Article 8 of 8: The Buffalo Commons Series
While Eastern Colorado farmers watch Aurora buy their water rights and shut down irrigation wells, Western Slope communities face a parallel assault. Every year, over 530,000 acre-feet of water—enough to supply more than a million homes—gets pumped across the Continental Divide through two dozen diversion structures. Front Range water agencies treat Western Slope flows as their rightful property, manipulating rivers like plumbing systems.
This is the same agenda attacking rural Colorado from opposite directions. Plains farmers lose irrigation water to subdivisions. Mountain communities lose river flows to sprawl. Unless Western Slope communities recognize they’re fighting the same battle as Eastern Plains farmers, both will lose.
The 80/90 Problem
About 80 percent of Colorado’s water falls west of the Continental Divide. Nearly 90 percent of Coloradans live east of it. For over a century, Front Range cities have resolved this imbalance by taking Western Slope water.
The Colorado-Big Thompson Project alone diverts roughly 213,000 acre-feet annually. The Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, Moffat Tunnel diversions, and Windy Gap Project add hundreds of thousands more. Front Range cities built this system incrementally over decades.
The justification never changes: “We need water for people and growth. Water staying on the Western Slope is going to waste.” The assumption is that agriculture and recreation have lower economic value than Front Range development. But the power imbalance makes this fight nearly impossible to win. Front Range populations outnumber Western Slope communities ten to one.
Recreation Economy Under Siege
Colorado’s rivers attract kayakers, rafters, and anglers from around the world, generating enormous economic activity. This isn’t marginal tourism—it’s the foundation for towns from Buena Vista to Rifle. The whitewater industry supports hundreds of commercial outfitting operations.
The Arkansas River exemplifies this economy. Buena Vista, Salida, and Canon City have built their identities around whitewater recreation. Summer weekends bring thousands of visitors. Hotels, restaurants, gas stations—the entire seasonal economy depends on river flows.
Fly fishing adds another economic layer. Colorado’s blue-ribbon trout streams draw premium-paying clients. But trout require cold water, adequate flows, and stable habitat. Diversions reduce flows, warm water temperatures, and degrade habitat.
Climate change compounds these pressures. Snowmelt comes earlier, peak flows decrease, and low-flow periods lengthen. The recreation industry already operates on tighter margins. Additional diversions could push many operations past the breaking point.
The Arkansas River Shell Game
Cities don’t just divert water—they manipulate rivers to capture rights. Through the Twin Lakes system, Front Range water agencies pump water into the Arkansas River upstream, then pump it out downstream. This allows them to establish water rights through flow manipulation. It’s legal but ethically questionable and devastating to river ecology.
This manipulation creates havoc for commercial operations. Flows become unpredictable—artificially high one day, dropping suddenly the next. Rafting companies can’t plan around these fluctuations. Customers who booked months ago get disappointed.
Cities claim they’ll maintain recreational flows. But control over flows equals power to reduce them whenever growth demands more water. Once Front Range agencies secure water rights, recreational interests become afterthoughts.
The Colorado River Squeeze
The Colorado River defines Western Slope identity. The Colorado-Big Thompson Project diverts roughly 213,000 acre-feet annually to the Front Range. The Windy Gap Project adds another major diversion—recently expanded despite climate change reducing overall supply.
Grand County feels these diversions directly. Lake levels drop, impacting fishing, boating, and marinas. Glenwood Springs depends on Colorado River flows for summer river recreation that drives the tourism economy. Grand Junction and the Grand Valley represent Western Slope agricultural heartland where orchard crops depend on Colorado River water.
The mathematics are brutal. The Colorado River contains a fixed amount of water, declining under climate change. Every acre-foot diverted to the Front Range is one the Western Slope doesn’t get. Demands keep increasing as Front Range populations grow. Western Slope communities get squeezed between rising urban demands and shrinking supplies.
The Pattern: Front Range vs. Rural Colorado
Step back from specific projects and the broader pattern becomes clear. This isn’t Western Slope versus Front Range. It’s Front Range urban growth consuming rural Colorado from every direction.
Eastern Colorado farmers face systematic water buyouts. Aurora purchases agricultural water rights, drying up irrigation systems. Wells shut down. Farms go fallow. Towns shrink. Western Slope communities face transmountain diversions and river manipulation.
