Essay by Ed Quillen
Water – December 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
EVERY SO OFTEN, some political issue becomes an obsession, and Referendum A captured me this year.
It’s rare for me to feel good on the day after an election, but this Wednesday after the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November had me almost ecstatic: Referendum A had lost, and it wasn’t even close. Statewide, the margin was an overwhelming 2-1 against, and it did not pass in a single one of Colorado’s 64 counties.
Referendum A, just in case you missed the arguments, was promoted as a financing mechanism for unknown Colorado water projects. The projects (at least two, in two different basins, and costing at least $5 million apiece) would have been selected by the Colorado Water Conservation Board; then the Board’s list would have gone to the governor, who was required to approve of at least one project by 2005.
To build these projects, the Water Conservation Board could issue up to $2 billion in revenue bonds. These would be repaid by revenues from water users, but if they defaulted, then the state would be liable.
In essence, Referendum A transferred government power to the executive branch. The proposal would have allowed costly projects to proceed without legislative oversight or public discussion.
It was hatched last spring during the waning days of the legislative session. The governor wanted it, and his Republican party controls both houses, so passage there was almost a certainty. All they were doing, after all, was putting it on the ballot for the voters to decide, and Owens could and did raise a pot full of money to sell it to the public.
Once it got before the public, Referendum A was endorsed by just about everybody who matters in Colorado, like Gov. Bill Owens and The Denver Post. Other supporters ran the gamut, from the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry to the Colorado AFL-CIO. The Colorado Farm Bureau was for it, as were many county chapters. The Colorado Bankers Association supported it, along with the Colorado Home Builders Association. Colorado Biz magazine endorsed it. So did the Colorado Water Congress, the Colorado Building Trades Council, and a host of other trade associations and the like.
Among office-holders, the governor was just the head cheerleader. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell endorsed it, as did Representatives Joel Hefley, Tom Tancredo, Marilyn Musgrave, and Bob Beauprez. There was a long list of state legislators in support, among them Sen. Ken Chlouber.
BY LABOR DAY, it certainly appeared to me that the skids were greased, and Referendum A would pass easily. It was ahead about 60-40 then. By election time, its support would fade a little, as more people realized that it would put way too much power into too few hands, but I thought it would still pass about 55-45, with the Front Range and the Eastern Slope overpowering the negative vote from the rest of the state.
So much for my skills at divination. A lot of things happened between Labor Day and Election Day.
One was the broad base of the opposition. Rep. Scott McInnis is a Republican who represents the Western Slope. It would have been easy for him to go along with the state’s GOP establishment and support it — especially since he didn’t need to care what his district thought about him, since he announced that he would not be seeking re-election in 2004.
But McInnis did right by his constituents, and so did a lot of other Republicans. That kept Referendum A from being a partisan issue. It couldn’t be sold by Republicans as something only traitorous tree-hugging Democrats might oppose.
On the Democratic side, Attorney General Ken Salazar was a prominent opponent. So was U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, a Boulder Democrat whose district extends over the Divide to reach Grand and Summit counties. And I know State Rep. Carl Miller was out there spreading the word.
Referendum A voting
County (Seat) Yes Pct. No Pct.
