Colorado Springs and Pueblo water managers are taking a critical look at a report that claims transmountain water projects aren’t needed to meet future urban water demands. The report, called Meeting Future Needs in the Arkansas River Basin, was released last week by Western Resource Advocates, the Colorado Environmental Coalition and Trout Unlimited.

Water interests on both sides of the Continental Divide are continuing to investigate whether a water banking plan could be used to protect Colorado’s interests in the Colorado River.

The average annual flow in the Colorado River below Granby Reservoir would decrease by about 15 percent under a proposed plan to increase diversions from the West Slope to the Front Range, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation acknowledged last week, releasing a final environmental impact statement for the Windy Gap firming project.

More than 100 bridges washed away. Several deaths. Railroad tracks, more than 300 miles worth, destroyed in every direction. All telegraph and telephone communications lost. Six feet of water rushing down 15th Street. Virtually all the crops in the Animas Valley destroyed. An estimated $1.5 million in damage across the region.

One version of a proposed 500-plus-mile water pipeline from southwestern Wyoming to Colorado’s Front Range was dealt a blow by a federal regulatory agency that found the application deficient on Wednesday.

There was a meeting of the four west slope roundtables on May 26^th in Grand Junction with nearly 100 in attendance. Agenda topics and topics of conversation centered around:

To be conducted that the Double Tree Hotel. For more information, contact the Colorado Rural Water Association or (719) 545-6748.

The Western Slope has had plenty of water observers, officials and attorneys, but it hasn’t had, until now, a focal point for the collection of water information. The Water Center at Mesa State College, however, is now in business and was inaugurated on Wednesday on campus.

Big picture water issues, including the  Colorado River Cooperative Agreement, water banking and the Flaming Gorge pipeline proposal, will be on the table May 26 at the Colorado Basin roundtable meeting in Grand Junction.

A state water committee is moving toward taking a more direct role in supporting water projects such as a Flaming Gorge pipeline, but the needs of everyone in the state must be considered.  “We may not be making progress as fast as some members want, and we may be moving faster than others want us to,” said John Stulp, director of the Interbasin Compact Committee and Gov.