Gary Wockner

Down in Denver, your state representatives are considering the yearly Colorado Water Conservation Board’s “Projects Bill.” A piece of the bill this year would give a $90 million very low-interest loan for the “Windy Gap Firming Project” which is a dam and river-destruction scheme.

The Windy Gap Firming Project would drain 30,000 acre-feet of water out of the Colorado River (about 10 billion gallons) every year on the West Slope and pipe it over to the sprawling northern Front Range. The Colorado River is already under extreme stress, massively threatened by climate change, and drained dry before it reaches the Sea of Cortez. Part of the water would be used for the Rawhide coal-fired power plant north of Fort Collins. Further draining our state’s namesake river to subsidize coal power is a 1950s idea that could only find a place in 2017 due to the byzantine water politics in Colorado.

Perhaps the worst part of the bill is that it provides a massive subsidy to several small towns that are participating in the Windy Gap Project. The $90 million loan’s sole purpose is to bail out several small towns that have so badly managed their growth and budget that their bond rating is terrible. These towns can’t get a regular, affordable loan, so they need a low-interest bailout from the state. This is the worst possible growth subsidy — finding the failing towns with the worst bond rating and bailing them out. It just feeds the growth addiction and fuels and enables poor municipal financial planning. It’s like giving drugs and credit cards to an addict.

The rivers of Colorado should run free, just like how Colorado’s people can run free. And the people on the West Slope have a right to a clean, healthy Colorado River, just like you have a right to clean and healthy Cache la Poudre River in Fort Collins.

State Rep. Jeni Arndt is leading the push for this river destruction bill and bailout. You can contact her at jeni.arndt.house@state.co.us.



Gary Wockner, Ph.D., director of Save The Poudre