Population Growth

People, The Elephant in the Room

Flying from Denver to LAX, the first part of Los Angeles that comes into view is in San Bernardino County. At 20,105 square miles, it is the largest county in the United States, stretching from the Colorado River along the Arizona border west to the Los Angeles County line. Once the landscape turns from desert to urban, the next eighty miles are the most densely populated major city in America before the plane touches down at the airport next to the Pacific Ocean.

It took 65 years for greater Los Angeles to grow from 4.8 million people in 1950 to 18 million people today , a growth rate of 2.1% per year.[1] The same thing is likely to happen in Colorado—if the Front Range grows 1.7% per year like demographers predict, 16 million people will be living there in 65 years, up from 4.4 million people today. Flying from Fort Collins to Pueblo will be just like flying into Los Angeles, except the plane will fly over 160 miles of city, twice the distance that planes fly across Los Angeles.

Southern California’s population has grown 18-fold, one residence at a time, over a hundred years. Water enabled that growth, nearly all of it imported. Water will enable Colorado communities to grow just as relentlessly. The 2015 Colorado Water Plan, indeed every water utility planning document stored in file cabinets across the state, was prepared for one reason, to enable more humans to live here.

Growth is expensive, and the citizens already living in Colorado will foot most of the cost for new infrastructure, not the newcomers. In my introduction, I said that every issue in this book has come up at roundtable meetings. That’s not quite true regarding population growth, since it was studiously avoided in developing the 2015 state water plan.

Black Hawk and Clear Creek

Black Hawk, the historic mining town, turned into a growth center when Colorado legalized gambling in 1991. It gets its water from the Clear Creek drainage. In 1983, the EPA identified the entire drainage, 400 square miles covering nearly all Clear Creek and Gilpin counties, as a Superfund study area. The EPA tries to sue polluters responsible for the pollution but, if they can’t be found, the Superfund, a trust fund administered by the agency, pays for the cleanup. The trust fund was never large to begin with and the bulk of its funding, an income tax levied on oil and gas producers, expired in 1995.[2] Wikipedia lists twenty-three Superfund sites in Colorado, but only three have been remediated and removed from the list.

More than thirty years after listing Clear Creek as a Superfund study area, the EPA is finally building a water treatment facility along the north fork of Clear Creek to remove zinc, copper, cadmium and other toxic metals. Metals from mine tailings stain rocks from brown to bright orange in the creek, visible when driving up Clear Creek Canyon to Blackhawk. Clear Creek is the main drinking water source for 350,000 metro residents in Arvada, Golden, Northglenn, Thornton, and Westminster.

One reason cleanup was delayed is because Black Hawk filed for a new water right in 2004 just after the EPA issued its Record of Decision to clean up Clear Creek.[3] The EPA and the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment tried to negotiate with Black Hawk to leave water in North Clear Creek, but once the EPA cleans the site, Black Hawk plans to pump water 700’ up from the river to a new reservoir the town is building for $20 million. The reservoir will store 800 acre-feet, enough water to triple its population. The main consumptive use is a new 150-acre golf course that will consume about 100 acre-feet a year. Unfortunately, that may deplete North Clear Creek so much that fish may not be able to survive.

“With all the water rights we have now, we figure we can handle growth up to about 3,000 hotel rooms,” Black Hawk City Manager Jack Lewis told The Denver Post in 2015. “Cleaning up the environment is a good thing. But to think you are going to have a thriving fishery there? I don’t know. There’s just not enough water in North Clear Creek.”

The federal government does not own water rights in the river and Colorado has no law requiring minimum stream flows.

Shawn Griffith, Black Hawk’s public services director, says Black Hawk stopped negotiating with the EPA because the federal agency “wanted some of the North Clear Creek water that Central City owns."[4]

The city council decided to build the reservoir on its own nickel after the CWCB refused to fund it. In all, it’s a nifty solution for Black Hawk—the EPA and Colorado spend $19 million to clean up the river so Black Hawk can divert it and triple in size. Getting someone else to paint your fence is always good planning.

Black Hawk is just one little example.

Water for Growth

The Front Range drumbeat for more dams and diversions kept getting louder as the state water plan approached completion in 2015. Then CWCB Director James Eklund caused a stir on the Western Slope when he told The Denver Post on October 15, 2015, “We’re going to add a storage goal, a measurable objective.”[5] They did, adding 400,000 acre-feet in new reservoirs to the plan at the eleventh hour, with too little time for citizens and Western Slope roundtables to object before publication.

A couple of days later, Eklund backpedaled, telling State Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush of Steamboat Springs that he’d been misquoted. State Sen. Gail Schwartz of Snowmass Village said the state should not be funding water projects, instead leaving it up to water providers and their ratepayers to foot the bill. But the storage goal made it into the final draft , and it’s mentioned five separate times in case readers miss it.

Figure 7.1 Fixed Table by Ransford of fastest growing counties in Colorado

Colorado has had one of the fastest growing populations in the world since 1980, and Douglas, Eagle and Elbert counties have been its fastest growing. In the next thirty years, Elbert County plans to outpace neighboring Douglas as the fasted growing county in the state.[6] Not that Douglas County is planning to slow down—among the ten most populous counties, only Weld County plans to grow its population faster between now and 2040.[7]

Figure 7.2 Fixed table by Ransford of most populous Colorado counties

These ten counties plan to add 2 million more residents by 2040. If they keep growing 1.4% a year, they’ll have over 14 million people by 2100. Neither Douglas nor Elbert county have any meaningful rivers, so they’ll rely on groundwater pumping from the Denver Aquifer, or water purchased from Front Range irrigators, or water diverted from Western Slope rivers. This fits the national pattern, where the driest states, Nevada and Arizona, are growing the fastest.

How will this growth affect home prices? Yale Finance Professor Robert Shiller, who foretold the 2008 national real estate collapse in Irrational Exuberance, calculates that the long-term real appreciation rate in home prices throughout most of the U.S. is only 0.7% per year.[8] “Real” returns are calculated after subtracting inflation. Even small returns of 0.7% per year add up after 30 or 40 years. But an ever-increasing housing supply will help keep real estate prices and investment returns low across the country .

Scarcity causes real estate values to rise, which Shiller credits for spurring California’s real estate price boom from 1975-1980, and Boston’s in 1985.[9] From a homeowner’s perspective, the best way to increase real estate values is to live in a place where the supply is limited. That is true in San Francisco and New York, and in Boulder and Aspen where growth management controls have slowed growth. But Colorado’s runaway population growth rate will hold down real estate appreciation for decades to come .

Highlands Ranch

Raw land is where the real value lies in homebuilding. The Mission Viejo Company started building homes in Orange County, California, in 1965, and thirteen years later it started developing Highlands Ranch in Douglas County. Since it lacks surface water, Douglas County had plenty of dry, undeveloped land. It was also cheap.

"Builders' only hope of making anything other than a minimal margin of profitability is to go back to acquiring large land assets," said Irvine-based real estate consultant Ken Agid, in a Los Angeles Times article about the sale of the Mission Viejo Company in 1997.[10] In the eastern United States, all the land is privately owned, most in small tracts. It is easier to assemble large tracts in the arid West where there are fewer landowners. If a developer can bring enough water to the land and convince the local county to rezone the land so a city can be planted there, money can be made. Real money.

Highlands Ranch is a neighborhood of tract houses, streets and bluegrass lawns and parks, with Colorado’s Rocky Mountains only a few miles to the west. The Mission Viejo Company was owned by the Philip Morris company when Highlands Ranch was built. When the tobacco giant sold the Mission Viejo Company in 1997, real estate made up less than 1% of Phillip Morris’ gross revenue. Only 200 acres of the 10,300-acre Highlands Ranch, 16 square miles, remained to be developed when Philip Morris divested it.

Highlands Ranch was the twelfth most populous city in Colorado’s 2010 census with over 96,000 residents. Still, it does not appear in a list of Colorado cities by population.[11] That is because it is not technically a city. It is a “metro district,” run like a corporation according to bylaws the Mission Viejo Company wrote in 1982.[12] “Local control” is heard at every roundtable meeting and included in every roundtable plan. It is never defined, but it means irrigators and landowners should be able to do what they want with their land. Highlands Ranch could be its poster child.

