GreenCO Dives Into Colorado Water Plan |
Tuesday, December 15, 2015 02:00 AM |
Colorado experienced a watershed moment in 2015, one with ripple effects on the state for generations to come. On the surface, the Colorado Water Plan approved by Governor Hickenlooper on November 19 is an ambitious road map for managing, conserving, and protecting this vital resource. “Our water picture has changed over the last 10 to 15 years; it’s no longer good enough to just have water law managing our water,” said James Eklund, Director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which wrote the plan. “We’ve had record fires, flooding, and historic drought – the worst we’ve ever measured. We’re warmer by two-degrees; our summers are going to be hotter and our growing season extended.” With Colorado’s population projected to grow 73-percent by 2050 and a projected shortfall of 560,000 acre-feet of water, Governor Hickenlooper in 2013 ordered the creation of the plan. The CWCB sought input from water providers, agricultural organizations, environmental groups, the General Assembly, local governments, the business community and the public. Landscape water use accounts for 3-percent of state water, which may seem like a drop in the bucket. But a study commissioned by GreenCO suggests that homeowners reducing over-irrigation by 10 to 20-percent can save 86,500 acre-feet of water over 40 years. Education may be the biggest challenge and an area where Fefes hopes the state and local policy makers lean on the Green Industry. “Landscape water use is complicated and how much to use depends on a variety of factors – soil, sun, slope. There’s no one answer to ‘how much water does landscape use?’ Industry member have technical knowledge to give customized answers to homeowners. We can be a big asset for state and local policy makers in education, outreach, and implementation.” “The knee-jerk reaction is that we can conserve our way out of this, but we’re looking at all the tentacles into lives that could trip us up,” said Eklund. “The heat island effect could mean that a person keeps their air conditioning on. If a person stops watering their lawn and it dies, when it does rain we get all that dirt and pollutants washing off and into the wastewater system where we all pay money to treat it.” Reprinted with permission from Carol O'Meara, Boulder County Extension. Originally posted athttp://csuhort.blogspot.com/2015/12/greenco-dives-into-colorado-water-plan.html on Monday, December 7, 2015. Subscribe to ALCC LAB - Add a feed to your browser so you can keep up with posts on this blog. |