As Gov. Jared Polis and lawmakers this week celebrated a bill adopting new ways to fight drought as recommended by a state task force, an underlying truth lingered overhead: one of Colorado’s most controversial water questions remains unresolved.

The drought task force, created during the 2023 legislative session and made up of water leaders representing various interests, was charged with recommending to the legislature ways to address drought in the Colorado River Basin. The group was specifically asked to look at how to implement “demand reduction projects,” according to the bill.

That concept — which comes in many forms, including demand management and consumptive use programs — is generally the idea of paying water users to reduce their consumption. Some say beginning discussions of such a program is a necessary step as the state’s water woes persist, but others believe pursuing the idea could hurt the state’s negotiations and result in more water being sent out of Colorado.

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That debate, which is one of the most heated in the state’s water discussions, was clipped short in task force meetings. When the governor signed Senate Bill 197 in Steamboat Springs on Wednesday, the measure didn’t include anything on the topic.  

State Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco Democrat who was a prime sponsor of the bill that created the task force last year and the bill this year implementing its recommendations, said while he was largely pleased with the group’s work, he had hoped members would dig in more on topics like demand management. 

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“I think I was expecting more recommendations that would substantively prepare Colorado for a worst case scenario future,” Roberts said. “I think it’s incumbent upon us as policy leaders, legislators and the executive branch to plan for the worst.”

A debate over whether to debate

When demand management was discussed more than halfway through the scheduled meetings, the task force members only dipped their toes in the water. Several task force members commented later that they felt they hadn’t had enough time to discuss the concept. 

Andy Mueller, a representative from the Colorado River Conservation District, brought the only suggestion — asking the group to recommend a resolution setting standards for any demand management program that could be developed in the future. The idea was quickly shot down by the majority of the group. 

“My concern is that this could end up … put(ting) us at a disadvantage in those interstate negotiations,” said Kelly Romero-Heany, the assistant director of water policy for Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources, during a meeting of the task force.

The Polis administration, which has the sole power to negotiate on behalf of the state in Colorado River deals, has repeatedly discouraged discussions of the concept.

“I know that exploring a demand management program was the intent of some of the participants on the drought task force … that’s already being discussed through the Colorado Water Conservation Board, through the Upper Colorado River Commission,” Romero-Heaney said in an interview. “We were a bit nervous about the decision-making role over that shifting towards a temporary task force.”

Instead of looking at a demand management program for Colorado, the state wants to first see the Lower Basin states — California, Arizona and Nevada — curb their overuse of the river.

Colorado doesn’t want to be in a position of asking Western Slope agricultural producers to use less water so that those flows can then supplement water use in Lower Basin states.

But some Western Slope water leaders want to lean into that difficult conversation out of fear the details of a demand management program could otherwise be made for them by other entities. The federal government has threatened to step into the Colorado River basin negotiations if the seven states drawing from the river aren’t able to find their own solution. 

In March, a Polis administration representative signed onto a letter to the federal government from the Upper Basin states saying if they accept certain proposals to address the crisis, the Upper Basin states would commit to pursuing a “voluntary, temporary and compensated reductions of consumptive use program.”

‘One dry year away’

In the task force’s final report, Mueller wrote that his suggestion wasn’t an endorsement of such a program, but rather an attempt to give clear guidance to the state on how to proceed. 

“With critical reservoir storage on the Colorado River hovering at or below 35% of capacity, we are only one dry year away from returning to the state of crisis we saw last year at this time,” Mueller wrote in the December report. 

The day the task force bill was signed, Polis said there’s more work to do on the issue. 

“I don’t think anybody thought that bill would be the end all. It’s really what everybody has agreed to.” 

House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat and another sponsor of the task force bills, said she would like the group to possibly reconvene. 

“I think we have to be very clear about what that next charge is,” McCluskie said. “Maybe it’s demand management.” 

Drought measures in the bill

The task force did approve eight other general recommendations and four specifically related to tribal matters. Some of those suggestions were included in Senate Bill 197, and others were folded into other bills during the lawmaking term this year.

Per those recommendations, the bill allows the owner of a storage water right to loan water to the Colorado Water Conservation Board for environmental preservation efforts. It also permits the creation of statewide agricultural water protection programs, allowing agricultural water right holders to make their water temporarily available for other uses, like conservation. 

The task force also approved a narrative section for concepts that were discussed, but not given full approval by a majority of the members. 

One of those narratives, which was ultimately included in the bill, allows electric utilities in the Yampa River Basin that are planning to close their coal-fired power plants to keep their water rights even if they decrease their usage. 

Roberts, who called this the “most difficult” part of the bill, said it will allow companies in Hayden and Craig to pursue alternative energy development as they transition away from coal without losing their water rights.

“That means we will keep water in the Yampa River to benefit Steamboat and every community on the river, benefit our agriculture community and hopefully one day it will mean we have clean energy development and keep those jobs here in the Yampa Valley,” he said at the signing at Colorado Mountain College in Steamboat Springs. 

The bill also allowed the Colorado Water Conservation Board to reduce or waive matching requirements for grants to the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute tribes. 

“As of today, we’ve made some great strides in protecting our water resources,” McCluskie said about the task force. “Before we take the next step. We need to chat with other water leaders and think about how the legislature can play the right role.”