Bill on High Altitude Water Storage Task Force Creation Stalls After Untimely Death of its Main Sponsor
Water is an important resource and due to ongoing drought conditions, Colorado is always seeking ways to conserve what it has and make sure there is enough to go around to all stakeholders. The saying, “Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting,” stands true in the state as lawmakers often go back and forth over ways to conserve the state’s most precious resource.
During the summer when the tourist season is at its peak, Colorado relies on snowpack in the mountains from the winter to fill the rivers and reservoirs. However, during some seasons when the state does not receive as much snow, drought conditions persist due to the rivers and reservoirs being low. Less snow in the winter also means that vegetation will be drier during the summer, which can lead to high fire danger conditions.
One idea that has been brought up to help the state have more water in the summer is to find ways to store water in the form of snow at high altitudes. The thought is that if ski resorts were encouraged to create more snow and store it at high elevations on mountainsides or in small storage ponds, the state would have more water when it needs it in the summertime.
A bill was brought up in 2022 to create a task force to study high-altitude water storage options. But, late last year the main sponsor of the bill Republican State Representative Hugh McKean out of Loveland suddenly passed away, stalling the bill. But, the bill could someday be brought back to life based on the ideas that Rep. McKean had.
Some Lawmakers Want a Special Task Force to Look Into High-Altitude Water Storage Options
Last fall, the Colorado General Assembly’s Interim Water Resources Committee recommended a bill for the 2023 legislative session that would create a task force to study high-altitude snowmaking as a means of water storage.
According to the Water Education Colorado website, the bill’s main sponsor was Rep. McKean, who told the committee in August that he was thinking about ways the state could develop an alternative water storage system.
He said that one idea that came up to increase water storage during the winter “would allow ski resorts to blow other people’s water as snow up into the high woods to extend the snowmelt by 30-45 days and literally allow them to create storage up high as snow.”
He said that he thought his idea could be a “transformative way of storing water in the state of Colorado that does some things for an industry we depend on, and does some things to delay water coming down, in some cases, until we really need it.”
By drafting the bill he planned to open dialogue about the subject. “This is intended to be a conversation,” former Rep. McKean told Colorado Politics. “Is there a financial or logistical way to increase high-altitude storage?”
What Would the Bill Do?
If passed, House Bill 23-1010 would create “a task force to study the feasibility of implementing water storage in the form of snow in high-altitude areas of the state.” The bill would require that the task force submit a report to the Water Resources and Agriculture Review Committee on or before June 1, 2024.
The report would be required to describe the feasibility of implementing high-altitude water storage in the state and describe the findings and recommendations regarding issues considered by the task force. The report would also have to describe any legislative proposals associated with the implementation of high-altitude water storage including “identification of any state agencies that will be responsible for implementing legislative directives and identification of funding sources.”
The original bill drafted last fall would require the task force to consist of seven people from various backgrounds. The task force would be made up of the state engineer or their designee, one member who is a state representative, one member who is a state senator, one member who represents the ski industry, one member who represents the state’s whitewater rafting industry, one member who is an expert with experience in and knowledge of high altitude hydrology, and a member who represents the United States Forest Service.
Despite Some Support, the Bill Gets Stalled Indefinitely
According to Aspen Journalism, the untimely death of Rep. McKean on Oct. 30 left a lot of uncertainty with the bill. The bill was at first sponsored by Rep. Barbara McLachlan, Sen. Jeff Bridges, and Sen. Cleave Simpson.
“I actually wasn’t in full support of the bill, it was proposed by House Minority Leader Hugh McKean, who I have great respect for,” Republican senator Simpson said in an e-mail. “As he described the bill last summer I was concerned that as presented it might create problems for existing water users. I agreed to sponsor the bill in the Senate to help Rep. McKean and for me to gain a better understanding of what it was he wanted to accomplish. With the sudden passing of Hugh last October, those of us who intended to help him with the policy really lacked a deep enough insight to advance the conversation and the bill was postponed indefinitely in the House Committee of Reference recently. Unless others bring the concepts forward this summer and ask for my help I won’t be advancing the conversation about High Altitude Storage.”
Democrat Rep. McLachlan of Durango said that the snowpack at ski resorts is already seen as a form of winter water storage and that the task force would have unnecessarily cost the taxpayers money and created more work for the state’s busy water managers. “We didn’t have enough information; Hugh had all the information,” McLachlan told Aspen Journalism. “We unfortunately never all got to get together to talk about it.”
