The next great battlefield for Colorado water wars may be an arena of ideas where the laws of the state are pitted against the laws of nature. As always, the state engineer will be at the forefront, trying to make all of the laws - man’s and nature’s - fit into some sort of neat box. The realist in him tells Dick Wolfe he probably will have a hard time making it work. The idealist says it's worth the effort. “A lot has changed as our understanding of science has grown,” Wolfe said during an interview last week. “In the past, our focus was on the resource of water. Now, we have to focus on the impact as well.” Overappropriation of water, new interests and the uncertainty of climate change will become increasingly important factors as more water rights are changed in years to come, he explained. Wolfe, 46, was appointed state engineer in November by Gov. Bill Ritter. As state engineer, he heads the Division of Water Resources and serves as the state’s chief of water supply. As a practical matter, the job means supervision of an increasingly complex web of water law and court decrees. With pending state Supreme Court cases, hot-button issues in every water division, statewide roundtables drawing more people into the world of water and hundreds of phone calls and e-mails to respond to, Wolfe said his first week on the job was like being asked to drink from a fire hose.

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