Alan Elias of Austin, Texas, told The Denver Post that in the quaint mountain town of Twin Lakes, “I wish we could find peace in this community, but water has, quite frankly, divided us.”
In reality, Elias has alienated himself from the residents of the small town with his own disastrous decision to reroute a stream on his property so water no longer flows into the community’s beloved Barn Pond.
Because of Elias’ actions, Barn Pond is now a mud hole and nearby wetlands are drying up.
Elias says that he is legally entitled to the water that once flowed into Barn Pond. But Elias alone doesn’t get to decide that the stream feeding into Barn Pond was a man-made diversion. That will be determined by investigations conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and water engineers for the Colorado Division of Water Resources in the Arkansas River basin.
Colorado water rights are generally straightforward — a user can only take from a flowing water source what they are legally allotted and must send the rest downstream to other users regardless of whether “downstream” is a single path serving one user or multiple tributaries serving multiple users. Unfortunately, water rights in Colorado are increasingly dictated by who can hire the higher-powered attorney and who can act first to take what they think belongs to them.
While we wait to see the results of the investigation and any potential litigation, if Elias truly wants “peace” in the community, he could voluntarily undo the harm he has done. Nothing is preventing him from recreating the stream flow he disrupted to ensure that Barn Pond becomes a healthy and photogenic pond again.
Elias wants the water to instead feed into the streams and ponds on 75 acres he owns just a half mile from Twin Lakes right off of Highway 82. Elias is attempting to get approval to subdivide the land into 18 lots that are marketed online at beginning prices of $1 million.
The proposed map shows a network of lakes and streams interspersed throughout a small subdivision of lots of a few acres. What is unclear is how many of those lakes and streams will exist without the water taken from Barn Pond and the surrounding wetlands.
We are glad that the Army Corps of Engineers and the Division of Water Resources are investigating.
But regardless of what legal answer they come up with, the answer for Elias to get the peace he wants and deserves on his little slice of Colorado heaven is to take immediate action to undo the harm he has caused Twin Lakes. Who would want to move into a community – even if it’s a family’s “second or third home” as Elias has marketed the subdivision – knowing that the ponds, lakes and streams in AngelView are fed by water that was taken from Barn Pond.
Barn Pond is more than a local watering hole for wildlife; it’s more than a popular fishing spot, and it’s more than a healthy wetland ecosystem for watersheds. Barn Pond and the wetlands surrounding it are the heart of the Twin Lakes visitor’s area and the location of the Twin Lakes National Historic District signs and markers. Barn Lake has become a symbol for the beautiful Twin Lakes town itself. In other words, water didn’t divide the community, but Elias may destroy it.
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