Editorial in Boulder Daily Camera
Posted: 05/25/2012 01:00:00 AM MDT
I urge your support of a couple of initiatives that are attempting to get on this years ballot. They involve our water. Colorado water is not privately owned. According to the Colorado Constitution, the water of Colorado is very clearly owned by the citizens of Colorado. It is the citizens who grant the right to use the water. Such rights do not extend from the government or any private party but solely from the people of Colorado.
In addition, the water rights granted by the people clearly indicate that water use should not adversely impact stream ecology or overall water health. Use of water for agriculture and for some basic industrial processes would not be impacted by the initiatives as some would have you believe. What would be impacted is the oil and gas industry’s ability to remove water from the hydrologic cycle or otherwise permanently pollute such water to the extent that it becomes unusable to the public (or agriculture).
It was clearly the desire of the framers of Colorado’s Constitution that the water of Colorado be held in trust by the people of Colorado. The attack on this part of the Constitution by reprehensible and disreputable corporations who spread misinformation and downright lies is unacceptable and the initiatives being proposed are merely the exercise of the rights of local communities and the people of the State of Colorado to recover what is ours in the first place.
It would be nice if the gas industry would stop misinforming the public. I urge everyone who cares about Colorado and its water to sign the petitions to put the initiatives in question on the ballot. Please visit protectcoloradowater.org for more information.
JIM WILSON