Insights on Front Range Water Issues
Patty Limerick and John Hendrick offer Insights on Front Range Water Issues
Local residents were treated to a special “Insights on Front Range Water Issues,” offered at the Highlands Ranch library. Guest speakers at the forum were Patty Limerick, Chair of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and John Hendrick, General Manager of the Centennial Water and Sanitation District, the water provider to Highlands Ranch.
Dr. Limerick, a highly regarded historian and noted professor at CU Boulder, has recently been engaged in writing a history of the Denver Water Board, the largest municipal water provider in Colorado. She shared lessons learned from her process, including the debunking of several ideas she previously held to be true. Her top three points were:
a) Water supply likely does not limit population growth by decreeing a carrying capacity for human residents. There are many factors besides water that play a part in producing growth.
b) Citizens should have a deep respect for the way engineers have reconfigured the world on behalf of the comfort and complacency of Western residents.
c) Westerners should become more aware of and behave more responsibly toward the sources of their water and of the role engineers in making it possible for them to live in this region.
Dr. Hendrick began his water career forty-four years ago on the Bureau of Reclamation’s, Frying Pan/Arkansas Project. He has been involved with water supplies for Highlands Ranch since the early days, taking ideas to the delivery of services to nearly 100,000 residents. John updated water projects underway in the area, including:
a) The ongoing study of the potential for reallocation of water storage space at Chatfield Reservoir
b) The Wise partnership between Denver Water, Aurora, and S. Metro Water Supply Authority to explore bringing water molecules into the Douglas County area
c) Reinjection of water into the Denver Basin aquifers to provide for regional drought reserves.
After an hour-long presentation to an overflow crowd, the speakers took half an hour’s worth of spirited questions. The last participants were still lingering at the library’s closing time. For additional information on Patty Limerick’s upcoming book on the Denver Water Board, “A Ditch in Time: Denver, the West, and Water”, please see www.centerwest.org. For additional information on services provided by Centennial Water and Sanitation District, please see www.highlandsranch.org.
