LETTER: Colorado River's depletion a warning for Bow River …

Dear editor, Grow, Cochrane grow! You have no limits.

This is despite that you could walk across the Bow River right now. Yet, developers continue to be supported by Cochrane town council and growth continues to be seen as only positive. I wonder what a survey of Cochranites on the subject would reveal?

South of us, the Colorado River supplies 40 million people and has become so depleted it is considered over-used by one-third. Seventy per cent of the water in the Colorado River goes to agriculture, including supplying much of Canada with winter greens. That situation is so dire, the U.S. government must cut Colorado’s water use this year by 20 to 40 per cent.

Water is now limiting growth and painful reductions must begin, but to housing or agriculture? Local governments are locked in an impossible impasse.  Cochrane town council is confident it can bargain/buy water licences from other holders – including irrigation farmers – or cajole more water from the province.

But there will be limits, and smart growth may be to limit growth before limits become painful. Land developers have also purchased large tracts of open spaces in Rocky View County, such as north of Highway 1A between Cochrane and Calgary. Developers that rely on unproven groundwater supplies and the miracle of an endlessly productive Bow River in their sales pitches.

Now is past time for serious land planning and rethinking the benefits of endless growth. 

Vivian Pharis

Green Valley Estates