The Mission Viejo Company acquired the land, obtained free water by drilling into the Denver Aquifer, wrote the covenants that govern how it would operate, and produced a new subdivision on the plains in Douglas County. By remaining outside the boundaries of any city, the company controls everything. There is no mayor of Highlands Ranch, because the bylaws written by the Mission Viejo Corporation do not provide for one. Instead, seven directors elected by Highlands Ranch residents meet monthly and oversee decisions for the subdivision.

Its bylaws say the metro district will determine the amount of available potable water.[13] The Highlands Ranch Metro District district board of directors can change water use practices at any time, provided they give five days’ notice to the residents. Highlands Ranch is nearly built out, but if it wanted to keep building, there’s nothing preventing it from seeking additional water rights. It can keep growing as long as it can find land and irrigators willing to sell their water rights.

Rueter-Hess Reservoir

Douglas County’s other big population centers are Parker and Castle Rock.  These communities plan to continue their growth with water from Rueter-Hess Reservoir, a 72,000-acre-foot reservoir located three miles southwest of Parker just east of I-25. The Parker Water and Sanitation District built the reservoir on a normally dry tributary to Cherry Creek. In 2005, Rueter-Hess was one of only two reservoirs being built in the West. Completed in 2012, it was meant to serve 75,000 homes, including 25,000 in Parker and 44,000 in Castle Rock.

Rueter-Hess Reservoir is about 50% bigger than Cherry Creek Reservoir—when it has water, that is. Storm water runoff was supposed to fill it but there are not enough big rain events for that. Water from Cherry Creek, storm water from the occasional storm, and wastewater treated by the Parker Water and Sanitation District are currently stored in the reservoir, but it still has extra capacity, waiting to be filled with imported water.[14] One option is to transport water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming. Parker and the South Metro Water Supply Authority are strong supporters of that project, but buying and drying agriculture is more likely.

Rueter-Hess would not have been built without Frank Jaeger, who was the Parker Water and Sanitation District manager for over 30 years. He said the reservoir was crucial to sustain population growth.[15] Ron Redd, now manager of the Parker Water and Sanitation District, purchased $40 million worth of storage space in the reservoir when he previously served as Castle Rock’s utilities director. The only way to pay off the reservoir debt is to increase tax revenues garnered from future growth.

“To say, ‘We’ll just shut off growth’ will only exacerbate problems,” Jaeger says. “If you don’t pay off debt, what do you do? What does that do to the economy of the whole state? We need steady, controlled growth. All our needs for a reasonable lifestyle are tied into this.”[16]

Al Bartlett, a popular University of Colorado physics professor a generation ago, disagreed.

In 1999, he said, “Can you think of any problem, on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way, aided, assisted, or advanced, by having larger populations at the local level, the state level, the national level, or globally?”[17]

Today, 1999 feels like a long time ago. I’ve never heard him quoted at a Colorado water meeting outside the Colorado Basin Roundtable.

According to the town of Parker’s website, Rueter-Hess Reservoir cost $170 million. When paid back over 30 years at 4% interest, that equates to a monthly bill of $27 for the estimated 30,000 households it will serve. Cost is obviously no barrier at that price. Critics say the real construction cost is $230 million.[18]

It is amazing how often we hear drastically different amounts in the news about what things cost in America. It is simply another example of our limitless ability to deceive. Sometimes I think that deceit is as foundational to human development as tool use, language, and upright walking.[19] 

At $230 million, the monthly utility cost is $37, still manageable. Throw in the $8 billion cost to deliver water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir and the monthly water cost jumps to $92 per month, assuming the Parker Water and Sanitation District gets 10,000 acre-feet—that’s only 4% of the potential 250,000 acre-feet that could be delivered from Flaming Gorge. If interest rates rise to 8%, the cost jumps to $141 per month, nearly $1,700 per year. If only 150,000 acre-feet is available from Flaming Gorge Reservoir, which critics think is likely given decreased flows into Lake Powell from climate change, Rueter-Hess Reservoir’s share of the Flaming Gorge pipeline construction cost jumps from 4% to 7% and the water bill jumps to $198 a month, nearly $2,400 a year per household. And that does not include the cost to operate the reservoir and deliver water. At some point, cost will become a factor.

But there’s a problem with this back of the envelope calculation—there is plenty of farm irrigation water to support Douglas County’s ongoing population boom. Over 1.6 million acre-feet is consumed by agriculture in the South Platte and Arkansas Basins in an average year, three times more water than Front Range residents now consume. (The Republican Basin, which consumes 602,000 acre-feet, nearly all from the non-renewable Ogallala Aquifer, isn’t included in this total.)[20] That water could keep the cost down, at least in the short term.

So why don’t they just buy ag water? First, cities must build infrastructure to get it from the irrigation ditches to their water treatment plants. Then, they need to deal with the salts, pesticides, and fertilizers it contains. But worst, they have to buy it from farmers—it’s a lot easier to just capture pure water from west slope headwater streams and pipe it through tunnels they’ve already bored through the Continental Divide. Plus, that water is free.

The South Metro Water Supply Authority, which serves Castle Rock, Centennial and Parker, spent $34 million in October 2014 to buy a share in a pipeline from the East Cherry Creek Valley Water and Sanitation District to Rueter-Hess Reservoir. The pipeline can deliver 7,250 acre-feet a year, enough water for about 60,000 people using 164 gallons a day each, the most stringent conservation target that the South Platte Roundtable says it can achieve by 2050.[21]

This is just the pipeline cost; it does not include the cost of water. In February 2015, a “unit” of water in the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (half an acre-foot) sold for $27,000, or $54,000 an acre-foot.[22] At that price, the water needed to fill the pipeline would cost nearly $400 million, over $17,000 for each of the 23,000 households. That’s good for irrigators, but it will come at the cost of drying up another 5,000 acres of agriculture in the South Platte.[23] In fact, much of the water in Rueter-Hess is likely to be recycled water from the Denver WISE project.

Water Stress

When the Conceptual Framework was being debated in 2014 and 2015 to set ground rules for additional diversions to the east slope, three of the four west slope roundtables recommended that the entire state adopt a high municipal conservation strategy.

The Inter Basin Compact Committee agreed to adopt a “stretch goal” of finding 400,000 acre-feet of water from municipal conservation.[24] But that is still not enough to keep us from having to dry up agriculture or from taking more water from west slope rivers.

In October 2015, most of the west slope’s twelve elected representatives and senators attended a Colorado Roundtable meeting to learn about its basin implementation plan.[25] Included among the plan’s six themes are maintaining healthy rivers, preserving agriculture, and practicing high municipal conservation so residents use less.

“Saying, ‘Not one more drop’ may not be a good negotiating position for us to start from at the state house,” Representative Bob Rankin (R – House Dist. 57 – Garfield County) chided the roundtable members.

In fact, that message didn’t play well when Louis Meyer introduced the Colorado Roundtable’s basin implementation plan at a statewide meeting in Golden in March 2013 when all the plans were first unveiled. Shortly after, Meyer was replaced as the lead author of the roundtable’s BIP.

The South Platte and Arkansas roundtables, where almost all population growth will occur, are just as adamant that citizens can only manage minimal urban conservation.

“Bluegrass lawns are our amenity,” said Patti Wells, the former in-house general counsel at Denver Water. Mark Pifher, formerly of Colorado Springs Utilities, agreed with Wells, emphasizing that Front Range urban residents need bluegrass just as much as west slope residents need water in their rivers.

In response to the west slope’s call for 400,000 acre-feet of savings from conservation, the Front Range countered with 400,000 acre-feet storage in new dams.[26] That would be met by building Glade Reservoir by Fort Collins and Chimney Hollow Reservoir by Loveland, and by enlarging Pueblo Reservoir and Gross Reservoir above Boulder.

Representative J Paul Brown (R- HD 59, southwestern Colorado) lamented at a Colorado Roundtable meeting that we did not have more dams to hold back the 2013 Boulder flood. “The South Platte is where we should store water, and that will relieve the pressure for west slope water,” he said. “This should be the number one priority in the state water plan.”

Eric Kuhn, who was the Colorado River District manager at the time, replied that if we don’t limit urban outdoor water use, we could lose 200,000 to 300,000 irrigated acres on the east alope.

