No mere pipe dream: water visionaries in Colorado rarely stand up under scrutiny, but even some early skeptics have become believers in Aaron Million's plan for a $4 billion, 400-mile pipeline that could solve the state's water woes for 200 years.

• Author: Best, Allen

Aaron Million vividly remembers the moment of his epiphany. He was on the first floor of the Morgan Library on the Colorado State University campus and it was a Sunday evening in the summer of 2003.

Colorado that summer was still reeling from what scientists have concluded was the most severe drought in at least 150 years. For lack of water, some Colorado farmers had been forced to let their crops wither. The state's third largest city, Aurora, was reduced to a one-year supply of drinking water. Dillon Reservoir had shrunk to a puddle in a giant sand bar. Million, former president of a farm-and-ranch management firm, had returned to school in Fort Collins to work on a master's degree in resource economics, which is why he was in the library that evening. Examining the map, he studied Colorado's major sources of water: the Colorado River near Fruita, the White River near Meeker, and the Yampa near Steamboat Springs and Craig.

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Finally, his eyes inched up the map to the far extreme northwest corner of Colorado where his firm had previously managed ranch properties, to a place called Brown's Park. There, below Flaming Gorge Reservoir, the Green River hooks out of Utah then loops briefly through Colorado before swinging back into Utah. Million, raised part of his life near the Utah town of Green River, knew instantly the impact that loop could make on Colorado's water problems. "I knew the Green River was a legal tributary of the Colorado River mainstream," he said. "That would allow for a legal filing and appropriation of the water for the state." And nobody from Colorado was using it.

Million's mind began racing. What if that water could be piped across the state to the Eastern Slope to satisfy both urban and rural water demands in the South Platte Valley and even as far down the Front Range as Pueblo? What if this new water could be the carrot that would force wiser use of land and other natural resources? Could one private citizen leverage the forces of federal, state and local governments to build a multi-billion-dollar pipeline more than 400 miles long? If the answer was yes, Million figured he had just come up with a Colorado solution for saving crops, nourishing people, and building businesses for the next 200 years.

"I was literally stunned," says Million of his eureka in front of the map. "I think I went out for a double-espresso, and then I went for some beers."

Since that night, Million has continued to explore his idea for his master's thesis--which, he says sheepishly, remains incomplete--by acting out the mission of that private citizen seeking a new solution to the state's historical dilemma: how to find enough water to keep growing. And his task has grown beyond academia.

Million has formed a sole proprietorship, called the Million Conservation Resource Group. He has recruited a well-credentialed water-development team that includes former state water engineers from both Colorado and Wyoming, Jeris Danielson and Jeff Fassett, respectively, Jim Eddy, a former television executive, who handles strategy; the former director of Utah's Division of Water Resources, Larry Anderson; and Thornton's former head of water resources, Walid Hajj.

All are now consultants to Million's firm. For legal counsel he has retained Bill Hill-house, of Denver's White and Jankowski, a firm that specializes in water, and Denver's nationally influential law firm, Brownstein Farber & Hyatt, which includes political and policy consultant Ted Trimpa, and respected water lawyer Jim Lochhead, who represents all major Colorado water districts in informal discussions involving the Colorado River.

For the last 2 1/2 years, Million has traveled throughout the West and to Washington D.C, laying out his ideas to local, state and federal officials. He explains how his idea provides the state with an alternative and untapped water source, making use of already captured water supplies along the Front Range more flexible. It gives Colorado the benefit of an entirely different and distant snowfall, he says. In other words, when it's not snowing on Colorado's Western Slope, it might be snowing heavily at the source of the Green River, the Wind River Mountains in far west-central Wyoming.

In his presentations, Million tells people about how use of that alternate snowpack would take pressure off Colorado's headwater areas, like Grand County, where Denver Water and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, based in Berthoud, already take 60 percent of the water from the Winter Park-Grand Lake area, and where together they want to increase that take to 80 percent. "Cumulative effects are tremendous," agreed Fraser Valley water activist Kirk Klanke.

Both farmers and cities would benefit from his project, Million says. Cities would get a fresh infusion of relatively clean water from the Green River. That would keep cities from extending their straws onto the Eastern Plains to outlying farming communities like Fort Morgan and Sterling, allowing those farm-based economies to remain viable. He emphasizes, too, how the collection of water operators, cities and water customers who might get involved in his project could in turn encourage a region-wide approach to conservation. At one meeting held in Parker, for example, where most water providers along the Front Range were present--perhaps the first time they had ever been assembled in one place to consider potential cooperation on a shared project--Million said he received "strong but guarded interest" from several participants.

"It's like anything," he said, "everyone's waiting for someone to reach for the saddle" before starting a long ride.

Chips Barry, general manager of Denver Water, the largest and most powerful water supplier in the state, has been among those respectful but cautious listeners.

"I think it's intriguing, because it is a rare--in my view--new idea," says Barry. "The reason you hear me hedge a little bit is that I haven't seen anything that tells the cost, nor the practical geographic difficulties of making it happen."

One unabashed supporter of Million's project is Frank Jaeger, the outspoken manager of Parker Water and Sanitation District since 1981. "I would recommend it, loudly and strongly," said Jaeger. "This is the salvation for the state of Colorado. If we run out of water on the Front Range, what happens to the economy of the state?"

Jaeger has experience weighing lofty storage and diversion proposals vs. increasingly critical water demands. His district's Reuter-Hess Reservoir currently is under construction three miles southwest of Parker and with regulatory approval and funding could ultimately be approved to hold 70,000 acre-feet of water--double the size of Cherry Creek Reservoir.

Yet even then it would be only a partial solution to Parker's long-term water demands, Jaeger has said. He maintains that if Million's project can meet needs for all water providers up and down the Front Range, funding will be relatively simple. "Dancing around the mulberry bush, talking about smaller projects, doesn't get the job done. It will pay for itself if you get everybody involved," he said.

"This is some pretty big-picture thinking," Jaeger adds. "But we'd better be thinking big. We are looking at another 2 million people along the Front Range."

GREEN RIVER

Historically, because of its remoteness, Brown's Park, the area of Colorado where Aaron Million's eyes gravitated, was a hangout for Butch Cassidy and other outlaws and cattle rustlers. Yet for a state that is the birthplace of so many rivers, Brown's Park also has another distinction. The Green River, after originating in the Wind River Mountains, flushes into Colorado from Utah in an excitement of whitewater called the Gates of Lodore. Here, it runs for exactly 41.5 miles, the only major river that does not originate in Colorado but that also flows into the state. After being joined by the Yampa River in Dinosaur National Monument, the Green leaves Colorado, again in a flurry of whitewater. In Utah again, it is joined by the White River, which originates north of Glenwood Springs, before finally flowing into the Colorado River. At that confluence southwest of...