somewhere else?

I'm sure you saw a lot of that there.

Well, having been worked at Denver Water, Denver water is, famous or infamous on the Western Slope for diverting water from the west slope over to the general metropolitan area starting in the 1930s.

So really a tremendous amount of foresight that went into that kind of development.

Development historically, in those times was more of a linear thing.

If you needed more water, you just went farther afield to find it.

Today's reality is that those types of importation, giant water projects, just can't get done anymore.

And so it's more about conserving efficiency.

Recycling, reuse.

As opposed to just building new buying projects.

And so you're saying they can't do that anymore.

Is that because they don't have the resources to do those kind of projects or the.

Resources are there, but the, the politics, the permitting process.

Denver Water was has been working on the expansion of gross reservoir, for example, and has been over 20 years, nearly 25 years in the permitting and litigation process to try and get something, something built.

And you're keeping people like Sarah in business, right, Sarah?

Are there a lot of lawsuits in the state now from different jurisdictions trying to take water?

I wouldn't say so.

No, I think, Jim pretty much summarized the, challenges that our people are facing and that there is, a real acknowledgment that there isn't enough water, on the West slope to bring to the Front Range without sufficient or without, a tremendous amount of, of legal and permitting kinds of efforts.

I mean, these are all things Jim mentioned, but I just don't I think people are looking for alternative ways to, to get to get water for municipalities.

That doesn't mean if you're living in the San Luis Valley and Douglas County comes knocking, that you don't worry.

Oh of course, yeah.

And it just sounds like a lot of money.

And they don't.

And it doesn't mean that you wouldn't have to spend a lot of money as an, municipality or a county or whatever to try and combat that.

But at the end of the day, I just, I don't I don't think it's very practical.

So I'll ask you and Thomas then, is there something that legally that, that our lawmakers can do to help out this problem?

Well, I mean, I'll, I'll start, The top property is.

That, I mean, years ago, the legislature adopted a statute that requires if there is, transfer of water from one basin to another, that there be, monetary compensation and other kinds of compensation for the, the original basin where the water came from.

So that could take the form of having to pay, an in lieu kind of tax or something like that.

So that one, because once you lose that water, you might lose some of your tax base, especially if you drive it drying up agriculture.

You know, Jim, Jim may know, to the best of my knowledge that is either not been used or rarely been used.

Do you have any experience with that?

No I don't.

It's it's mostly the local land use permitting process.

And and what's called the 1041 land use process that gives local jurisdictions tremendous authority over a project that would export water out of a basin.

Yeah.

I mean, I feel like the issue in the San Luis Valley is, is exacerbated by the climate change issues that came up in the in the year as well.

So that the the reality is, as you know, I can sit here in Denver and say this isn't going to happen, but it it probably doesn't feel like that if you're on the ground in the.

Sanctuary and you know, there are people that are saying that I meteorologists I know do not believe in climate change, but but the facts are there.

Remember they were talking about how the you know, in 1890 the horses had the, you know, the weeds were brushing up against their bellies because the grass was so high.

And now it's done.

So you the climate change.

Is that something you were dealing with, too, when you were Denver water?

Oh, absolutely.

Less snowpack.

So the the water supply for the Denver metro, metropolitan area for Denver water is reliant on snowpack.

There's less snowpack.

The runoff is about two weeks earlier in the spring than it was even ten years ago.

So we're seeing changes in runoff patterns.

We're seeing, drier, for us, which increases the wildfire threat.

We're seeing more severe, flooding events, for example, and more severe drought events.

So the extremes in weather patterns are more and more, and those are just, as you mentioned, proven facts that exist, you know.

And they were saying the moisture content and the, the, the little snow they do have is way less than it used to be.

It's powdery, that kind of thing.

So let me, let me.

Does you have something.

Yeah.

You know, I was going to say I think one thing that might be useful for, for your audience to, to think about so simplistic terms is, every snowdrop tree owned, by someone.

Right.

So it could be Denver water or any, every snowflake, right.

Every raindrop.

And so this as we get the climate change issue right as we start getting these earlier springs, this, this, this greater runoff, if we start getting less water, it means that those that already have water rights are not going to be able to get their water rights satisfied.

So when you're thinking now about the scope of the problem, right now, we're just looking the scope of the problem.

From Colorado, that's where everybody's looking to figure out how and what ways we can get water and we can move it to other places.

And that's the million dollar question.

But so on along the same lines, we've touched on this a little bit, too.

What kind of policy changes would all of you like to see?

In a perfect world, if you could wave a magic wand and say, let's institute this now to help our water situation, what do you think?

Well, as you see, as we talked about with climate change and decreasing water supply and increased competition for water, the contrast between the a shaky system that was, highlighted in that film and the doctrine of prior appropriation that Sarah mentioned, where it's literally first in time, first and right water is allocated.

If I'm senior to you and I'm not getting my water, I get my water first and you might not get anything.

And so we're seeing, and that system is built on the past.