“If you build storage based on intermittent water events, people rely on them, and then you hit a dry period, the water has to come from somewhere, and that is likely agriculture,” Kuhn says. “The backup to storage is conservation. We haven’t gotten the Front Range to tackle conservation yet. Chips Barry said, ‘Bluegrass is our last reservoir’.” Barry, the colorful late director of Denver Water, was candid enough to admit what the west slope already knew—the Front Range’s strategy is to take as much water from the west slope as it can now so that when push comes to shove around 2050, residents will simply be forced to start using less on the Front Range.

The $35 million Cherry Creek pipeline will provide South Metro suburbs with more water so they can withdraw less from the Denver Basin Aquifer.

“This allows them to change the way they are using the aquifer,” says Eric Hecox, who is the former executive director for the South Metro Water Supply Authority. Hecox, who once worked for the CWCB, now works for Shea Properties, which bought Highlands Ranch from the Mission Viejo Company.

Highlands Ranch has managed to recharge the aquifer with 14,000 acre-feet by pumping water back into it over several years. But that’s only a fraction of the 20,000 to 30,000 acre-feet that Castle Rock, Highlands Ranch, Parker, and other South Metro communities are pumping each year from the Denver Aquifer. It has already fallen 300 feet and continues to drop up to 5 feet a year in places.

Water providers respond by drilling more wells into the aquifer, now costing around $1 million each, with diminishing returns.

"How long could that go for? There's no answer,” Hecox told The Denver Post in 2014. “But we know, at the end of the day, the region and communities would have sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into a non-renewable system that at some point would not perform."[27]

Diminishing water is one of the oldest stories in the American West.

“There is not enough water to irrigate all the lands,” John Wesley Powell remarked at a Los Angeles meeting of farmers and developers in October 1893. “I tell you gentlemen you are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights, for there is not enough water to supply the land.”[28]

Not amused, developers lobbied Nevada’s two senators to remove Powell as head of the US Geological Society. He spent the rest of his career in obscurity, toiling away in the dusty Smithsonian institution. One hundred and twenty years later, developers are just as adamant to prove Powell wrong.

Figure 7.3 Chart by Ransford of Denver versus LA’s growth rate[29]

Growth and Housing Costs

The first lesson in economics is that costs increase as demand goes up. Water is limited in the West. If our population keeps doubling every 35 years like it just did, we will double our population 2.5 more times and have 30 million people living in the state by about 2100. Everyone in the West is fighting over water. Growth will not solve our water scarcity problems, it will magnify them and costs will climb.

Critics claim that trying to control growth will only cause housing prices to go up. That hasn’t happened in Los Angeles where the lack of growth control is obvious. UCLA researchers consider Los Angeles the most expensive real estate in the United States, where only 49% of the residents own their homes, compared to 64% nationwide. Los Angeles has one of highest urban densities in the country with more than 10,000 people per square mile, even though adjacent San Bernardino and Riverside counties have plenty of space to grow. Those counties are also pro-growth. Like Colorado’s Front Range, there are no physical limits to unbridled growth in Southern California’s desert.[30]

Typical Los Angeles homeowners spend 40% of their monthly income on their home mortgage, the highest of any major city in the country other than San Francisco.[31] Renters in Los Angeles have it even worse, typically spending 49% of their income on rent. That is the highest rate in the country, even higher than New York where the figure is 41%. The home affordability ratio is so dismal in Southern California because wages are relatively low.

Housing costs are high in California because demand is high. The coast is where people want to live, but that is also where communities are most active in preserving open space and restricting development. Workers in California’s coastal communities commute 10% further each day than commuters elsewhere because there is not enough housing near major job centers. Californians are also four times more likely to live in crowded housing.

California plans to build 100,000 to 140,000 houses annually in the upcoming years, but demographers predict that’s still about 100,000 houses shy of what’s needed. Legislators and policy makers can do little to stem the high tide of people wanting to live in California, nor can they change the naturally rugged landscape that can make it difficult to develop land there. As a result, home prices and rents in California will remain above average for years to come, even if public policies highly favorable to new housing construction were implemented to try to stem the growth in housing costs.[32]

How does this relate to Colorado? Home values in Colorado are the seventh highest of the fifty states, averaging $389,276 in March 2016. That is significantly below California’s average home value of $668,486, but Colorado home prices are still 30% above the 50-state average home value of $298,592.[33] When you factor in how many hours of work it takes to pay the mortgage, Colorado homes are the second most expensive in the nation—in Colorado, the typical homeowner must work 67 hours to cover the mortgage. Only California homeowners work longer, working 78 hours on average to pay the monthly mortgage. In Kansas, the typical homeowner spends 34 hours working to pay the mortgage, half the time it takes in Colorado.[34]

Growth proponents from the CWCB and the Front Range roundtables claim that growth is inevitable. If so, not only will we have one of the most urban and fastest growing populations in the country in 2050, we will also have one of the most unaffordable housing markets. This is not just a Colorado phenomenon—the median home price throughout the West more than doubled from $140,000 in 1995 to $352,300 in 2014, far outpacing the rest of the country.[35] Twenty years ago the median home price in the West was barely above the United States average. Since then, the sky has been the limit. The red bars in the graph below show where home prices are increasing fastest.

Figure 7.4 Chart by Ransford showing median home price increase

 Home price trends in the past 20 years reflect America’s increasing income inequality. The median is the middle data point price in a series—half of the values are above the median value and half are below it. In a normally distributed population, such as the height of 100 adult women, the median and average will be nearly identical. But there can be a big difference between the median and average price in data that humans contrive such as income. If you add Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ income to the average income of 100 people, everyone’s average income skyrockets while the median doesn’t budge.

The difference between the average and median prices is a proxy for how much higher prices are at the upper end. In 1995, the average home price exceeded the median home price by about $40,000, adjusted to 2014 dollars. But by 2014 the premium doubled to more than $80,000 per home.[36] Building high-end homes is where the real money is.

Figure 7.5 Chart by Ransford showing increase of premium home prices

Home Economics

While the median priced home sells for 52% more in the West than the rest of the country, the cost to build homes here is only 13% higher than the U.S. average. The average cost to build a home in the West barely budged from $99 per square foot in 1995 to $102 per square foot in 2014 adjusted for inflation. For comparison, the average homebuilding cost in 2014 was $90 per square foot in the entire country.[37] The cost to purchase land is not included in these figures. Although homes sell for a lot more out West, it costs about the same to build a house in the West as it does in the rest of the country.

It’s not surprising that building costs are similar across the country. National companies like Home Depot and Lowes sell into a national market. The competition among retail and wholesale suppliers is relentless, most of whom purchase homebuilding products abroad where manufacturing labor is cheap. Labor costs also tend to be cheaper in the open-shop West where unions are rare. Labor is mobile in the United States, and workers move to where the jobs are.[38]

There are also more undocumented workers from Mexico and Central America in the Southwest, keeping labor prices low and construction costs down.[39] Undocumented workers account for 25% of the construction labor force and 50% of the lowest paid jobs.[40] U.S. Census data collected between 2005 and 2007 show that undocumented workers are concentrated in the bottom quartile where the average wage was $15.98 an hour ($33,328 per year). Unemployment among undocumented workers was only 6% from 2005-2007 at the height of the last real estate bubble, compared to 10% unemployment among construction trade workers born in the United States.[41]

The bottom line is that is there is more money to be made building homes in the West than almost anywhere else in the country, and the more expensive the home, the greater the profit.

The 2015 Colorado Water Plan played to this, suggesting that population growth is enabling “a productive economy, vibrant and sustainable cities.”[42] But is this overstating the case? The construction industry contributed $11 billion to Colorado’s economy in 2013, 4.3% of the total state economy. After peaking at 8.7% in 2000, construction dropped steadily and was already down to 5.3% of the state’s economy in 2008 when the housing bubble burst.[43] The state’s economy does not rise and fall with new home construction.

As with everything else in America, the role that money plays in politics cannot be ignored. The National Association of Home Builders contributed $2.5 million to Congress in 2014, ranking it among the top 5% of contributors. Lobbying contributions rose steadily through the 2000s and peaked in 2008, a trajectory that looks just like the housing bubble.[44] In Colorado, the industry contributed $158,000 to candidates and political committees in 2014, largely to promote a bill to limit contractor liability for home defects.[45]

Figure 7.6 Chart showing lobbying expenditures by NAHB

A common conversation at the Colorado legislature for several years running is contractor liability for home defects, with contractors claiming it is chilling new home construction in Colorado. That’s hard to square with the pace of construction activity in the state. Failing to get consensus at the legislature, contractors and their lawyers have started targeting city governments. Through 2015, twelve cities had passed ordinances making it harder to sue contractors. Each city’s rules are slightly different. That makes it harder for attorneys to defend homeowners, since the rules they figure out in one city don’t carry over to the next one. It is another example of local control at work.  

