"Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting over."
~~Mark Twain
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| Lechworth Falls, Wyoming County, New York |
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| Denver Highway |
Denver sits on a high arid plain. The horizons in three directions sweep unhindered for miles like a calm sea. The fourth looks west to the far off snow capped Rocky mountains, visible on days when a smokey haze doesn't screen their view. Hills barely 100 feet over the plain peer over the city like lonely watchtowers. What water there is, eludes detection as it crawls along the base of low mounds. The South Platte river and watershed supply Colorado's largest cities (Denver, Aurora, Lakewood and Arvada) with drinking water. But it is shallow and contaminated with mercury, arsenic and benzene (South Platte River: Colorado's most polluted river.).
The air itself sucks the spit from your mouth, and the tears from your eyes leaving you feeling not unlike a snail in salt. None but the most draught resistant vegetation live here: sage and prairie grasses, dogwood, aspen and ponderosa pine. The average rainfall in Denver is less than 16" per year, compared to Buffalo which has over 40".
As a consequence, harsh water conservation measures are in place restricting personal use, the watering of lawns and promoting water sparing plumbing and appliances. One of the first things I noticed here was the toilets seem to need an extra flush to get the job done, and leaving AC to wonder out loud “what the heck good is it if everyone takes two flushes?”
All the while Denver is growing. I remember 30 years ago, Horse corrals in Aurora. Today light rail, and the housing developments that followed them, sprawl out from what was once open prairie right up to mountains. The Denver Metro Area is one of the least densely populated CMSA in the country. This is the same problem faced by Detroit in the East, but caused, ironically enough, by a population collapse. Both result in declining tax revenue, strained infrastructure, and adding cost to city services.
But how long can this go on? When will begin acting on what we know to be true: a desert is a bad place to build a city?
Now that billionaires can contribute unlimited amounts of dark money to slant the laws in their favor, will water rights of millions of people in cities and the farms in the dry west take a back seat to oil companies who want to use the water for their booming fracking operations? Already Shell is buying up water rights all around Colorado (as is T.Boone Pickens in Texas, and others all around the dry Southwest.)
This afternoon while driving around Denver, I counted 3 golf courses. 3 of perhaps a dozen or more in the greater Denver Metro Area alone. The amount of water used to run a golf course can exceed 6,500 cubic meters, and yet private citizens are asked to make due with less. (waterinfo.org )
It is obvious with the set of priorities we have chosen, that asking the "too big to regulate" oil companies, or even well-to-do golfers, to make sacrifices is out of the question. It is also obvious that the 99% will be squeezed to make up the difference or go thirsty.
