From The Denver Post (Joey Bunch):
The effort to legalize use of rain barrels in Colorado appeared to have broken out of its longtime logjam Monday.
Democrats in the state House allowed two GOP amendments meant to ease concerns over rain barrels and their place within Colorado water law.
One amendment makes it clear that having a rain barrel is not a water right, and the other says that the state engineer can step in if water is siphoned off from people with water rights.
“We’ve come a long way,” Republican state Rep. J. Paul Brown, a Republican from Ignacio, said of the compromise. “Property rights are important. The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution establish property rights, and waters rights are a property right.”
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Though the water lost to downstream water-rights holders is expected to be small, the principle of water law was at stake, rain-barrel opponents have said.
Most Republicans in the House sided with Democrats on a voice vote Monday. The bill still has to pass a roll-call tally in the chamber, before moving to the Republican-led Senate.
The two amendments reflect the concerns expressed by Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, a Republican from Sterling. Sonnenberg said last week the two points — recognition of prior-appropriation and state stewardship of the practice — had to be addressed before he could support the rain-barrel bill.
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Colorado is the only state with an outright ban on residential rain barrels. The proposed law would allow up to two 55-gallon rain barrels to collect water to be used on a resident’s lawn or garden.
In committee last week, Reagan Waskom, director of the Colorado Water Institute and chairman of the Colorado State University Water Center, said CSU’s modeling indicates no detectable impact by rain barrels on downstream runoff. Nearly all of the water would be absorbed in the soil, just as it would be if it was not captured in a rain barrel then applied to the soil, he said.
“People out there in our communities want this,” said Rep. Jessie Danielson, a Democrat from Wheat Ridge who has sponsored the measure the past two sessions, told fellow legislators before Monday’s vote.
“They want to be able to catch a little water and put it on their tomatoes.”