Elbert County water. Answers on “how much” water we have below us depend on who you listen to, and who gives you the answer you want. Everybody ’round here is an expert. 100? 300? 600? 1,000 year supply? How ’bout 7-14 days? Just ask around a little bit, you’ll get whatever answer you wish.

Here’s what I do know:

Today, an old trusted friend at the Division of Water Resources turned me on to some docs for the Independence property.  And they may surprise you.

On that 1,011.93 acres now called “Independence”, the Colorado Water Board long ago granted 1,569 acre-feet of water a year.  A year.  Every year.

An acre-foot of water is 325,851 gallons.  Times 1,569 acre-feet is over a HALF a BILLION gallons of water a year.  Every year.

And as section 7 clearly states:  “7. Proposed Use: The water will be used, reused, and successively used for municipal, domestic, commercial, industrial, irrigation, livestock watering, fire protection, and exchange and augmentation purposes, both on and off the Subject Property.”

Here’s the grant from the Colorado Water Board:  Link To Doc

Notice the FIVE aquifers.  Upper Dawson, Lower Dawson, Denver, Arapahoe and Laramie-Fox Hill.  Over a half a billion gallons of water already approved, and like my friend at the State says, “it’s their right. There’s nothing we can do if they transport water off site”.

Which is EXACTLY opposite what we all heard Tim Craft, Dianne Miller and the 3 Stooges tell the good citizens of Elbert County last September at the public hearing – when they stated no water will be moved outside of the Independence service area borders without a public hearing and County Commissioner approval.

What are the County Commissioners going to do when Craft and his band of bus driven crayon munching cronies start moving water out? I’m no attorney but from what my contact at the State said, there’s nothing but lawsuits straight ahead, and none of those involve the Division of Water Resources. Attempt to stop the owner of water from exercising his property rights, he sues the county. Allow him to export water, the county sues him. And in the end when all the smoke clears,  it’s almost guaranteed us citizens of Elbert County will have to sue them both (sound familiar?) and we will have to pay the costs associated. Our Commissioners put us in the trick bag – again.

Maybe I’ll have to dust off my A CDL and get a job driving one of those 7,000 gallon/80,000 pound tankers while our wells run dry.

Oh, the possibilities…