WATER LEASES

Long-term pacts carry long-term consequences

Jeff Chostner, a lawyer and former city councilman, is a Pueblo County commissioner.

The water issues confronting Colorado’s Front Range, and Pueblo County in particular, are complex and subtly intertwined. The Preferred Storage Option Plan (PSOP), the Fountain Creek Visioning Task Force, the “Crown Jewel” concept and various other initiatives and organizations can be bewildering to the casual observer.

Even those intimately involved with the issue of preserving and enhancing Pueblo’s water resources can find the intricacies of water law to be confusing.

Issues of water quality, quantity and land use matters dominate discussion each Friday at Fountain City Hall as representatives of 28 entities struggle to solve these problems. How these entities may find a mechanism to fund measures addressing each of these subjects will go under discussion at the end of this month.

However, one issue of great importance, intimately tied to the preservation of Pueblo’s water resources, concerns water leases and the propriety of long-term agreements. The Pueblo Board of Water Works and the Pueblo West Metro District have been leasing water to the city of Aurora.

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