River Activist Squares Off Against Hickenlooper’s Tax-Raising River-Destruction Plan

For Immediate Release
January 29, 2018
Contact: Gary Wockner, 970–218–8310, Gary@GaryWockner.com

RIVER ACTIVIST SQUARES OFF AGAINST HICKENLOOPER’S TAX-RAISING RIVER-DESTRUCTION PLAN

“Raising taxes to drain rivers is a slam-dunk stupid idea that I will aggressively oppose.” — Gary Wockner, Colorado river activist

COLORADO’S RIVERS: Today, northern Colorado-based river activist, Gary Wockner, announced that he is opposing recent proposals by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper to raise taxes to fund the Colorado Water Plan. Hickenlooper is reported to have made the statements about raising taxes on January 25th, at the Colorado Water Congress meeting in Denver, which were later printed the same day in the Durango Herald. The Herald story indicates that Hickenlooper is proposing to raise “severance taxes” on the oil and gas industry.

“Whether it’s a tobacco tax or a tax on baby formula, I will oppose raising taxes to fund Hickenlooper’s river-destruction plan,” said Gary Wockner. “Hickenlooper has pretty much only used the Colorado Water Plan to support new river-destroying dams, and that has to stop.”

In a widely published column in Colorado newspapers and radio in December 2017 and January 2018, Gary Wockner called out Hickenlooper for a “bait and switch” on the Colorado Water Plan. The same year that Hickenlooper signed the Executive Order creating the Water Plan, he said “every discussion about water should start with conservation,” but, after the plan was complete in 2017, he quickly used it to endorse plans for three massive dams on the Colorado and Cache la Poudre rivers— costing a total of over $1.7 billion.

“Hickenlooper would likely try to raise taxes to continue his river-destruction plans,” said Wockner. “The people of Colorado don’t want more dams and diversions; they want water conservation and to use our water resources more wisely.”

In fact, just last week, the 2018 “State of the Rockies” poll identified that 80% of Coloradans wanted to “use current water supplies more wisely” rather than “diverting more water from rivers in less populated areas”. The poll result for that question is below:

“Eighty percent of Coloradans don’t want more water diverted from our rivers,” said Wockner. “And I bet raising taxes is also widely opposed. Raising taxes to drain rivers is a slam-dunk stupid idea that I will aggressively oppose.”

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Gary Wockner, PhD, is author of the 2016 book, RIVER WARRIOR: Fighting To Protect The World’s Rivers. On the web: GaryWockner.com