The San Luis Valley fought off a $600 million proposal to pump groundwater to Front Range cities. Denver Water and Aurora spent years planning before political opposition killed it. But similar proposals will return.
The pattern repeats: Front Range needs water, rural Colorado has water, political power determines who wins. Front Range voters outnumber rural Coloradans overwhelmingly. In the state legislature, urban representatives control water committees. When Denver, Aurora, or Colorado Springs want water, they usually get it.
Can Rural Colorado Fight Back?
The San Luis Valley provides an instructive example. Local opposition stopped the $600 million groundwater pumping proposal. What made it different? Geographic concentration of opposition, clear local economic damage, mobilization of both agricultural and environmental interests, sustained media attention, and strategic political organizing. The valley presented a unified front.
Western Slope communities could learn from this. Individual counties fighting isolated proposals rarely succeed. But unified Western Slope opposition, allied with Eastern Plains agricultural interests and strategic environmental partners, might build enough political power to matter.
The alliance would require bridging traditional divides. Mountain recreation communities and plains farmers haven’t historically seen common cause. But they face identical threats: Front Range growth consuming rural water.
The hard reality remains: Front Range population growth continues. Those populations need water. Rural Colorado has the water. Without fundamental changes, Front Range cities will keep taking water from rural areas. But fighting matters. Every delayed diversion preserves flows for another decade. Every defeated project forces cities to look elsewhere.
Your Rivers Aren’t Safe
Mountain communities might think their rivers are protected because they generate tourism revenue. Farmers thought their cantaloupe fields in Rocky Ford were safe too. They’d grown melons for a century. Aurora bought the water anyway.
If the Front Range needs your water for growth, they’ll take it. Political power wins. Population wins. Money wins.
The Buffalo Commons vision—depopulating rural areas to concentrate growth in cities—increasingly describes Colorado’s trajectory. Plains farms turn to ranchettes as irrigation water disappears. Mountain towns become vacation home enclaves as recreation economies struggle with reduced flows. This isn’t natural demographic evolution. It’s engineered through water policy.
The Choice Ahead
Your rivers aren’t just water flowing downhill. They’re the foundation of local economies and community identity. The Arkansas River through Buena Vista and Salida, the Colorado River through Glenwood Springs, the Blue River through Summit County—these waterways define place and possibility.
Take the water, and you take the economic base. Recreation businesses close gradually. Guide jobs disappear. Young families leave. Towns become resort destinations for Front Range visitors rather than living communities.
The political question is whether Colorado’s water policy should sacrifice rural communities for urban growth. Alternative approaches exist—cities could invest in conservation, reclamation, and efficiency rather than new diversions. But these alternatives require political will that doesn’t currently exist.
This leaves Western Slope communities facing a fundamental choice: accept gradual decline as diversions expand, or organize resistance despite unfavorable odds. Individual battles rarely succeed. But unified rural opposition—Western Slope allied with Eastern Plains, recreation interests allied with agriculture—might build sufficient political power to matter.
Conclusion: Common Cause
Colorado’s water wars aren’t about Western Slope versus Front Range, or agriculture versus cities. The fundamental conflict is Front Range urban growth consuming rural Colorado from every direction simultaneously.
The first step is recognizing common cause. Your rivers and their irrigation water face the same threat from the same source. Front Range cities view all rural water as underutilized resources that should fuel urban growth.
The second step is organizing sustained resistance. Water conservancy districts could coordinate. County commissioners could present unified opposition. Recreation and agricultural organizations could recognize shared interests.
The alternative to fighting is accepting inevitable decline. Watching your rivers diminish gradually. Seeing recreation businesses slowly fail. The same fate Eastern Plains farming towns already face.
This isn’t Western Slope versus Eastern Plains. It’s not agriculture versus recreation. It’s Front Range versus rural Colorado. And unless mountain communities and farming communities recognize their shared threat and organize together, both will lose. Your rivers aren’t safe because you’ve got rafting companies and fishing guides. If the Front Range needs your water for growth, they’ll take it. The only question is whether rural Colorado can build enough political power to fight back.
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