The weather, wildfire, and water outlook for the months ahead drew concerned comments from the Montezuma County commissioners at their meeting Tuesday.
Chairman Jim Candelaria said he attended the Colorado Wildland Fire Conference in Fort Collins last week and the message about the weather “is not positive at all.”
The state is dry everywhere, he said. As of April 3, the snow-water equivalent in the San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan basin was at 18 percent of normal. Statewide, the snowpack was at about 22 percent of the historic median at the beginning of this month, making this the lowest snowpack in Colorado’s recorded history.
“It’s more than likely we are going to be on our own,” Candelaria said, “because the resources throughout the state are going to be pretty minimal.” He noted that the Trump administration has denied funding for last year’s Elk and Lee fires, which burned a total of more than 135,000 acres in Rio Blanco County; and for flooding in La Plata and Archuleta counties, also last year.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis had sought major disaster declarations for the events, seeking FEMA assistance that would allow communities to be reimbursed for clean-up and rebuilding, the Associated Press reported.
Trump denied the request last year and recently denied it again.
“It’s even more significant that we need to be able to take care of ourselves here,” Candelaria said.
He said the county’s emergency manager will be working to find ways the community can take care of itself, and the Road and Bridge department will list machines and water trucks that can help the fire service in emergencies.
Candelaria said he also learned at the conference that insurance companies continue to leave Colorado, mostly because of hail damage on the Front Range.
He said Jefferson County has approved a subdivision for wildfire-protected homes that have totally hardened exteriors and roofs.
“I think it’s going to be great for the people if they can afford it, but it’s going to be a significant impact for somebody trying to get into something that’s affordable,” Candelaria said.
Commissioner Gerald Koppenhafer, who has long served on the board of Montezuma Valley Irrigation Company, said MVI has begun running irrigation water but will be short this year.
He said the Bureau of Reclamation has announced that it will cut outflows from Lake Powell to 6 million acre-feet, the minimum allowed, meaning the three Lower Basin states (Arizona, Nevada, and California) in the Colorado River Basin will have their water cut.
“I personally think this is going to set up a serious legal battle,” Koppenhafer said, because he thinks the Lower Basin states will sue to make Colorado cut back on its water use.
“I don’t know how this is all going to work out, but it’s not going to be good,” Koppenhafer said.
Commissioner Kent Lindsay said he attended the Energy & Environment Symposium last week in Rifle. The symposium was put on by Garfield County and the Colorado Mesa University Unconventional Energy Center.
He said a presenter giving a talk on data centers “said they had all the water they needed to create these data centers on the Eastern Slope, and there was a collective gasp in the audience.”
“I don’t think they realize exactly how short Colorado is of water,” Lindsay said.
Candelaria said this is probably the worst season since 2002 for drought and possible wildfires.
“The resources are going to be stretched pretty thin,” he said. “We’ll see what the storm does this week, but we’ll probably look at that fire ban again.”
So far, the commissioners have held off on implementing a fire ban.