Can we put a price on congestion? Wikipedia says the economic costs of traffic congestion increased 63% from 2000 through 2009 despite declining car traffic resulting from the economic downturn. Americans waste 4.2 billion hours annually waiting in traffic, one full workweek per traveler.[46] Minutes add up—five minutes added to and from the work commute each day amount to another 40-hour week over the course of a year. The I-70 commute from Denver to Vail is predicted to get 62% more congested by 2035, causing Market Watch to rank it among the 11 worst in the country.[47]

Once again, we can look to California to see what lies ahead for Colorado. The Daily Beast ranked the 75 worst commutes in the United States in 2010, and California had seven in the top thirty-one, by far the most of any state. Traffic congestion plagues every major city in California.[48]

Ryan Honey and his family show what happens when populations exceed the tipping point. The Arts Center at Willits lured him away from the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit theatres, to launch a performing arts theater in Basalt. Despite taking a big pay cut, he and his wife Amy moved their young family to Carbondale in 2016, which they happily term a lifestyle choice. We became fast friends.

A few years earlier, after their daughter was born, they had moved from Hollywood to Silver Lake, a trendy community about ten miles further east in Los Angeles.

“My wife was spending three-to-four hours a day schlepping our kids to and from school and to go shopping,” Ryan says. “We had to find a whole new group of friends because it took too long to drive ten miles back to our old neighborhood on the west side of LA.”

We cannot build our way out of long commutes. Traffic congestion barely budged after T-REX construction on I- 25 through Denver was completed. Before the T-REX highway expansion began in 1998, highway volume was at 95% capacity. It dropped to 72% after T-REX was completed in 2006, but by 2012 volume was already back up to 90% of capacity.[49] The world’s widest highway, the Katy Highway in Houston, Texas, was expanded to 26 lanes in 2012. By 2014, only 2 years later, 85% of commutes along that highway took longer than they had in 2011."[50]

Homebuilders say the only way to keep housing prices affordable is to keep building more homes so supply stays ahead of demand. The cost of Colorado homes including townhomes and condominiums rose 9.8% in 2014, just ahead of California where homes appreciated 9.7%.[51] As California shows, a huge housing market will not result in affordable housing. If we want affordable housing, we have to build it.

That’s what Aspen did, in part by good planning and partly by dumb luck—Aspen passed a real estate transfer tax in 1990, just two years before the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) banned them, to fund affordable housing. [52] Aspen’s RETT tax collects 1% of the sale price whenever a home is sold in Aspen, collecting $30,000 on a $3 million home sale for example. It supplements this with a 0.2% sales tax. Together, they raise $5 to $8 million a year, more than the next twelve biggest affordable housing programs in Colorado combined, even including far larger Boulder.[53]

“Everyone looks at Aspen and says, wow, I wish we’d done that back then,” says Melanie Rees, a workforce-housing consultant based in Crested Butte.[54] Compared to Aspen, where nearly half the workforce lives in 2,800 homes classified as affordable, Eagle County, whose population is three times larger than Pitkin County, has managed to build only 428 affordable homes, under 2% of the total housing in the county.[55]

Eagle County requires developers to purchase affordable housing in return or receiving building permits to build luxury homes.[56] Requiring developers to build affordable housing so they can build luxury homes resembles America’s health insurance model, where employers are forced to provide health insurance for their employees. It is hard to call that model successful—America has the most expensive health care in the world, and we are far from having the healthiest population.

Food Security

One way to consider the “growth is good” quandary is to test how food secure we are. The answer depends on how much water we reserve to grow food for human consumption. We are now barely food-secure and we won’t be for long.

Figure 7.7 Chart by Ransford on food insecurity in Colorado

At least an acre is needed to produce enough food for three people eating a typical American diet. At that rate, Colorado would have to irrigate 1.8 million acres to feed its 2012 population of 5.3 million. We devote far fewer irrigated acres than that for human consumption—in 2012 Colorado farmers grew vegetables, potatoes, fruit, and sweet corn on only 163,000 irrigated acres, the area below the white line in the graph above. We have enough water to grow a lot more food that humans eat.

As we’ll see in our discussion of Colorado agriculture, almost all irrigated land throughout the state grows hay and corn for cattle. Colorado now imports nearly all the food we eat from other states. If Colorado’s population doubles to 10 million by 2055, 3.4 million irrigated acres will be needed to grow food for human consumption. If we double again to 20 million by 2100, we’ll need 6.9 million irrigated acres. That’s nearly three times more irrigated acreage than we now have.

In 2012, we irrigated 2.5 million acres according to the USDA Agricultural Census, and that amount will decline as hotter temperatures cause crops to consume more water and as the Ogallala aquifer dries up. The bottom line is that food security and continued population growth are not compatible. The graph above assumes that we do not dry up any irrigated land to serve additional urban growth, and no one considers that a reasonable assumption. Food security—growing enough food to feed our population—is an illusion under every conceivable growth scenario.[57]

The Rest of the West

The Southwest contains the fastest growing states in the United States since World War II, when development in the West skyrocketed. Population in the Sunbelt states is expected to nearly double between 2010 and 2050. Florida is the only state on this list that is not in the Southwest. Every Colorado River Basin state is on the list except Wyoming.

Figure 7.8 Fixed table by Ransford of fastest growing states

The Colorado River Basin states (with Central and Northern California excluded) are projected to double from 41 million people in 2010 to nearly 80 million by 2050.[58] Most readers will still be living then given current demographic trends. Over 100 years from 1950 to 2050, people living in the Colorado River Basin will grow eight-fold, assuming states continue growing 1.6% per year. Take that, John Wesley Powell!

Figure 7.9 Fixed table by Ransord showing dry western states

The driest states in the United States are growing the fastest.[59] The correlation between the seven driest and the seven fastest growing states in America from 2000-2010 is 66%, meaning that two-thirds of the variance in growth rates of the fastest growing states can be explained by how dry they are—the drier the state, the faster it’s growing![60] Nearly all climate scientists predict the Southwest is going to get hotter and drier. That’s going to drive up water demand and cost.

Hope springs eternal, and the initial draft of the state water plan released in August 2014 suggests that well-designed cloud seeding programs can deliver more precipitation.[61] But University of Wyoming researchers concluded in December 2014 that cloud seeding would add only 1% to 3% of additional runoff to rivers, based on a 10-year cloud-seeding program they conducted in the Medicine Bow Mountains just north of Colorado.[62]

The 2015 Colorado Water Plan failed to mention this study, instead citing a 2009 World Meteorological Organization report that suggested cloud seeding programs could have “demonstrable results.”[63] When I read the 2009 report, I did not find it so optimistic. It concludes, “Weather Modification technologies that claim to achieve such large scale or dramatic effects do not have a sound scientific basis … and should be treated with suspicion.” Cloud-seeding reminds me of the hopeful 1880s adage, the “rain follows the plow.”

The only other region in the world as dry and populated as the American Southwest is the Middle East. The population there including North Africa more than quadrupled since 1950 to 364 million today, and it is expected to reach nearly 600 million by 2050. By then the amount of fresh water available for each person will be cut nearly in half. Given the choice between growing food or population growth, Middle Eastern countries are choosing to grow their populations. Today they import up to 90% of their food, paid for with petro-dollars. Now there’s a model for us![64]

Colorado has enough water to support 10 million, 20 million, or 40 million people—we just have to dry up agriculture. Assuming that Colorado citizens each use 166 gallons a day and that 50% of this is consumed, almost all through outdoor landscaping, Colorado would need 3.7 million acre-feet for 40 million people. The 2015 water plan reports that we now consume about 4.4 million acre-feet a year in Colorado from rain and snow falling on the state each year, mostly in agriculture.

I’m excluding the 1 million acre-feet we are pumping from non-renewable aquifers like the Ogallala since they will run dry some day at current pumping rates. We have plenty of water to grow to 40 million people, we just have to dry up 80% of our irrigated agriculture to get there.[65] Colorado Roundtable members have repeatedly asked Front Range water providers and CWCB representatives what happens after we reach eight to ten million people in 2050. We have never received an answer to this question, not even a bogus one.

