Eileen Laubacher hopes to become the next representative of Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, and on Thursday she made her case on the final day of Colorado Water Congress in Steamboat Springs.

Laubacher, a Democrat, spent 34 years in the U.S. Navy, retiring as a two-star admiral. She is challenging Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who spoke at the annual event earlier in the week.

She admittedly is no water expert, but told the audience, “You don’t have to be the person in the room who knows the most about every issue. You have to know how to bring the right people into the room, how to listen to the experts, ask the right questions and then actually get something done.”

She said she found it encouraging that the people at Water Congress are doing the hard work of finding common ground.

Water should not be a dividing line between rural and urban Colorado, any more than agriculture should be a left or right issue, she said.

She said she recognizes the challenges, such as decreasing snowpack, changing runoff patterns, dry soils, groundwater depletion, aging infrastructure and increasingly severe drought.

One federal program, infrastructure project or one piece of legislation won’t solve all that, she said, adding that most of the work belongs at the state and local level.

But there is a role for the federal government to play, and she said Colorado’s 4th District needs a “much stronger partner in Washington.”

“A real partner in Congress can help fund conservation and efficiency improvements in partnership with our communities here, not in opposition to them,” she said. “A real partner in Congress can protect Colorado’s interests when federal policy intersects with interstate compacts. And it can make sure that rural communities aren’t handed expensive federal mandates without the resources to comply.”

She added, Washington politicians have failed when communities can’t access safe, reliable drinking water or when help is needed for farmers to continue producing food.

“We have a water problem, we have a change in climate, but we also have a leadership problem,” according to Laubacher.

She pledged to work on three goals: keep communities supplied with safe drinking water, build the infrastructure Colorado will need for the next 50 years and keep Colorado’s farms producing.

Laubacher said she’s been to all 21 counties in the district and talked to ranchers, farmers, water providers and local leaders to hear “what Washington gets wrong about rural Colorado.”

That also includes healthcare; she said she’s visited almost all of the 14 rural hospitals in the district, each facing different pressures.

What she said she learned is that what works in one part of the district doesn’t necessarily work in another.

“You can’t understand a district this large and this diverse from Washington,” she said.

Farmers, Laubacher said, are being asked to adapt to a changing water supply, invest in more efficient equipment, change what they grow or farm fewer acres, all while facing higher costs to keep the farms running.

“We need agriculture to be a part of the solution to Colorado’s water challenges, but we cannot ask farmers and ranchers to carry the burden of that solution on their backs,” she said.

One solution is federal investment, she said. That could include modernizing irrigation systems, lining ditches, investing in groundwater recharge and aquifer repair projects, supporting soil health practices and helping producers transition to more drought-resilient practices without having to absorb all the costs themselves.

Laubacher also spoke of the state’s obligation regarding the Republican River compact, and said both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Bureau of Reclamation can be partners in that work.

The compact, which dates back to the 1940s, governs water allotments from the river to Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas. A 2018 settlement with Kansas requires Colorado farmers to halt production on 25,000 acres of land irrigated by the Republican River by 2030.

She also addressed the cost of compliance with federal drinking water standards, which she said falls more heavily on a town of a few thousand people than on a major metropolitan area.

She said she believes if Washington requires a small community to meet a federal drinking water standard, Washington should help that community pay for the infrastructure necessary to meet it.

Finally, on infrastructure, Laubacher said Colorado should stop addressing water projects one at a time and think strategically about what will be needed in the next 50 years.

She pledged to work with communities and water managers to develop a list of water infrastructure priorities and then aggressively pursue federal authorization and funding.

“I want to bring agriculture, municipalities, conservancy districts, water providers and the state together and ask, ‘what does this base need for the next 50 years and where can the federal government actually help us get this done?,’” she said.

A congressional office should not just wait for communities to come asking for money, according to Laubacher. “It should convene people, identify priorities, help navigate federal agencies, pursue authorizations and appropriations and make sure Colorado isn’t leaving federal resources on the table,” she said.

She said she would work with anyone who is serious about solving the water problems because “we are already behind.”