The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District plans to lobby for passage of a bill allowing homeowners and businesses to reuse dish-washing, shower and other graywater. Colorado water law allows just one use of water before it goes down the drain, through a wastewater treatment plant and back into the river for others to use. There are exemptions, however.

An environmental group proposed Thursday an alternative to a huge Northern Colorado water-storage project, calling for water conservation, recycling and sharing water with irrigators instead of building new reservoirs.

A change in the climate more likely would cause a crisis on the Colorado River than more development of the rivers waters by Colorado, a consultant said. For years, water use in California, Arizona and Nevada has pushed the limits of the 1922 Colorado River Compact.

From all the feel-good language about a global solution and Front Range-West Slope collaboration, you’d never know that there’s a bitter war being waged over what’s left of the Colorado River.

Trout Unlimited and other groups this week said they would fight Denver Water and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District unless stronger protections for the Upper Colorado River are guaranteed. “The state’s namesake river is dying,” said Bud Isaacs of the Upper Colorado River Alliance, a local landowners’ group.

Conservation groups say planned new diversions from the Upper Colorado River and the Fraser River could push the river ecosystems even closer to the edge without additional safeguards.

Speaker after speaker at a Thursday rally in support of a regional water storage project made references to the obvious. They pointed out that the nearly 4 inches of rain that has fallen in Northern Colorado in the past week is all headed for Nebraska and Kansas. “We don’t get thank-you notes from Kansas and Nebraska,” state Rep.

Eric Wilkinson of Windsor, general manager of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, has been named the 2011 recipient of the Aspinall Award by the Colorado Water Congress. The award is given each year to someone deemed to be highly knowledgeable about and dedicated to the management of Colorado’s water resources.

A state panel seeking to iron out differences in water transfers struggled Thursday to find a common vision that’s fair for all for the state’s future. “We’ve been given a pop quiz,” Chips Barry, former director of Denver Water told the Interbasin Compact Committee.