San Juan (Silverton) 12 7.4% 151 92.6%
Gunnison (Gunnison) 316 8.1% 3,581 91.9%
Mineral (Creede) 25 9.5% 238 90.5%
Conejos (Conejos) 143 10.0% 1,288 90.0%
Rio Blanco (Meeker) 136 11.8% 1,013 88.2%
Ouray (Ouray) 162 12.3% 1,153 87.7%
Delta (Delta) 1,075 12.3% 7,677 87.7%
Montrose (Montrose) 1,099 12.5% 7,725 87.5%
Mesa (Grand Junction) 4,595 13.0% 30,724 87.0%
Rio Grande (Del Norte) 326 13.9% 2,014 86.1%
Montezuma (Cortez) 777 14.3% 4,664 85.7%
La Plata (Durango) 1,532 14.8% 8,811 85.2%
Pitkin (Aspen) 475 15.1% 2,673 84.9%
San Miguel (Telluride) 246 15.4% 1,356 84.6%
Custer (Westcliffe) 195 15.5% 1,065 84.5%
Garfield (Glenwood Spgs) 1,625 16.0% 8,559 84.0%
Routt (Steamboat Springs) 792 16.5% 4,003 83.5%
Alamosa (Alamosa) 523 16.5% 2,641 83.5%
Eagle (Eagle) 963 16.6% 4,830 83.4%
Summit (Breckenridge) 869 16.7% 4,342 83.3%
Grand (Hot Sulphur Spgs) 663 17.1% 3,219 82.9%
Moffat (Craig) 483 17.6% 2,265 82.4%
Lake (Leadville) 317 17.7% 1,473 82.3%
Saguache (Saguache) 251 17.8% 1,157 82.2%
Jackson (Walden) 80 18.2% 359 81.8%
Archuleta (Pagosa Spgs) 609 18.2% 2,731 81.8%
Pueblo (Pueblo) 6,342 18.5% 27,873 81.5%
Costilla (San Luis) 167 18.7% 728 81.3%
Chaffee (Salida) 1,102 18.9% 4,733 81.1%
Hinsdale (Lake City) 68 19.3% 284 80.7%
Dolores (Dove Creek) 135 20.4% 527 79.6%
Crowley (Ordway) 174 22.7% 594 77.3%
Las Animas (Trinidad) 783 23.1% 2,612 76.9%
Park (Fairplay) 686 23.2% 2,271 76.8%
Gilpin (Central City) 439 25.7% 1,268 74.3%
Huerfano (Walsenburg) 566 25.9% 1,617 74.1%
Bent (Las Animas) 320 26.8% 872 73.2%
Clear Creek (Georgetown) 785 27.8% 2,040 72.2%
Boulder (Boulder) 19,699 28.2% 50,279 71.8%
Baca (Springfield) 511 28.3% 1,297 71.7%
Otero (La Junta) 1,489 29.2% 3,604 70.8%
Denver (Denver) 29,743 30.1% 69,042 69.9%
Frmont (Caon City) 3,607 32.1% 7,647 67.9%
Prowers (Lamar) 962 32.6% 1,992 67.4%
Teller (Cripple Creek) 2,073 34.1% 4,005 65.9%
Adams (Brighton) 19,603 35.9% 34,979 64.1%
Broomfield (Broomfield) 3,036 36.0% 5,393 64.0%
Kiowa (Eads) 135 36.2% 238 63.8%
Larimer (Fort Collins) 19,250 36.5% 33,454 63.5%
Jefferson (Golden) 48,976 36.9% 83,734 63.1%
Lincoln (Hugo) 633 37.5% 1,055 62.5%
El Paso (Colorado Spgs) 32,809 37.7% 54,169 62.3%
Cheyenne (Chey. Wells) 313 38.1% 509 61.9%
Kit Carson (Burlington) 753 38.4% 1,209 61.6%
Washington (Akron) 541 41.9% 750 58.1%
Sedgwick (Julesburg) 445 42.2% 609 57.8%
Arapahoe (Littleton) 45,064 42.5% 61,014 57.5%
Morgan (Fort Morgan) 2,834 43.4% 3,694 56.6%
Elbert (Kiowa) 2,348 43.5% 3,053 56.5%
Weld (Greeley) 14,101 44.4% 17,673 55.6%
Yuma (Wray) 1,473 45.4% 1,774 54.6%
Phillips (Holyoke) 778 47.5% 861 52.5%
Douglas (Castle Rock) 22,093 48.4% 23,579 51.6%
Logan (Sterling) 2,534 48.7% 2,669 51.3%
Totals (Statewide) 305,659 32.9% 623,413 67.1%
ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, those office-holders took a stand. And since Referendum A allowed for a substantial transfer of power and money it seemed like a stand was called for.
