Booming Colo. town asks, 'Where will water come from?'

[turbinetree]

By MATTHEW DALY
August 19, 2021

GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — “Go West, young man,″ Horace Greeley famously urged.

The problem for the northern Colorado town that bears the 19th-century newspaper editor’s name: Too many people have heeded his advice.

By the tens of thousands newcomers have been streaming into Greeley — so much so that the city and surrounding Weld County grew by more than 30% from 2010 to 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, making it one of the fastest-growing regions in the country.

And it’s not just Greeley.

https://apnews.com/article/environment-and-nature-census-2020-climate-change-a10d1a7ee50dd53ec6727a23ca6252e1

As someone who lived in the Denver metro, one cannot forget about the smog....

[Thunderbeast]

1. Moab, Utah is now limiting residential water use

So that new large hotels can bring more tourists.

I used to visit SE Utah every year... No more.

[LonePirate]

2. The conflicts over oil during the 1900s will seem quaint once the water wars begin.

[Kimber432]

3. Will they buy water?

Have storage tanks, cisterns with padlocks?

[Ron Green]

4. Unless we can reverse economic growth,

Human life on earth won’t continue.

[ZZenith]

5. How much water does Monfort get every year?

Doubt the city would ever think of curtailing their allotment, which has to run into hundreds of millions of gallons a year.

[yonder]

7. +1. Sacred cows need to drink.

[Hekate]

6. They can slow growth by making new water meter permits hard to get...

That worked well for about 20 years for the county I used to live in.

Then a couple of things happened: the Supervisor who spearheaded that plan retired, and just before the end of a 7 year drought residents voted for State Water. State water was supposed to flow into the local reservoir, which was a bad joke, seeing as our reservoir was at the end of the line. People are going to pay for the infrastructure forever, though.

I still endorse the water meter scheme.