Are humans an invasive species?

At a 2014 water meeting at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, former longtime Las Vegas water manager Pat Mulroy muttered under her breath something about humans being an invasive species. She said it to me quietly after moving away from the podium microphone. If the entire room had heard her comment, it could have made national headlines given her role in the growth of Las Vegas. But are we invasive? The U.S. Forest Service says invasive species have the following characteristics:[66]

·    They tolerate a variety of habitat conditions.

·    They grow and reproduce rapidly.

·    They compete aggressively for resources like food, water, and nesting sites.

·    They lack natural enemies or pests in the new ecosystem.

·    They are long-lived.

·    They are generalists.

Invasive species have the following effects:

·    They displace native species.

·    They reduce native wildlife habitat.

·    They reduce forest health and productivity.

·    They alter ecosystem processes.

·    They degrade recreation areas.

Now, read the list again and replace “they” with “we.” The Smithsonian says humans are not an invasive species since we are native to every corner of the earth, but that feels too glib.[67] Every time I bring up population growth, the universal response is “growth is inevitable.” We can all picture places that have so many people today we no longer want to go there.

We cannot restrict this discussion to muttering furtively under our breath. According to the National Invasive Species Information Center, some estimate the economic cost associated with invasive species damage and control efforts at more than $100 billion a year in the United States. How do we calculate the cost of time spent in traffic, of being unable to walk alone in the mountains, of no longer running into people we know in the local supermarket?

David Beillo, the science editor for TED and a contributing editor to Scientific American, concludes that people are “the most (successful) invasive species.” In his book The Unnatural World, he lists technological fixes to global warming such as pumping carbon underground, but in the end, he says we don’t need rare innovations so much as old fashioned political tools.[68] The first step in political change is recognizing what needs to change, as we did the last two centuries when we first banned slavery and then child working laws. We haven’t yet recognized population growth as a problem.

The politics of growth[69]

In 2004, George Bush won 97 of the 100 fastest growing counties in America. In 2008, John McCain won 85 of the fastest growing counties in America. In 2012, Mitt Romney won 85 of the fastest growing counties in America.

I am trying to avoid references to Republicans or Democrats in this book, but that’s just not possible when it comes to growth. Perhaps no subject is more political.[70]

Housing tends to be more affordable in red states that voted for Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election. Residents in red states also spend less on housing as a percent of their income. Blue states that voted for President Obama in 2012 such as Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and California, with economies focused on finance, trade, and knowledge, are generally richer than red states. But housing costs almost twice as much in deep-blue markets ($227 per square foot) than in red markets ($119). In a ranking of 39 cities, Denver was the tenth most expensive, with average costs of $199 per square foot.[71]

University of Toronto professor Richard Florida writes, “Thanks to loose land use regulations and low labor costs, detached single family homes can be churned out quite cheaply, generating more middle-wage, low-skill jobs.” [72] When he was governor of Texas, Rick Perry touted the Texas miracle of job growth, which he attributes to low taxes, low regulation, energy development, and housing growth.[73] Critics counter that red states pay less for medical and education services and avoid costly infrastructure like the $24 billion Big Dig tunnel project in Boston.

Red states also pay less than their share of taxes, relying on blue state largesse.[74] Texas, which has no individual or corporate income tax, receives $1.43 of federal benefits for every dollar of federal tax its citizens pay. Colorado receives $0.86 for every dollar of federal tax we pay, 40% less. In a state ranking, Texas is number 18 among states receiving federal aid, while Colorado ranks near the bottom at number 41.[75] The average rank of red states is 18, and the average rank of blue states is 30.

What about the world? We’re adding 150 people very minute, 216,000 a day, 78 million a year. Scientists used to think we would top out around 9 billion in 2050, but this mantra recently changed. Now they believe there’s a 70% chance we’ll exceed 11 billion by 2100. “Population policy has been abandoned in recent decades. It is barely mentioned in discussions on sustainability or development such as the UN-led sustainable development goals,” says Simon Ross, chief executive of Population Matters, a British think-tank.[76]  

Many widely accepted analyses of global problems, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s assessment of global warming, assume a population peak by 2050. It turns out that scientists did not really think the population would peak in 2050; rather, their earlier projected range was so huge—7 to 16 billion people by 2100—that they considered such a wide range meaningless. They essentially ignored what was happening after 2050 because they did not feel confident enough to predict past then. Now, population researchers at the United Nations say there is a 95% chance the population will range from 9.5 to 13.3 billion people in 2100, with only a 23% chance that world population growth will peak before 2100.[77] 

There were 2.5 billion humans in 1950.

Similarly, Colorado water planners do not look past 2050. Colorado Roundtable members repeatedly asked CWCB water planners for ten years what they project will happen to Colorado’s population after 2050, and silence was their answer. Responses range from shoulder shrugs to anger. When I asked Mulroy about the wisdom of having Arizona and Nevada be the fastest growing states in the country, she thundered back, “You can’t stop growth.”[78]

Actually you can if you limit the water supply. For proof, just drive along Highway 395 on the east side of the high Sierra in Owens Valley, California. The towns of Lone Pine, Independence, Big Pine, and Bishop have barely changed since I passed through them on trips to the Sierras in the 1960s. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power purchased Owens Valley irrigation water in the early 1900s and that ended all agriculture and municipal growth in the valley. When I pointed this out, Mulroy retorted, “Those farmers were paid for their water.” Yes, they were, but that wasn’t my point.

There is nothing in the 2015 state water plan to suggest we will not reach 40 million inhabitants, the population California is approaching today. The Denver Metro area had 504,709 people in 1950 and it is projected to exceed 3 million by 2025, a six-fold increase in 75 years.[79] If we do not ask what is the reasonable population for Colorado, and how should we grow, and whether lower-income people should be able to afford to live here, and where we should grow (all questions that the water plan skirs, under the guise that it is up to each locality to determine this), we are not planning. We are reacting with all the skill, intelligence, and foresight of amoeba. If you raise temperature 1o on one side of a tank of water, amoeba will migrate to that side. If you raise it 1o on the other side, amoeba will migrate there. Amoebas don’t plan, they react.

Notes

[1] The greater LA metropolitan area includes Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties. These four counties grew from 4,819,599 residents in 1950 to 17,696,946 people in 2015, 2.1% per year for 65 years. San Bernardino and Riverside counties grew almost twice as fast, 3.8% per year.  "Demographic Research Unit," California Department of Finance, downloaded Oct 20, 2015, http://www.dof.ca.gov/Forecasting/Demographics/Census_Data_Center_Network/, Demographics, Table E-1 City/County Population Estimates with Annual Percent Change. This calculation is at C:\Users\Ken\Dropbox\Colorado's Water Future\Chapter - Population Growth\[Demographic projections - United States.xls]Calif Counties.

[2] The Superfund Trust Fund declined from $3.5 billion in 1996 to $97 million ten years later. Remseur, J., et al, “Superfund Taxes or General Revenues: Future Funding Issues for the Superfund Program,” Feb. 4, 2008, Cong. Res. Serv., pg. 4, https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20080204_RL31410_0836e5a178cb9592e7b99f37adcfe5600d0b8871.pdf. For fiscal years 1981 through 1995, taxes accounted for about 68 percent of trust fund revenues. “Superfund: Funding and Reported Costs of Enforcement and Administration Activities,” July 18, 2008, U.S. Government Accountability Office, pg. 3, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08841r.pdf.

[3] “Central City / Clear Creek Superfund Site Update Fact Sheet,” August 2014, Colorado Dep’t of Public Health & Environment, https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/HM_sf-cccc-2014-factsheet.pdf.

[4] Finley, B., “CDPHE, EPA to clean toxic North Clear Creek, but town needs trump fish,” May 30, 2015, The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_28217950/cdphe-epa-clean-toxic-north-clear-creek-but.

[5] Finley, B., “Front Range cities make last-minute objections to Colorado water plan,” Oct. 20, 2015, Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com/2015/10/20/front-range-cities-make-last-minute-objections-to-colorado-water-plan/.

[6] “Historical Census Population,” DOLA (Dep't of Local Affairs), https://dola.colorado.gov/demog_webapps/hcpParameters.jsf. This table is at C:\Users\Ken\Dropbox\Colorado's Water Future\Chapter - Population Growth\[Demographic projections - United States.xls]Colo Counties.

