February 29, 2008--Governor says water tied to rural growth (Pueblo Chieftain)
Rural economies are tied to water and how it will be used in a “new energy economy,” Gov. Bill Ritter said Thursday. Ritter was the keynote speaker at the 17th annual Governors Forum on Colorado Agriculture. Strengthening foreign markets for state agricultural projects, increased production of crops for biofuels, developing more wind power and using farms to help take carbon out of the atmosphere are steps the state will take in the next few years, Ritter said. In the process, the decline of rural communities could be stopped. “We have to understand that agriculture is the fiber of the state,” Ritter said. “We’re challenged as a state with agriculture as to how we preserve that tradition for our children.” Ritter said in a basin like the Arkansas Valley, preserving the water that is available is the key to economic development. He is relying on basin roundtables, set up in 2005, to help provide the answers for how to share water so the state can continue to grow without further harming rural communities by removing agricultural water.
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