While competing water needs are on a collision course in Colorado, land-use decision-makers and water providers have barely begun to talk about how to deal with shortfalls. That was the assessment of Harris Sherman, executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, at a meeting of Action 22 Thursday at Colorado State University-Pueblo. “How we develop our land-use patterns will have a huge influence on the use of water,” Sherman told the group. “There is a direct relationship of how we grow and the use of water.” The state’s population is expected to double with the addition of 5 million people in the next 50 years. While all sectors of the state’s infrastructure and services - transportation, health care and education - will be tested, water remains a critical fulcrum in determining whether urban growth will be balanced with or upend existing uses. A $16 billion agricultural industry, a $10 billion recreation economy and potential oil-shale de- velopment are at stake, Sherman said. By 2050, as much as 70 percent of agriculture on the Front Range, and 60 percent on the Western Slope, could disappear if nothing is changed about the way the state is developing, Sherman said.

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