Did you know you may be walking on water right now?
Aquifers, or underground reserves of water, are located throughout Colorado, and increasingly cities, farmers, and landowners are turning to them to provide usable water. In Colorado, aquifers are pumped for crop irrigation or for drinking and household use.
In the past, replenishing our state’s aquifers meant waiting for high snowmelt or rainfall, and letting nature take its course as the water seeps back into the earth.
Today, the Fort Collins Coloradoan reported on a bill introduced in the Legislature by Rep. Jeni Arndt, D-Fort Collins. The bill would require the Colorado state engineer to create rules for artificially recharging aquifers, as residents look toward options to pump water back into the state’s underground water reservoirs.
How does refilling aquifers work?
Watch this video from the Coloradoan reporter Nick Coltrain demonstrating how we use aquifers now and how they might be used in the future:
“It’s not as revolutionary an idea as some may think,” says the Coloradoan. Denver Water is working on a pilot program for aquifer storage and recovery and Arizona uses aquifer recharging to prevent undue evaporation in desert climates.
Want to know more? Read the Coloradoan article, Is the answer to Colorado water woes underground?, here.