[7] Id.

[8] Shiller, R., Irrational Exuberance, pages 18-21, 2005, Broadway Books.

[9] Id, pages 120-124, 253.

[10] Fulmer, M., “Philip Morris Agrees to Sell Mission Viejo Co,” Aug. 2, 1997, Los Angeles Times, http://articles.latimes.com/1997/aug/02/news/mn-18701.

[11] See a list of Colorado cities and their populations at “Together we Teach Education Resources,” Populations of cities by state, based on the 2010 census, at http://www.togetherweteach.com/TWTIC/uscityinfo/06co/copopa/06copa2.htm. A spreadsheet listing these is also available at T:\swsi\Demographic projections - United States.xls, at tab Colo Cities.

[12] The Highlands Ranch Metropolitan District is at 62 West Plaza Drive, Highlands Ranch, CO, 80129. Its rules and regulations, updated through June 24, 2014, are available at http://highlandsranch.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Rules-and-Regs-JUNE-2014.pdf.

[13] Highlands Ranch Rules and Regulations, Article VI, page 26, June 24, 2014 version, at http://highlandsranch.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Rules-and-Regs-JUNE-2014.pdf.

[14] “Rueter-Hess Reservoir,” Wikipedia, last modified Aug. 31, 2015.

[15] Michlewicz, C., “Parker water district names new manager,” Nov. 16, 2012, Parker Chronicle, http://parkerchronicle.net/stories/Parker-water-district-names-new-manager,116050.

[16] “Jaeger’s $230 Million Folly: Rueter Hess Reservoir,” Nov. 16, 2009, JeffcoBlue, http://coloradopols.com/diary/10833/jaegers-230-million-folly-rueter-hess-reservoir.

[17] Bartlett, A., 1999, Reflections On Sustainability, Population Growth, and the Environment—Revisited.

[18] Id.

[19] For a recent book on the role that myths play in human development, see Harari, 2015, Sapiens a Brief History of Humankind, New York: HarperCollins.

[20] For a breakdown of agricultural water consumption by roundtable basin, see Table 4-10, Estimated Current Agricultural Demand by Basin, page 4-24 of the South Platte SWSI 2010 Basin Report (Final Draft, ~11 MB), South Platte Basin roundtable page maintained by the CWCB, downloaded August 23, 2014, available at http://cwcb.state.co.us/water-management/basin-roundtables/pages/southplattebasinroundtable.aspx.

[21] The 60,000-person population estimate assumes that the 50% not consumed in outdoor landscaping is reused. The Statewide Water Supply Initiative defines low conservation as using 166 or more gallons per day, and the medium conservation strategy equates to 165 to 139 gallons per day. At 164 gallons per day, the South Platte’s future projected use squeaks into the medium range just enough for the South Platte roundtable to claim it is pursuing a “low to medium conservation strategy.”

[22] Best, A., “From the Ground Up,” Summer, 2015, Headwaters Magazine, Colorado Foundation for Water Education, https://www.yourwatercolorado.org/cfwe-education/headwaters-magazine/summer-2015-water-land-use/763-from-the-ground-up.

[23] Finley, B., “Water pipeline deal reached,” Oct. 3, 2014, The Denver Post.

[24] It is unclear how the 400,000-acre-foot savings (or 460,000 which is sometimes proffered) is calculated. The author has been unable to determine if it includes 154,000 acre-feet from passive conservation (switching to low flow toilets and fixtures without requiring any behavior changes), and whether it includes additional conservation savings from existing residents? If not, the high conservation strategy will likely eliminate the need for any more trans mountain diversions. The 400,000-acre-foot figure is also fuzzy because it is not clear what gallon per day figures they are based on. The author has consistently requested that water use be described in gallon per day figures so that use can be easily compared city-by-city, and basin-by-basin. Passive conservation will happen anyway as toilets get replaced and homes are remodeled. The better strategy is to define high conservation as the amount of reduced use needed to keep us from having to dry up any more agriculture than the land cities sprawl onto and from taking any more water from the West slope. That figure is about 120 gallons per day, 40% less than the 206 gallons per day the state was using in 2008.

[25] The six themes were developed after 7 town halls, 20 roundtable meetings, 45 presentations to city councils, and several forums at college campuses from Grand Lake to Grand Junction. They are: 1. Protect and restore healthy streams and riparian areas; 2. Sustain agriculture; 3. Secure safe drinking water; 4. Develop local water conscious land use strategies; 5. Assure dependable basin administration (i.e., prevent additional diversions from leading to calls on the river that shut down existing uses); 6. Encourage a high level of basin wide conservation.

[26] Barbara Biggs, Denver Metro roundtable chair, made this comment before the SB 115 hearing held at the Aurora City Council chambers on September 15, 2015.

[27] Finley, B., “Denver suburbs drawing down groundwater aim for renewable supply,” Dec. 10, 2014, The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com/News/Local/ci_27104946/Denver-suburbs-drawing-down-groundwater-aim-for-renewable-supply?source=infinite.

[28] “John Wesley Powell,” Encyclopedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Wesley-Powell. For more on Powell’s relationship with western politicians and land developers, see Stegner, W., Beyond the 100th Meridian and the opening scene of Chinatown, the author’s favorite movie about Western water development.

[29] The Denver Metro area includes Denver, Adams, Arapahoe, Jefferson, and Douglas Counties, and the Los Angeles Metro area includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties. This graph is at C:\Users\Ken\Dropbox\Colorado's Water Future\Chapter - Population Growth\[Demographic projections - United States.xls]Calif v. Colo.

[30] The Los Angeles Metropolitan Area includes Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura counties. The Greater Los Angeles Area includes Riverside and San Bernardino counties. “Greater Los Angeles Area,” Wikipedia, last modified Oct. 8, 2015.

[31] Dalrample, J., “Los Angeles Housing Is Wildly Unaffordable,” Buzz Feed News, downloaded Oct. 25, 2015, http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/los-angeles-is-facing-a-housing-affordability-crisis#.anQx6zXqW.

[32] “California’s High Housing Costs: Causes and Consequences,” March 17, 2015, Legislative Analyst's Office, http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finance/housing-costs/housing-costs.aspx.

[33] Wisconsin has the median 2015 home price, meaning that 25 states have average home values below and 24 states have average home prices above Wisconsin’s average home price. Davis, Morris A. and Jonathan Heathcote, 2007, "The Price and Quantity of Residential Land in the United States," Journal of Monetary Economics, vol. 54 (8), p. 2595-2620; data located at Land and Property Values in the U.S., Lincoln Institute of Land Policy http://www.lincolninst.edu/resources/. This graph is at C:\Users\Ken\Dropbox\Colorado's Water Future\Chapter - Population Growth\[Demographic projections - United States.xls]1974-15 Home price by state.

[34] “I Owe, I Owe, Average Hours of Work Needed to Cover the Monthly Mortgage” Nov. 2006, AARP bulletin, pg. 52.

[35] The US Census Bureau divides the United States into four regions, the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West. The West consists of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

[36] “Median and Average Contract Price of New Contractor-Built Single-Family Houses Started by Location and Type of Financing,” pg. 758, 2014 Characteristics of New Housing, US Dep't of Commerce, US HUD and US Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/construction/chars/pdf/c25ann2014.pdf. This graph is from Dropbox:Colorado's Water Future:Chapter - Population Growth:[Home prices and affordable housing .xlsx] KOR Price per home sold.

[37] “Median and Average Price per Square Foot of Floor Area in New Single-Family Houses Sold by Location,” pg. 732, 2014 Characteristics of New Housing, US Dep't of Commerce, US HUD and US Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/construction/chars/pdf/c25ann2014.pdf.

[38] In 2010, nearly 2.5% of the US population moved between states, far more than Canada and the European Union where about 1% migrated between provinces. See, “America Settles Down,” July 5, 2012, the Economist, http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/07/labour-mobility.

[39] The Pew Research Center estimates undocumented workers accounted for 7.9% of the workforce in the West in 2010, ranging from 9.7% in California to 4.6% in Colorado. In 2012, it estimates there were 180,000 undocumented aliens in Colorado and 11.2 million in the United States, a decrease from the peak of 12.2 million in 2007 before the recession. Undocumented workers make up 26% of the total foreign-born population of 42.5 million in the United States, and 52% of undocumented workers are Mexican. Passel, J., “Unauthorized Immigrant Totals Rise in 7 States, Fall in 14, Decline in Those From Mexico Fuels Most State Decreases,” Nov. 18, 2014, Pew Research Center; "Unauthorized Immigrant Population: National and State Trends, 2010," Feb. 1, 2011, Pew Research Center, Appendix A, http://www.pewhispanic.org/2011/02/01/appendix-a-additional-figures-and-tables/. This research is at Dropbox:Colorado's Water Future:Chapter - Population Growth:[Home prices and affordable housing .xlsx]Immigrant population.

