Colorado’s former Gov. Dick Lamm, an early prognosticator on the “devil’s in the details” of economic growth, was the featured speaker in a podcast sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy. The premise of the Center is that an ever-growing world economy is unsustainable for earth’s environment.

Lamm has long been an advocate for limited population growth. He cited the case of the “rice on the chessboard” he learned in the single-room schoolhouse he attended as a child. The case involves the power of geometric progression by posing the problem of putting a single rice kernel on square one of the chessboard and doubling the amount of rice on each square up to the board’s 48th. Over 210 billion tons of rice will fill the final square. According to Lamm, “nobody can chase that geometric curve… there are limits to growth.”

The discussion turned to Lamm’s three terms as governor and the state’s water development. Apparently Lamm and former President Jimmy Carter disagreed on water projects. The governor sought federal funds for projects that Carter killed on the grounds they exceeded the environment’s capacity for water diversion. “Carter understood in his bones and his nuclear engineering education that there couldn’t be endless economic growth.”

Carter didn’t want to divert water to grow surplus crops and he thought Lamm should have the “courage of his convictions.” In the podcast, Lamm says, “Carter was right.”

So with this year’s election, the Colorado River Conservation district is asking 15 western slope counties to increase their mill participation by about $4.9 million, or double its current budget, to support various projects including the White River Storage dam in northwest Colorado near Meeker.  The project is headed to court with the state of Colorado objecting to the project and the Rio Blanco Water Conservancy District (RBWCD) advocating for the dam.

Arguments concern whether the RBWCD has sufficient demand for water held in a prospective 66,700- to 72,700-acre-foot pond, depending on two options: the 66,700 acre-foot off-channel reservoir at the bottom of Wolf Creek gulch or a 72,700 on-channel reservoir. The off-channel reservoir, the preferred option of the RBWCD, involves pumping water uphill from the river to the 110-foot-tall-by-3,800-feet-long bathtub.

Pumping water uphill reminds those concerned with water development of Lake Nighthorse, the Animas-LaPlata water project built to satisfy Native American water rights. It took about 50 years to get the dam through the process, and many argued that the $600 million project cost too much and damaged the river.

Sure enough, now the dam needs repair. No water will be pumped up to the lake this year because the headgates need to be destroyed and replaced. Apparently, the design of the gate is inappropriate for the Animas River. Mud from the river clogs the pipes. The $15 million to fix various glitches on the project come out of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation budget.

Another issue is moving water from Lake Nighthorse in Durango to water users in Northwest New Mexico. A pipeline to run the fluid out of Lake Nighthorse will cost about $173.8 million according to the San Juan Water Commission. This problem developed when Animas River flow dropped to trickle level because of the state’s extreme drought. 

The state’s beef with the White River dam is that it’s a project without sufficient need, while the RBWCD says it will put the water to beneficial use. The District claims it will need 7,000 acre-feet for irrigation, but the state analysis says that irrigation use will decline and that the low end of the basin where the reservoir will be located cannot serve upstream users with most of the agriculture.

As per all water fights affecting Colorado’s western slope, fears of lower Colorado River basin calls on water affect this project. The district wants almost 12,000 acre-feet of storage in case there’s a Colorado River compact draw-down. 

These latest water cases circle back to Dick Lamm’s terms as governor. Back then, he says, no Colorado governor could buck a water project. Today, apparently, the state can safely have qualms. But the litigation adds an eleventh law to the 10 western laws of water: The courts will decide.