I was astonished that my own state representative, Lola Spradley, was officially neutral, as was my state senator, Lew Entz. And if U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard had anything to say about Referendum A, I missed it.
Of course, it’s possible that they really didn’t care one way or another about this issue. But it seems more likely that they were silenced by considerable political pressure.
Here’s the state Republican hierarchy urging support for Referendum A. And here are their constituents — Republican, Democratic, Green, and Libertarian — lining up against it. Announcing a neutral position may have solved their immediate problem, but it sure didn’t earn them mention in a future edition of Profiles in Courage.
The simple story of Referendum A is that there was a drought (and there is still a drought in the San Luis Valley and the Four Corners area). And people were looking to their government for solutions.
Bill Owens couldn’t just say “I can’t make it rain or snow.” And he never told Coloradans the truth: “To avoid a drought like this one, we’d need about a million acre-feet of storage, at least. And once that storage was built, we’d need some wet years to fill it. And we’d also need to renegotiate the Colorado River Compact so that we could just store water without putting it to beneficial use.”
No, Owens had to Do Something, or at least appear to be Doing Something, and thus Referendum A was proposed.
Or maybe it went past that. This may have been something that Owens wanted to do anyway, and the drought was just part of the sales pitch.
That’s what I gathered from a statement by Greg Walcher, director of the state Department of Natural Resources and a Referendum A supporter. “It’s a raw political decision that the public may be willing to give us this authority now. After a couple of rainy years, they may not be willing to.”
That’s kind of scary when you think about it. The governor wanted to be Colorado’s “water czar,” and the drought could have given him that power. The normal checks and balances, like legislative oversight, would be missing.
Even more disturbing, however, with fear and deprivation driving the vote, the governor and his supporters hoped the voters would give him and the Colorado Water Conservation Board the power to launch huge water development projects which may have made matters worse.
Although such projects may be advisable for the growth and economic prosperity of the front range, they will probably make things more difficult during the next drought. Because once you build water storage and supply systems, you don’t just let the water sit there and evaporate. You distribute it. And with new water supplies you develop more subdivisions and build more thirsty suburbs.
PERSONALLY, I hate the idea of a border to border Colorado megalopolis. But it’s happening, and those growing communities are going to need more water. I’ll admit that.
Whether citizens in Central Colorado like it or not, more mountain and agricultural water is going to be transferred to front range cities. But we shouldn’t make obtaining that water too easy or too cheap. And that’s where legislative oversight, citizen review, wrangling, negotiating, and law suits come in. They protect small towns, wildlife, lakes, rivers, trees, farmers, ranchers, downstream states, and perhaps even the clouds themselves, from giving their all to Colorado’s wealthy front range cities.
And that’s as it should be.
But surely the governor, the State of Colorado, and the citizens should do something to protect us against drought. And obviously, we can’t control the weather. So what should we do?
More of what we’re already doing.
As frightening as it’s been, this drought has actually been good for us. In some parts of Colorado, this has been the worst drought in historic times. And in other regions it’s been a mere 50- or 100-year event.
But either way, we’ve all had to respond. Homeowners have had to put in deeper wells. Farmers and ranchers are revamping their irrigation systems. Towns have had to re-evaluate their water systems.
Salida finally purchased senior water rights that had been designated as crucial to the community’s future at city council meetings for a decade.
Citizens are xeriscaping. Lost trees are being replaced with more drought-resistant varieties. The state has launched a war on water-guzzling tamarisk.
Some regions are reassessing the health of their irrigation ditches. Should irrigation ditches be lined by cottonwoods and full of weeds? Has a trend toward duel careers and hobby ranching meant a decline in ditch maintenance?
