What do we do about water?

After researching Colorado’s unique situation regarding water, I’m left with mixed feelings. Looking over our long history of water rights and how they evolved I can understand how we got to where we are today. However I feel even stronger that that it is just wrong to block people from using the rain water that falls on their roof! It's interesting to note that while both Colorado State University and the Colorado Division of Water resources go into detail to let you know that it is against the law, the CSU web page gives you information about impurities in the water that runs off of rooftops and how to remove them. It almost seems like an acknowledgment that people are going to break the law, and here is how you can protect yourself from unintended consequences.

The latest official document regarding water use in Colorado is the 2^nd draft of Colorado's Water Plan, a 485 page document that landed on Governor Hickenlooper’s desk in July. After careful searching, I found 0 references to rain barrels, and only one mention of “precipitation harvesting”, and that was in reference to the current Sterling Ranch Pilot study in Douglas County. It would appear that the Colorado Water Conservation Board believes that residential rain barrels are not part of a viable plan for our water future.

So what do we do now? For myself, I plan on contacting my State Senator and Representative and see what they think about rain barrels. Will they support the legislation that is being talked about for next year; the one that would allow rain barrels only if they are registered? Maybe they already think the current law is absurd and would have voted to allow them last year if the bill would have been allowed to make it out of committee. During my research there were a couple of things I was unable to find out: what is the penalty for being caught with a rain barrel, and if anyone has been charged with having them. I’m pretty sure that my local police department isn’t enforcing this law.

We live in a semi-arid land where many of the home owners have been taught to expect green grass and lush plants in the yard as the norm, yet we do not have the climate to support it. We have larger and more urgent problems regarding water in Colorado than just rain barrels. Every year more people move to Colorado, and based on climate change models, including  the Joint Front Range Climate Change Vulnerability Study prepared by Mark Woodbury and Marc Baldo with Riverside Technology Inc. and David Yates with NCAR, we may have decreasing amounts of snowfall in the future. However, even more importantly, a shortened melting season. With a compressed melting period we could be subject to more flooding, and less opportunity to store needed water for later in the year. Without changes in both consumption and storage, we will soon be in serious trouble.