For example, out here water belongs to whomever gets to it first and puts it to productive use. That is what lawbooks refer to as prior appropriation. Also, the law allows someone to use every drop of water in a streambed, regardless of whether anyone downstream might also have a need for water. Consequently, Colorado is now a state in which 70 percent of the water is on the western side of the Continental Divide while 70 percent of the population is on the eastern side, MacDonnell says. There are now 15 large diversion projects.
Pumps lift river water and melting snow into pipes that carry it eastward.
Those delivery systems also use canals and natural streambeds on the eastern side of the mountains. Fort Collins, Boulder and Greeley are among communities that use water from the Big Thompson River, an early tributary of the Colorado River. Other Front Range cities dependent on western slope water are Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo. It is something that we absolutely depend on, says MacDonnell, who lives in Boulder. Meanwhile, There is no issue in the West more contentious than water.