It's built on an assumption that the future is going to look like the past, that there's going to be as much water in the future as there was, in the past.

And so that just means more competition.

It might be interesting to kind of learn from that.

A shaky theory of democracy and sharing, particularly as we talk about the inter-state disputes that we're seeing on the Colorado River basin, which if you were if those were allocated by priority cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, even Denver would be cut off from their water supplies from the Colorado River.

Yeah, exactly.

So what's your take on that, Sarah?

What would you do?

I mean, I, I guess my initial thought is we are lucky in Colorado, and I'm going to just separate this from the interstate issues that Jim just mentioned in Colorado.

I think we have, a long history.

Of.

District court decision making about, allocation of water.

We have a robust administration system.

We have, you know, so we have dedicated water courts.

There are things that, already exist which could, be used, tools that can be used by something like an, a skier to try and protect their way of life in their and their uses and, I mean, I've been fortunate to be involved in a few cases in my career where we kind of used the prior appropriation system in a way that wasn't traditional.

And I do feel like there's some flexibility, some give.

So I don't know that I have a an ask for the legislature or anything.

I would also add that I think Douglas County has a problem.

I mean, they've built an entire, metropolitan ecosystem on, water supply that for the most part they have some renewable water.

But for the most part, they are relying on groundwater that's going to disappear.

So, you know, maybe that brings us back to Jim's point about trying to find a way to cooperate.

And Denver Water has been a leader in trying to help the South metro area...

Here, I'll just do your a little shtick for you....

Appreciate that.

Trying to help the south metro area.

[joking] Money is being exchanged... You know with with renewable supplies.

So I mean there are but I do believe that there are some, there are solutions under the current system, and I don't know that I have any thing I can point to that would be like a new thing the legislature would do.

Yeah.

What about you Tom?

If you could wave a magic wand?

I think one of the things, and I'm in particular thinking about the acequias and the kind of the special role that they have, it's the system is, as we learned, right, that goes back, you know, to Moorish Spain.

And, it is very much tied to community and cultural values.

And I think as we've been thinking about and talking about our system of water law in the state was is both old, but it's also flexible and adaptable.

And we've seen things like being able to create things like instream flows, to protect the sprinklers they're using that to.

Yeah, yeah.

The sprinklers.

So I think, you know, one particular, thing particular tie to, to this, documentary is how can we protect, the water, and keep water in-stream in the state for things like a sack?

Yes.

Things like, the cultural values of indigenous peoples.

And so I that might be something that certainly to explore in the legislature.

Sure.

So let's get out our crystal balls and look 30 years down the road here, what do you see when it comes to water?

And not only in the San Luis Valley, but also in Colorado?

What do you think, Jim?

It's got to rely on partnerships, on collaboration as opposed to competition.

We need to have, agreements and arrangements between, for example, the west slope and the slope between southern Colorado, northern Colorado, between rural and urban, that will keep, agriculture in production, that will preserve rural economies, that will allow cities to grow more efficiently in densely, densely, as opposed to sprawling and taking up agricultural land.

And that's going to require a lot of, of collaboration.

So for me, if there's one thing that the legislature could do, it would be to deal with the issue of sprawl, inefficient sprawl, growth, that is eating up foreign land.

And, if it continues, doesn't really portray a sustainable future for Colorado.

That's great question.

And Sarah, you mentioned Douglas County.

What do you see in 2055?

And Doug Co., a dry county?

I don't think there'll be a dry county.

I think at the end of the day there will be and there already are, alliances being built, to try and provide water.

What I don't know is if it will be affordable to continue to build, because I'm, I'm expecting that some of those alliances may involve the exchange of money.

It's not just going to be people being nice and saying, here takes take our water.

So you're going to end up with a more expensive, financial situation for homebuilders.

And I mean, at the end of the day, we have to figure out how to do this.

I mean, we all know there's a this isn't the topic, but we all know there's a crisis in housing.

We've got to figure out how to build the housing quickly enough to make make it available to people.

But that also relies on having to have a water supply to make that go.

Yeah.

It's true.

What's your take on that, Tom?

So one of the things I always tell my students is we're going to reach a tipping point.

And the question becomes is what is going to accelerate us to to that tipping point?

I think if you look at our history of water law, if you look at the ways that the water has developed, we've always been able to engineer ourselves out of issues.

Right.

So and kind of kick the can down the road.

Right.

And I think just with Sarah highlighted, you know, if we're going to reach a point with, with the cost of housing, I think climate change, it is such a, unknown variable of how that's going to accelerate, the lack of water.

Right.

They're going to have available.

So, I always try to remain hopeful.

There were not we're not going to reach that tipping point where we will have to make some tough decisions and allowed to be thinking about, what the population can handle.

There'll be, I think there will be a lot of pain at some point.

And, but, I think that's a very real possibility.

One of the things that really struck me when I was watching this documentary, they mentioned there's, arsenic in the water there, and I was I wish I could talk to some water experts about that.

Wait.

I've through, I said, well, how big an issue is that?

