Colorado Politics and the Colorado Springs Gazette featured the Sherman & Howard hosted panel discussion “Educating Colorado Business Leaders on Western Water Challenges” in a recent article highlighting the water crisis in the West. The speakers and panel participants James Eklund, United States Senator John Hickenlooper, Sam Bailey, Alan Salazar, Alice Jackson, former Senator Don Ament, and Will Sarni had an educational discussion on the actions and solutions currently underway to address water ownership and scarcity as well as a call to action for the business community to implement the solutions at hand.

Below is an excerpt from the article.

Eklund outlined the challenges Colorado and the West face. Climate change has cut the amount of water the Colorado River can deliver by about half, from 20 million acre-feet 100 years ago to about 10 million acre-feet today, he said. An acre foot is the amount of water it would take to cover a football field by one foot.

Add to that municipal water needs and their junior water rights; senior water rights held by agriculture; urban interests for economic production versus rural needs; the environment, which is focused on the public good versus storage and development; and, the tensions between the upper basin states of the river — Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming — and the lower basin states of California, Nevada and Arizona, which many say have overused their allotment over the years. 

“This impasse means unless climate changes reverses, the draconian options will be impacts to health and human safety,” Eklund said.

The Colorado Politics article is here and the Colorado Springs Gazette article is here. (Subscriptions required.)