Water corner: The Colorado Basin Roundtable works on water and rivers 

Monday, July. 01, 2024

If you care about water and rivers on the Western Slope, you’ll want to know more about the Colorado Basin Roundtable. It’s a public forum that discusses water projects that affect the upper Colorado River and its tributaries, including the Fraser, Blue, Eagle and Roaring Fork rivers.

If you are an irrigator and think your system could be improved, come talk to the roundtable. If you know of a river reach that could benefit from more water, come talk to the roundtable. You will be heard.

The Colorado Basin Roundtable has been meeting in Glenwood Springs every other month since 2005 when the state legislature passed the Water for the 21st Century Act. That act, HB 05-1177, created nine basin roundtables that support every major river basin across Colorado, including the Colorado River Basin.

The roundtables, which are permanent local public bodies, are closely aligned with the Colorado Water Conservation Board. The roundtables provide a forum for generating local momentum for statewide water planning, and support regional water project development through Water Supply Reserve Fund grants.

As public bodies centered on water, the roundtables have helped shed light on Colorado water matters. For example, many local river watershed plans have been developed with grants from the roundtables and many water projects, such as constructing fish-friendly diversion structures, have been analyzed and funded.

Perhaps most importantly, the roundtables have created a place for an ongoing civil and informative dialogue about the state’s water and rivers. Roundtables are great places to learn and talk about water. In fact, it is required by statute to “facilitate continued discussions within and between basins on water management issues and encourage locally driven collaborative solutions to water supply challenges.” 

The nine roundtables each have its own bylaws, set its own agendas and meet two to 12 times per year in public settings, adhering to the state’s open meeting laws.

Each roundtable has about 35 to 40 voting members and several designated non-voting members. Roundtable members include representatives of the counties, cities, water rights owners (irrigators), water utilities and water managers in each basin. And in each roundtable, there is one environmental representative and one recreational representative. 

Professional water experts, often called “water buffaloes,” are well represented on the roundtables. They include water lawyers, hydraulic engineers, water managers and Colorado River policy experts. They know a lot and often share their knowledge. This includes helping the state evaluate future water needs (including water needed by rivers to stay healthy) and with proposing projects or methods to meet the need for water.

The roundtables act by consensus, meaning all roundtable members believe their views have been satisfactorily heard and agree not to block the roundtable’s decision on an issue. 

Perhaps the best feature of the roundtables is that they are permanent and will be around until the legislature believes it no longer needs them. With greater population pressure and dropping river flows due to climate change that is unlikely to be any time soon.

For additional ways to support waterways in the Colorado River basin, consider getting involved with the Colorado Basin Roundtable. The roundtables work to solve water-related issues within the Colorado River Basin in the state of Colorado from its headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park to the Utah state line. Its goals are to protect, conserve and develop water supplies within the Colorado Basin and the Western Slope of Colorado for future needs.

You can learn more about each basin roundtable by visiting CWCB.Colorado.gov. and you can find out more information about the Colorado Basin Roundtable by visiting ColoradoBasinRoundtable.org.

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