Returning Summit County commissioner Nina Waters was just appointed to 14 state and local boards. Nearly half of them have to do with water.
“Funnily enough, commissioner Waters deals a lot in the water world here in Summit County,” Waters jokes with Krystal 93 news director Phil Lindeman.
But her name is not just a coincidence. Water rights and conservation are big reasons this former raft guide ran for county office in November, defending a seat she was appointed to earlier in the year.
“It’s a really important subject to have someone who cares deeply and passionately about water,” Waters says. “Water in the state of Colorado is a highly regulated resource. While it does say in state statute that water belongs to the state of Colorado, we are in the West and the West is pretty dry. The water we get from our snowpack here in the mountains is what fuels 80 million people in the West, all the way to California.”
She knows Western water is complicated, but also taken for granted. She compares it to toilet paper.
“We’ve seen what happens when a dwindling resource such as toilet paper goes away. Imagine an actual resource that we need to live and survive were to be that dire,” she says. “What happens when people can’t flush their toilets?”
This year, commissioner Waters represents Summit on the Colorado River District, which is halfway through raising $99 million for the Shoshone Water Plant in Glenwood Canyon. That purchase would protect upstream water rights on the Colorado River in perpetuity.
Waters also represents the upper Colorado River basin on the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which is trying to balance drinking water with farming and recreation demands.