[40] Wages quoted are 2014 rates; see May 2014 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates, Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#00-0000.

[41] Camarota, S., Zeigler, K., "Jobs Americans Won’t Do? A Detailed Look at Immigrant Employment by Occupation," August 2009, Immigrant and Native Employment by Occupation 2005-2007, Center for Immigration Studies, http://cis.org/illegalImmigration-employment.

[42] Colorado’s Water Plan, pg. 1, 2015.

[43] These statistics are computed by comparing construction revenue with the state’s total GDP from 1997 through 2014. “Real GDP by state, Colorado, 1997-2014,” Bureau of Economic Analysis, http://www.bea.gov, Regional, Interactive Tables, GDP by State, Real GDP in Chained dollars, NAICS 1997 forward, All industries, Colorado, All Years, Download to get this Excel File.

[44] The NAHB was ranked 187 of 3,514 contributors in 2014. “National Association of Home Builders, Client Profile: Summary 2015,” Center for Responsive Politics, OpenSecrets.org, https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000086.

[45] Most of the money was directed to limiting homeowners from suing builders for construction defects. It was offset by $69,200 from the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association who opposed changes to the law. “House of Cash,” April 21, 2015, Colorado Ethics Watch, http://crew.3cdn.net/ba88fa8f7b6c8b37ec_gum6b3i17.pdf.

[46] “Transportation in the United States,” Wikipedia, last modified Nov. 10, 2015.

[47] “I-70 Mountain Corridor Traffic Tops Future’s Worst Commutes, Unless…,” Feb. 10, 2004, CBS4 Denver, http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/02/10/i-70-mountain-corridor-traffic-tops-futures-worst-commutes/.

[48] Merrefield, C., “America’s 75 Worst Commutes,” Jan. 18, 2010, The Daily Beast, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/01/19/americas-75-worst-commutes.html.

[49] Katz, D., et al, "Colorado’s Transit, Biking & Walking Needs Over The Next 25 Years," Aug. 2016, CoPIRG, Fig. 7, pg. 23, http://www.copirgfoundation.org/sites/pirg/files/reports/COPIRG%20Transit%20Report_Screen.pdf. This information is at C:\Users\Ken\Dropbox\Colorado's Water Future\Chapter - Population Growth\[Home prices and affordable housing .xlsx]Transportation cost.

[50] Reyna, J., “Houston Commute Times Quickly Increasing,” Feb. 4, 2014, Click2Houston, http://www.click2houston.com/news/houston-commute-times-quickly-increasing_20151123154243235.

[51] The average home in Denver increased 45% from $255,649 in 2011 to $370,002 in 2016, a growth rate of 7.7% per year. “Land and Property Values in the U.S.,” downloaded Oct 17, 2015, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Wisc. School of Business, https://www.lincolninst.edu/subcenters/land-values/land-prices-by-state.asp. In Fort Collins, the median household income in 2014 was $79,300, but a third of its workers earned under $50,000. Home prices grew about 20% from 2014 to 2015d but wage income grew only 1% per year. Fort Collins real estate broker Dave Pettigrew estimated in 2014 that Fort Collins needed about 4,000 more homes for the market to be balanced with a 6-month supply. "Now we have 825 on the market, just over a month's worth," he said. "Homes priced under $250,000 have about a one-week supply." “The high cost of making Fort Collins home,” June 13, 2015, The Coloradoan, http://www.coloradoan.com/story/money/2015/05/17/rising-home-prices-put-strain-fort-collins-homebuyers/27480605/.

[52] Section 8(a) of TABOR bans cities from passing new or increased RETT taxes; however, they can be extended at the grandfathered rate, which is what Aspen voters did in 2008. Pitkin County and Aspen created the Aspen-Pitkin County Housing Authority in 1975 to jointly manage affordable housing. Derringer, N., “How posh Aspen and Jackson Hole make housing affordable for year-round workers,” Feb 19, 2015, Bridge Magazine, http://bridgemi.com/2015/02/how-posh-aspen-and-jackson-hole-made-housing-affordable-for-year-round-workers/.

[53] Today, Aspen’s 2,800 affordable housing units provide housing for nearly 50% of Aspen’s workforce. That still isn’t enough and there’s a perpetual waiting list. Applicants cannot own any other real estate in the Roaring Fork Valley. The homes can appreciate no more than 3% per year, enforced through deed restrictions contained in the real estate deeds that are recorded. At that rate, property values double in about 24 years. Aspen real estate prices overall grew only 1.4% per year between 1999 and 2014 after suffering through two market crashes, so the affordable housing units were appreciating faster than houses in Aspen’s rarefied free market. There’s less speculation and more demand at the lower end. Home price growth is calculated at C:\Users\Ken\Dropbox\Colorado's Water Future\Chapter - Population Growth\[Home prices and affordable housing .xlsx]Colo Real Est Apprec.

[54] Lutz, C., “Build and let live: 40 years of affordable housing in Aspen,” May 27, 2014, Aspen Journalism, http://aspenjournalism.org/2014/05/27/build-and-let-live-40-years-of-affordable-housing-in-aspen/.

[55] Assuming 2.5 residents per household, Eagle County’s 57,481 residents in 2015 lived in 22,972 homes. Eagle County has 428 affordable residences listed on the website, 1.9% of the estimated total homes in the county. Only 13% are larger than 2 bedrooms. The county requires developers to set aside either 15% of the new square footage built or 25% of the units as “resident-occupied” that only county residents can buy. Second-home owners own 39% of the houses in Eagle County at resorts like Vail and Beaver Creek. From 2007 to 2013 county residents purchased only 52% of new homes built—the rest were purchased as second-homes by people living elsewhere; Eagle County Affordable Housing Guidelines, 2013, pg. 2. Eagle County’s model is to force developers to build affordable housing in return for obtaining approval to build luxury homes. See, "Compare Low Income Housing," downloaded Nov. 20, 2016, Credio, http://low-income-housing.credio.com/. 

[56] Eagle County tried to pass an affordable housing tax in the 2016 that would have added 0.3% to the sales tax, but the Vail Daily opposed it, saying it subsidized Vail Mountain Resorts. It failed. Today workers commute to Vail from Rifle, 88 miles away, and others come from Leadville, a 44-mile commute over 2 mountain passes. For Eagle County to meet its goal that no more than 30% of the county residents should pay more than 30% of their income on housing, I calculate that 58% of the next 10,000 homes built in the county would have to be deed-restricted as affordable. Eagle County’s population grew 4.7% per year 1980 to 2010, the second fastest growing county in Colorado behind Douglas County. Like Southern California, Eagle County has been unable to grow its way out of its affordability crisis. In 2012, 3,660 workers commuted daily into Eagle County. Over 2,500 said they would buy or rent in Eagle County if they could find affordable housing. “Eagle County Affordability Guidelines,” May 13, 2014, Chap. 1.01, pg. 1, http://www.eaglecounty.us/Housing/Documents/Housing_Guidelines/. For a 2004 comprehensive study of affordable housing in resort towns commissioned by June Lake in Mono County, CA, see, Koldus, K., “Affordable Housing in Mountain Resort Towns: Policy Recommendations for June Lake, Mono County, CA,” Spring 2004, https://monocounty.ca.gov/sites/default/files/fileattachments/planning_division/page/402/affordablehousing_mountainresorttowns.pdf. The study concluded that Mono County should adopt an inclusionary zoning ordinance requiring developers to build affordable housing, promote the construction of additional dwelling units alongside primary dwellings, adopt a living wage, create a regional housing authority, and transfer land from public agencies such as the US Forest Service and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to the private sector so more land is available for affordable housing.

