Imagine the rushing waters of the Yampa River, lush and flowing alongside your hike to see the changing leaves in the fall. Or the crests of the Roaring Fork River as rafters glide down them in the summer. Even the South Platte River, snaking its way through Denver, a city built on its banks.
Now imagine these rivers gone, dried up; lost to the effects of climate change, overconsumption and population strains.
This could be a reality for Coloradans in just a few decades. That’s why Colorado Water Trust, a non-profit organization based in Boulder, took on the charge in 2001 to help restore water to rivers and streams across the state.
During one of the worst droughts in Colorado history, the founders of Colorado Water Trust explored ways to use the state’s traditional water laws. These laws permit the extraction of water from rivers, to benefit businesses and private citizens willing to pay for it. Colorado Water Trusts’ founders discovered a way to flip the script and return those waters to the rivers instead. Today, that same fight continues with a much larger contingency behind it.
Kate Ryan, the Executive Director of Colorado Water Trust, places her faith in her team of six, 15 board members, and the goodwill of Coloradans to achieve the goal of restoring vital waters back to the state’s rivers.
Ryan moved to Boulder in 1999 when pursuing a graduate degree from the University of Colorado. Her career as a water rights attorney began with private clients like farmers, ranchers, ski resorts—anyone who had a need for water. When she was a junior attorney, Colorado Water Trust was formed by senior attorneys at her firm, and she soon found herself on water trust cases, and the rest is history. The life-giving resource she was going to court to provide to businesses and private citizens is now being fought for on behalf of where it came from—the natural rivers, streams and tributaries of Colorado.
“We partner up with people, some of them literally were my past clients, who have water, and they want to help their local stream,” she explained. “It's relatively complex in Colorado to get that done. To go to court, you have to file. It takes a lot of time, and so we have the capacity to get it done, which I love.”
Colorado Water Trust works with the “stewards” of rural Colorado—farmers, ranchers, oil and gas landowners—those fortunate enough to have the water for irrigation and other purposes benefiting their businesses. These citizens understand their privilege of having access to this finite resource and choose to share it with the community by working with Colorado Water Trust. That stewardship role is ingrained in the “homegrown” mindset that Coloradans take such pride in, says Ryan.
It’s also a non-partisan role that Colorado Water Trust employs when appealing to the public and businesses small and large. Their work is based on the facts of the environmental and societal shift of the last few decades that’s altered the Colorado landscape—a booming population, climate change, and the use of a resource that we cannot create more of.
“We are really clear to people when we go into their community that we are non-partisan,” said Ryan. “We're not working on advocacy. We're not trying to get new legislation or just to say, ‘You have to leave water in the river.’
“We're like everybody else. We're paying for what we're using, and we're going through all the legal steps you have to do. So, we're trying to do it just like they are, following the same rules.”
In addition to water donations from the farmers, ranchers, private businesses and more, Colorado Water Trust encourages Coloradans to become monthly donors in their membership program, or Tributaries, a play on the term for the rivers and streams that feed into a larger body of water. Corporate businesses can also donate through their Flowing Waters program that has four different levels of yearly donations.
The partnership between the Colorado Water Trust and the Rapids gives back on multiple levels; first, the club will donate $15,000 to support Colorado Water Trust’s mission. Second, fans have the option to donate to Colorado Water Trust with every purchase of a Headwaters Kit through Altitude Authentics. The third way the partnership works is for the Rapids to support educational programing, volunteer projects, and community outreach to inspire members of our community to protect the beautiful rivers and streams in Colorado.
Since its creation in 2001 Colorado Water Trust has restored 26.7 billion gallons, 82,806 acre-feet and 814 miles of water back to 19 of Colorado’s rivers and streams through 27 different projects.
“A lot of us are in this because we love Colorado, because of all the things that rivers support,” said Ryan. “I'm not a fly fisherman, I'm not a kayaker, but I like going to the mountains, right? And I love going to western Colorado, and without water in the rivers, it's not the same. So if we keep a little bit more water in the river that really helps.”
Learn more about Colorado Water Trust and their mission here and shop the Headwaters Kit on Altitude Authentics today to support the restoration of water in the beautiful place we call home.