Marc Waage currently manages Denver Water’s long-term water planning. For nearly twenty years, he managed the operation of Denver Water’s extensive water-collection system. Waage also worked briefly for the Bureau of Reclamation and the Bureau of Indian Affairs on agricultural irrigation projects. He has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in civil engineering from Colorado State University and is a professional engineer. One of Waage’s favorite activities is recreating in Denver’s high-altitude watersheds.

Excerpt:

“What’s past is prologue.”
—From The Tempest by William Shakespeare
The Colorado Rocky Mountain region is already warming. The big wild card is
whether it will get wetter or drier. A wetter climate would be welcome news for
water utilities struggling to meet the water-supply needs of the region’s booming
population growth, whereas drier weather would bring serious new watersupply
problems. Water utilities, challenged with planning for future water
needs, are concerned about the uncertainties surrounding climate change. But
there is hope. Although climate change presents a variety of threats to water
utilities, there are promising new planning methods for reducing those threats.
Our region’s water systems have turned our highly variable and often
scarce amount of precipitation into a reliable water supply for millions of
people, their industries, businesses, and farms, while preserving much of the
environmental and recreational amenities that make the area such a great place
in which to live. Doing so required water utilities to develop vast networks of
water systems throughout the region. Typically, utilities planned these water
systems to provide reliable water delivery through the worst drought conditions
that had been recorded, going back fifty to 100 years, and usually added
a small safety factor to deal with unexpected or changing conditions.
In essence, most water systems in the Colorado Rocky Mountain region
were planned with the expectation that weather and supply conditions in
the future would not be much different than those experienced in the past.
Climate change now is threatening this fundamental planning assumption,
and we are a long way from knowing what will happen to our region’s water
supplies. What types of shortages could be created, and what can we do
now to lessen the impacts? How will we continue to provide water for our
booming population, and how will we maintain the environmental and recreational
amenities of our rivers?