Opinion: Solving Colorado’s “housing crisis” must include addressing water, transit
Colorado’s “housing crisis” is essentially unsolvable by simply building more market-rate housing, at least if we care about our quality of life here in Colorado. … Colorado does, however, have a real “water crisis.” The arguments between the seven states working on sharing the Colorado River revolve around Article III(d) of the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which requires the Upper Basin states to deliver 7.5 million acre-feet per year on average to the Lower Basin states, plus multi-million acre-feet/year obligations to Mexico, Native American tribes, and pre-Compact water rights holders. There just isn’t enough water for all that, plus serving many millions more people in the Front Range cities that depend on trans-mountain diversions of the Colorado River.
-Written by Steve Pomerance, who served 10 years on the Boulder city council and 6 years on the DRCOG board.