Since I arrived in Colorado fifty years ago, the San Luis Valley has been my favorite vacation destination. There’s something magical about this “land of cool sunshine.” I’ve spent enough time in the valley to comprise many months of residence. I recall watching Japanese farm families at Fort Garland shoveling ice late into the night atop crates of freshly cut spinach which were then loaded on a 14-wheeler headed to the Boston public market. Late on another night in January, while returning from Albuquerque, I encountered fog off the Rio Grande so thick it was no longer safe to drive. I threw my sleeping bag across the front porch of now federal judge Carlos Lucero in Alamosa until morning.

An image that has stuck with me through five decades is the observation that the entire land of Israel could fit neatly into this Alpine plateau. From the north end of the valley, after clearing Poncha Pass, it’s difficult to imagine how such a confined space can be the source of so much trouble. The San Luis Valley, by contrast, seems to attract an eclectic mix of mystics and spiritualists – a Buddhist temple, a Benedictine monastery, even Shirley Maclaine for several years. There is an alligator farm, hot springs, sand dunes, a UFO observatory and mushroom sheds – all of this married to a vibrant agricultural economy producing potatoes and barley.

During the 1970s, land hustlers peddled 35-acre ranchettes in TV Guide along the east side of the valley. These stony plots of high-desert mesquite and sage came without water rights, emptying the wallets of unwary purchasers from coast to coast. Beneath all this hype was a continuing debate about whether the entire valley floated on a confined aquifer. The federal government initially supported the theory of a vast underground lake which replenished itself annually from melting snows off the Sangre de Cristos and the San Juans. The Bureau of Land Management proposed a network of wells to dump this water into the Rio Grande and satisfy Colorado’s obligations to downstream users in New Mexico, Texas and Mexico. Some of these were drilled before the entire project ground to a halt. A handful may still be pumping water from the aquifer and into the river today.

By the 1980s, Canadian oil and gas raconteur Maurice Strong and his wife Hanne had moved to Crestone. Strong previously parlayed his connections inside the Canadian government to serve as Under Secretary of the United Nations, where he assumed responsibility for directing its Environmental Program. After he died in 2015 the World Economic Forum held a memorial to acknowledge his myriad contributions in the battle against climate change. Nearly forgotten was his ill-considered effort to transfer water out of the San Luis Valley to Colorado’s Front Range through a special-purpose corporation, American Water Development Inc. AWDI hired Jim Monaghan, Democratic Gov. Dick Lamm’s three-time campaign manager, as political flack for the trans-mountain diversion.

Within months following his departure from the Governor’s office, Lamm emerged as a proponent of AWDI’s plan. Vigorous, bi-partisan rebellion against the project eventually succeeded. Strong sold off his water rights soon thereafter to Gary Boyce, a valley native married to an heiress. Their attempts to revive the project also failed. During the subsequent years there has been growing evidence the valley is not, in fact, floating on a limitless lake of fresh water. During two decades of recent drought, water tables have dropped, wells have been punched deeper and the notion of surplus water is deemed dubious at best.

Another former Governor, this time Republican Bill Owens, has appeared as spokesman for Renewable Water Resources (RWR), helmed by several of his former campaign aides. They propose to pump water over the Sangre de Cristos to Douglas County. Why is this raid on the San Luis Valley happening again? Because there’s a lot of money to be made. RWR has suggested it will control rights to 34,000 acre-feet of water – that’s a lot of gallons. If they can skim a nickel a gallon forever, that’s a lot of nickels. While Owens’ RWR lieutenants, Sean Tonner and Sean Duffy may be greedy, it’s doubtful either Dick Lamm or Bill Owens have been motivated by a financial bonanza.

What they know only too well is that Colorado must move more water to the Front Range. Former Gov. John Hickenlooper’s blue-ribbon water report identifies nearly two dozen priority water delivery projects. Only one has any current prospect for funding and that’s uncertain. With a Legislature that has repeatedly failed to fund water projects, the private sector seems to be our only option. Drying up the San Luis Valley may be the price. That sacrifice feels like too much to ask. Neighboring states plan to spend COVID dollars for expanded water storage. Why not Colorado?

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.