Small wells on mountain lots are continuing to create headaches - both for the owners of the wells and the state Division of Water Resources.

Sometime this century, the disappearing groundwater along Colorado’s Front Range is going to be a huge story. Water providers who have done their jobs will be able to witness this slow-motion train wreck from afar, safe in the knowledge that their customers have nothing to worry about. Those who are content with pumping water out of the ground ultimately will suffer.

New questions about state rules governing surface irrigation improvements in the Arkansas Valley arose during a meeting Thursday with state water officials.

Selenium levels on Fountain Creek go up as the hardness of water increases downstream, creating concerns that they could affect aquatic life on the Arkansas River all the way to John Martin Reservoir. That’s the upshot of a study by a team of Colorado State University-Pueblo researchers who have been studying Fountain Creek for the past three years.

Colorado Springs, for once, may be able to blame Pueblo for dumping sewage in our water.

Flows in the Arkansas River below Pueblo Dam dropped dramatically this week as winter water storage went into effect. Flows from the dam were cut from about 350 cubic feet per second last week to 70 cfs on Sunday, as irrigators began a program that allows them to store winter flows for use later in the year.

The latest predictions for a mid-winter dry spell may cause some headaches for Colorado water managers as they try to juggle supplies to maintain stream flows and fill reservoirs.

An armada of giant yellow earthmovers on the prairie south of Denver is racing to dig one of Colorado's biggest water-supply reservoirs in decades — a hole 180 feet deep across 1,400 acres — designed to wean suburbs off waning aquifers. But the water to fill this reservoir? Not yet secured.

A plan to build a pair of reservoirs downstream from Lake Pueblo has drawn some interest from the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District. “You definitely get the point in this project,” Prowers County Director Leroy Mauch said Wednesday.