WA – 98 – 3-Denver Basin Aquifer

WHEREAS Senate Bill 74, adopted in 1996, authorized the State Engineer to conduct a thorough,/ peer‑reviewed, scientific study identifying a 300 million acre‑foot groundwater supply in the Denver Basin Aquifers, and WHEREAS More recent studies affirm the considerable water resource represented by the Denver Basin aquifers, and WHEREAS The Denver Basin aquifers represent a largely non-renewable supply of water, and WHEREAS Certain Front Range communities are withdrawing water from the Denver Basin aquifers at an unsustainable rate, while others are conjunctively using the Denver Basin aquifers, mining the resource in dry times and recharging in plenty, and WHEREAS Aquifer Storage and Reccovery (ASR) represents a promising alternative to traditional surface water storage with attendant cost and essentially zero evaporative loss and other benefits, and WHEREAS It is not yet clear what the long‑term implications of these new information and developments may be, but they clearly raise questions about the wisdom of new depletions of Western Slope water by Front Range users, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that CLUB 20 supports efforts to better manage and conjunctively use the vast groundwater resources on the Front Range before any new transmountain diversions of Western Slope water are considered. Adopted 9/25/1998Renew 9/11/2009Amended 9/5/2014Renewed 4/12/2024

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