Chamber's leader says more water storage vital

John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 7, 2006 at midnight

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Colorado should consider new water storage projects, the incoming chairman for the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce told a record crowd of 900 civic and business leaders at the group's annual luncheon meeting Wednesday.

Rob Cohen, who began his one-year term as chairman on Wednesday, is the head of Denver's IMA Financial Group, which employs about 400 people.

"We must bite the bullet and consider storage" to ensure there will be water in the state for generations to come, Cohen said, in addition to continuing to "promote conservation" and developing new sources of water.

"None of these issues are easy issues," Cohen said. "They are all long-term, systemic issues. The chamber cannot solve them alone."

He said the chamber must work with other groups and reaching solutions will require "leadership, dialogue and compromise. But every day we delay in solving these problems is one day further from actually resolving them."

Following his presentation, Cohen said it is far too early to say what shape the water storage should take. In 2003, the chamber supported a failed referendum that would have provided the state at least $2 billion to build storage facilities.

Asked whether another vote is needed on water storage, he said, "We're not at that point yet."

The chamber already has a water committee in place, Cohen added, "and we're going to try to step that up to see what we can do to look at the storage issue." He said he expects to have a plan by the time his term is over in a year.

Cohen said the chamber has had discussions about large and small storage facilities and wants to look at all of the alternatives before making recommendations.

"Like I said, this is bigger than the chamber is, and we need to work with others," he said. "But clearly, we need more storage."

Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., said, "Everyone I have ever talked to says that ultimately, storage has to be part of the solution."

Conservation alone is not enough, he said. "You can't save yourself into prosperity."

Cohen listed two other issues he will work on during his term: creation of a "world-class" education system and improvements in transportation, especially Interstate 70 heading into the mountains west of Denver.

rebchookj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5207

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