[57] The chart above assumes that 15,000 square feet (34% of an acre) is needed to feed each person in Colorado. Today, 15,000-30,000 sq. feet is needed to feed the average American, and a strict vegan diet requires 7,000 square feet; see, Jeavons, J., How to Grow More Vegetables, 7 Ed., 2006, p. 24, 248. If every Coloradan ate no meat and became a vegan, and we all obtained our food from only 7,000 square feet of irrigated cropland, we’d need half the irrigated acreage reported in the table above and start running a deficit shortly after doubling our population to 10 million in 2055. Available irrigated acreage is assumed to decline for 2 reasons: (1) temperatures are expected to increase 1.5oF by 2055 and by 3oF by 2100, resulting in 7.5% and 15% increases in crop water consumption, respectively; and (2) nearly 1 million acre-feet of groundwater will no longer be available as the Ogallala Aquifer and San Juan aquifer below the Rio Grande Basin dry up by 2100.

[58] This table is at Dropbox\Chapter Population\Demographic projections - United States.xls at tab State pop'l by decade

[59] The precipitation averages are based on data collected by weather stations throughout each state from 1971 to 2000 and provided by the NOAA National Climatic Data Center, compiled at http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-state-precipitation.php. This table is at Dropbox\Chapter Population\Demographic projections - United States.xls at tab Precip by state.

[60] The correlation between growth rates and dryness for all 50 states is 29%, less than half the number of the 7 driest states, but still high as a predictor. See also, “Climate Change in the Southwest,” EPA, http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/impacts/southwest.html.

[61] Colorado’s Water Plan, Chapter 4 Water Supply, page 6, draft dated 8/29/2014.

[62] “Study: Cloud seeding increased snowfall,” Dec. 11,2014, AZ Central, Channel 12, http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/12/10/study-cloud-seeding-increased-snowfall/20229349/.

[63] “Colorado’s Water Plan,” July 15, 2015 draft, page 75, cites the “Executive Summary of the WMO Statement on Weather Modification,” Mar. 22-24 2010, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), https://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/arep/wwrp/new/documents/WMR_documents.final_27_April_1.FINAL.pdf. The quote in the text is from Section 1.2 on page 1 of the WMO report; section 3.1 on page 2 of the WMO report concludes “to bring about deliberate and effective changes via cloud seeding has been continuously a scientific and operational challenge rather than a settled practice.” The WMO agrees with Colorado’s Water Plan assessment that there is no evidence that cloud seeding with silver iodide crystals damages the environment; "Position Statement on the Environmental Impact of Using Silver Iodide as a Cloud Seeding Agent," July 2009, WMO, http://www.weathermodification.org/images/AGI_toxicity.pdf.

[64] Martin, A., “The Food Chain: Mideast Facing Choice Between Crops and Water.” July 21, 2008, New York Times. See also, “Sustainability and Water,” Aug. 12, 2010, World Overpopulation Awareness, http://www.overpopulation.org/water.html.

[65] See Colorado’s Water Plan by the CWCB, Section 5, Water Demand by Sector, page 1, which says that Colorado consumes about 5.3 million acre-feet a year, 4.7 million acre-feet for agriculture, .4 million acre-feet by cities and about .2 million acre-feet by industry, a major use of which is water to cool coal-fired electrical generating plants. Since the state consumes about 8 times more for agriculture than for human consumption, theoretically the state could grow its population eight-fold based on current water consumption practices. For a breakdown of agricultural water consumption by roundtable basin, see Table 4-10, Estimated Current Agricultural Demand by Basin, page 4-24 of the South Platte SWSI 2010 Basin Report (Final Draft, ~11 MB), South Platte Basin roundtable page maintained by the CWCB, downloaded August 23, 2014, available at http://cwcb.state.co.us/water-management/basin-roundtables/pages/southplattebasinroundtable.aspx.

[66] “What is an invasive species,” US Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research station, http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/invasives/.

[67] Zielinski, S., “Are Humans an Invasive Species?,” Jan. 31, 2011, Smithsonian, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/are-humans-an-invasive-species-42999965/?no-ist.

[68] Sullivan, R., “Our Invasive Species, Dec. 11, 2016, New York Times Book Review, commenting on Biello, D., The Unnatural World, 2016, New York: Scribner.

[69] Mahtesian, C., Stiles, M., “5 Things To Know About America's Fastest-Growing Counties,” June 13, 2013, 6:59 PM ET, National Public Radio, http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/06/13/191299338/5-things-to-know-about-americas-fastest-growing-counties. Bump, P., “85 of the 100 fastest growing counties voted for Mitt Romney in 2012,” Mar. 24, 2016, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/24/85-of-the-100-fastest-growing-counties-voted-for-mitt-romney-in-2012/.

[70] Kiersz, A., “Here's The Fastest Growing County In Every State,” Sep. 19, 2014, http://www.businessinsider.com/fastest-growing-county-map-2014-9. Click on the website links and you won’t find anything laudatory about Democrats.

[71] Kiersz, A., “Here's How Much Real Estate A Million Dollars Buys You In Every Major US City,” Mar. 11, 2014, Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/us-city-real-estate-price-chart-2014-3.

[72] See, Is Life Better in America’s Red States, by Richard Florida, University of Toronto, New York Times, January 4, 2015.

[73] Book review of Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right: What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas

By Erica Grieder, Public Affairs, 2013, reported in the American Spectator, http://spectator.org/articles/55389/texas-way-alternative-model.

[74] See Which States Are Givers and Which Are Takers? And is that even the correct way to frame the question?, John Tierney, May 5 2014, the Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/.

[75] Kiernan, J., “States Most & Least Dependent on the Federal Government Share,” Wallet Hub, http://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700/. Data in this report is from 2012, courtesy of the Internal Revenue Service, the Census Bureau, Transparency.gov, US Department of Commerce - Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[76] Population Matters is supported by naturalist Sir David Attenborough and scientist James Lovelock. Carrington, D., “World population to hit 11bn in 2100 – with 70% chance of continuous rise,” Sep. 18, 2014, the Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/18/world-population-new-study-11bn-2100.

[77] Zlotkink, H., “Future World Population: The Latest United Nations Projections,” Oct., 2015, Population Connection, Vol. 47, No. 3.

[78] Public discussion after Pat Mulroy’s dinner speech at Colorado Mesa University on November 5, 2014.

[79] Geohive is the best site the author has found charting the growth of the world, and megacities. There are 152 larger megacities in the world than Denver. See, http://www.geohive.com/earth/cy_aggmillion2.aspx.

[80] The Denver Metro area includes Denver, Adams, Arapahoe, Jefferson, and Douglas Counties, and the Los Angeles Metro area includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties. This graph is at C:\Users\Ken\Dropbox\Colorado's Water Future\Chapter - Population Growth\[Demographic projections - United States.xls]Calif v. Colo.

 [BG1]Cliche

 [BG2]update

 [BG3]residence? or resident?

 [BG4]You’ve also said that many important things were not brought up at roundtable meetings. How do we square this?

 [BG5]Fact check this

 [BG6]check status of this project

 [BG7]Can we cite this with a date? Perhaps just bring up footnote 4, as much of this section is based on the same Denver Post article.

 [BG8]This remains unresolved in my mind, at least, as to whether “the final draft” and the final plan are one and the same. Please try and clarify this for me.

 [BG9]Is this still the case?

 [BG10]Same question as above. Has the last seven years borne this out?

 [BG11]That’s a bit expansive, the “all.” Some land is owned by states or cities or conservation trusts.

 [BG12]I’m not sure this is entirely correct, as it seems to be run like a local government, at least at this point. See the metro district’s website: https://www.highlandsranch.org/home

 [BG13]So the rules of Douglas County, such as they are, do apply to development, and there are elected officials in the metro district.

 [BG14]You are basically accusing the reservoir developers of lying about the cost of the project. I wonder if perhaps the cost of the project has now gained more clarity and we could perhaps skip this criticism?

 [BG15]We could perhaps quote the price of CBT water this spring, as AJ just covered the auction: https://aspenjournalism.org/auction-of-colorado-river-water-nets-4-7-million/

 [BG16]Should we add that all of these are underway? Although I’m not sure about Pueblo Reservoir.

 [BG17]Can we date this?

 [BG18]Did you know Hecox went from CWCB to South Metro to Shea, which now owns Highlands Ranch? Interesting, in that it gets to your point about the nexus between water and development. https://sheapropertiescolorado.com/who-we-are/

 [BG19]I think this next section is a good candidate to be cut - down to the food security section. it’s interesting, but way off the topic of water.

 [BG20]update this?

 [BG21]update this