Arsenic in the water does not sound like something that's a good thing.

Well, it's a natural occurrence.

Obviously the point of the documentary was that the, persistence of arsenic has been exacerbated by overpumping of the, of the aquifer, which is means a more, a higher concentration of arsenic.

So it's an illustration of that, that the overuse of water supply, whether it's groundwater, surface water, has all kinds of spinoff implications in different areas, whether it's water quality or other areas.

Yeah.

What what do you think about that.

So I would.

Agree I mean I think that and from a kind of a technological perspective, the removal of arsenic is incredibly expensive.

And so it's not exactly something that you could like, slap on your, your faucet and feel comfortable all the time that it's taking care of it.

And that raises a lot of challenges for rural areas that are seeing these kinds of things.

Yeah, because the water is scarce enough.

But the water you have there is not safe.

So what's your take on that?

Yeah, I think there's two issues.

And I it's fascinating.

We say you have a bunch of water law experts here because for the most part, we've created this distinction in our law between what we call the quantity side and, and kind of the water rights side in the water quality side.

And so one of the challenges we have is how do we get those who have water rights, in conversation with those that are using that water for, you know, for drinking water and a water utility like Denver Water, is able to obviously, you know, bring those two pieces together.

So the second challenge I see is how do we do that?

And I think most importantly, conceptually, I think it would be important to think about, human right to water, in this state because as we've seen in other states.

And what it does is it creates a financial mechanism to create an infrastructure, particularly for rural communities, that do not have the tax base, right.

To really invest in cleaning their water supplies.

Right?

I mean, this documentary to me was really eye opening.

What was going through your mind after you finished watching this?

Anything strike you that you didn't know or just kind of reaffirm what you were thinking?

Well, it was an interesting in that it was the storytelling of these families, the small family farms in the San Luis Valley, but in a way touched on a whole list of different issues that we're facing, in the West in terms of water supply.

And so it did a really nice job of just kind of raising those issues in the context of, people on the ground living day to day, trying to make a go of it with small family farms and agriculture.

Right.

And, you know, my my feeling was I was watching thinking we've kind of we've got our head in the sand here in Denver.

These guys are dealing with this situation right now.

What what struck you when you watch this?

I, I think it was that the, the I guess the resilience of the, folks that are still making a go of it under the acequia system and keeping the, you know, trying to keep the corporate farms out and trying to maintain their, their way of life.

I, I found it in many ways, very I guess it made me feel really good.

And, you know, that we should be doing things to encourage the maintenance of this community now.

And the filmmakers said that, too.

They said their their take away after doing this was how resilient that people they were.

And you could see that.

What did you think Tom?

A couple of things that was exciting.

I think, that idea of just the long culture.

Right.

And and if you've been down of the San Luis Valley and if you walk those acequias or if you go even go to the other part of the valley where there's not acequias, but there's historical ditches, and you walk those ditches.

And what you see, right, is a whole community and generations that have really been reliant and resilient on this place, but they've also in their preservation and and the care that they have with the place they've also created these wonderful watersheds.

Yeah.

Riparian watersheds, and, and really vibrant communities that continue to, to drive the area.

So and so, you know, they did a great job of presenting what the problem is, but they didn't really have a solution.

What what what is the solution or is there what.

I'll go back to collaboration and then I'll, I'll use as an example the Colorado River basin.

There's there are negotiations going on as we speak between the seven states that share the Colorado River, including Colorado.

Yeah.

To try and agree on guidelines that need to be adopted by the end of 2026 for operation of Lakes Powell and Mead.

And there they'd literally been stuck for, for two years on positional statements and priority and competition around what I would characterize as a zero sum game, which is, I win, you lose because we only have a fixed asset, and somehow we need we collectively, need to move from that and figure out a way to run the system.

Again, it's similar to acequia where it's, reliant on hydrology but also responsive to hydrology.

And the water is is shared in a in more of a community approach that keeps kind of everything going in the bad times.

And that way everybody can flourish in the good times.

And Sarah, it seems like almost the time for talk is sort of over.

We did have some action.

Now I think we need leadership.

I mean, there there's some, opportunities here for politicians or even just local, you know, people, some of the folks that are on the issues to step up and try and begin the kinds of discussions that Jim is talking about, to try and, move that ball forward.

Any any final words from our favorite Pio here?

Yeah.

I think what I would say is, I think there's things that, particularly aspiring law students or aspiring water law attorneys could do.

There's there's a lot of work and working with the acequias in helping to firm up their water rights, update their bylaws, making sure that that legacy of community control and kind of that democracy that exists, right, is is hardwired into the system.

And I think that's true not just for the acequias but many of these, historic ditches around the state.

Well, we really appreciate you all joining us.

And thank you for your expertise.

It's a it's a situation that definitely needs a lot more talk.

Well probably have you on again, but thanks again and let's see if we can work out some kind of solution here.

Right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us for Decode Colorado.

We hope you've come away with a better understanding of this complex issue.

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Until next time, I'm Tom Mustin for PBS12.