Residents on this state line have built their industry, economy and lives around the South Platte River. But as an intense and widespread drought digs into the High Plains, flows have decreased.
Unwilling to leave things to chance, Nebraska has taken action by invoking the fine print of a century-old water compact between the two states — and sparking new tension in the process.
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts in April signed legislation that, within the terms of the compact, would allow Nebraska to build a canal in Colorado to siphon water off the South Platte River.
In response, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis described the plan as a “costly and misguided political stunt.”
But it’s a conflict climatologists say could play out more often as drought expands in the West and Central US, draining water supplies and exacerbating strains between urban growth and agriculture.
“We go through droughts every 20 years or so, but nothing of this magnitude,” said Tom Cech, former co-director of the One World One Water Center at Metropolitan State University in Denver. “We are in for a wave of water rights battles through the West. This is the driest it has been in 1,200 years.”