WE’RE STARTING TO QUESTION our complacence. Does our government offer adequate drought protection for farmers, ranchers, and small towns? What kind of real estate developments are advisable? Can we strengthen our Land Use Regulations to protect our water supplies? Are Colorado farmers growing the right crops for an arid region?
Can we change the law so that family farmers and ranchers can profiteer off of water in dry years in order to survive drought and agri-biz? (After all, small farms have less impact on air and water — and they smell less, too — so it may be in our best interests to encourage smaller operations.)
And more to the point, are our water laws adequate? Or do they encourage water profligacy by being based on use it or lose it principles?
If you consider the fight over Referendum A, you can’t help but notice that water issues make strange bedfellows. Farmers support expensive water projects for suburbs, so that places like Aurora won’t start looking at their ag water. Mountain communities and water conservancy districts make water cheaper and more readily available to ex-urban developers (and thereby encourage sprawl) so that front range cities won’t start looking at their water. Raft guides and ranchers may not break bread together, but they’ll sit down together fast enough when a dam proposal comes to their valley. And front range cities, who presumably are all in it together, are actually competitors.
Of course, it’s nice that political adversaries cooperate on occasion. But unfortunately one of the things Colorado rivals collaborate on most frequently is how to use the water before someone else can claim it.
So are our towns, counties, and water conservancy districts forced to encourage dangerous overdevelopment of water resources in order to insure our supplies and thereby our economic well-being?
Perhaps. Or perhaps not. That’s one of the things we need to reconsider. But more people are paying attention to water issues. And voters who have traditionally had their water brokered and delivered to them through a tap by their towns or covenanted developments are paying a lot more attention than they used to.
OVER THE YEARS, we’ve all talked about water development and conservation. But now we’re actually doing things besides building giant dams, reservoirs, and transfer systems which merely make things more difficult during serious drought years when there’s not enough water to go around.
Today, many Colorado wells are deeper; citizens are trying to figure out ways to use less water; and small towns are improving their water systems.
And that wouldn’t have happened if there hadn’t been a drought.
So what does the future hold? Politically, it’s fun to speculate. Referendum A reminded me of an issue on the Colorado ballot 31 years ago. Colorado had been awarded the 1976 Winter Olympics, and everybody important was in full support: the governor, a majority of the legislature, both statewide newspapers, the major trade organizations and lobbies, many mayors, city councils, county commissions, etc.
One newspapers did its job. The Rocky Mountain News sent a reporter to Squaw Valley, Calif. It had hosted a Winter Olympics, and the promoters there had promised all sorts of neat new stuff that would remain after the games: ski jumps, skating rinks, sewage plants, water systems, etc. But when the reporter visited, that was all crumbling and the place was so deep in debt that there was no reasonable hope of repaying it.
That raised a lot of questions that none of the promoters was able to answer. Instead, they presented a “trust us, we’ll take care of things” attitude.
Their numbers didn’t come close to adding up, which was pointed out by a young state legislator who was both an accountant and a lawyer: Dick Lamm. He was about the only one in state government who seemed to care, and he ended up leading the opposition, and getting elected governor two years later.
It’s a similar pattern this time around. The state establishment lined up behind something that didn’t add up, and the voters rebelled.
But there wasn’t one leader of the opposition in 2003; there were many, from both parties. Back in 1972, there were thousands of anti-Olympic placards and bumper stickers; this time around, I saw precisely one sign, and not a single sticker.
So I don’t think this amounts to a movement. It will hurt a few political careers and help a few others, but the only thing everybody agreed on was defeating Referendum A. The same coalition couldn’t be put to work improving rural health care or reforming school finance.
The main thing this vote demonstrated was that if you want to sell something to the Colorado electorate, you have to be specific; tell us what we’re going to spend and what we’re going to get.
But hey, as it turns out, sometimes common sense can triumph over power and money. And that counts for a lot.
Besides, it felt good to be on the winning side for once.
— Ed Quillen
(with much contributed by Martha)
