From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
A bill that would allow half of a farmer’s water to be transferred for one year to other uses passed the House agriculture committee 8-5 Monday.
The bill, [HB16-1228], was opposed by Western Slope water districts and legislators as unnecessary, expensive to farmers or ranchers and potentially harmful by allowing water that could be used within the state to flow out. Former state Sen. Bruce Whitehead called it “borderline speculation.”
However, diverse groups such as Ducks Unlimited and Colorado Corn Growers testified that the bill keeps water in agriculture by providing another way to use it without diminishing a water right. Those groups have been working on alternative transfer programs in the South Platte River basin for several years.
The bill is the latest version of a flex water right that has failed in the past two sessions. It would determine the historical consumptive use — how much water crops use — and establish alternate points of diversion in advance of one-year substitute water supply plan which might or might not occur. The bill also requires water to stay in the same river basin of historic use as defined by state water divisions.
Water users still would be required to get an administrative substitute water supply plan in each year water is transferred.
Sponsors Jeni Arndt, D-Fort Collins, and Jon Becker, D-Fort Morgan, said the bill provides an “agricultural water protection water right” that prevents more ag water from being sold to cities.
But Don Coram, R-Montrose, at one point asked a witness, “What’s the difference between buy-and-dry and lease-and-cease?”
Both the Southwestern Colorado and Colorado River conservation districts oppose the bill, which they say would require farmers and ranchers to spend more out of pocket to defend water rights.
But the Colorado Water Congress, Division of Water Resources and Colorado Water Conservation Board all voiced support of the legislation, saying it could be administered fairly and would not create any more need for legal defense than already exists.
Terry Fankhauser, of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, said his group is merely monitoring the bill at this point. But he questioned whether allowing water to be leased, and land to be fallowed, for five years in every 10 is a good idea. He pointed to studies in the Arkansas Valley which indicate three in 10 years is the maximum to keep farmland in shape for on-again, off-again farming.
From The Mountain Mail (Joe Stone):
With the legislative session in full swing in Denver, several water-related bills have been submitted in the Colorado General Assembly, including House Bill 16-1005, a rainwater-harvesting bill.
Ken Baker, retired attorney and consultant to the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District, discussed these bills during the district board meeting Thursday, indicating HB-18-1005 was passed by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.
The bill would allow the collection of precipitation from a residential rooftop using no more than two rain barrels per residence with a maximum capacity of 110 gallons.
As the bill is currently written, the residence must have four or fewer units, and the collected water must be used for outdoor purposes on the property where it is collected.
Baker said the bill, if passed, would fail legal challenges based on the Colorado Doctrine of Prior Appropriation, often summarized as “first in time, first in right.”
Under Colorado law, an appropriation is made when an individual takes water from a stream or aquifer and puts that water to a specific beneficial use, like farming. The first person to do so has the first right to use that water within a particular stream system.
After receiving a court decree verifying their status, this person becomes the senior water-right holder on that stream, and that water right takes priority over any other water right on that stream.
Since capturing rainwater prevents that water from flowing into a stream or seeping into an aquifer, it effectively takes water from someone who owns the right to that water, thereby violating the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation.
Baker expressed optimism that the bill would be amended in the Republican-controlled Senate to require augmentation, i.e., replacing the water collected with water from another source to prevent injury to senior water rights.
Baker also discussed other water-related legislation, including:
- HB 16-1228, a “complicated” bill that would allow temporary, 1-year transfers of up to 50 percent of a water right to a use other than the use for which the water right was decreed.
- HB 16-1109, an effort to protect owners of a water right from federal stipulations that would require relinquishing that water right in order to use federal land.
- HB 16-1256, which would commission a study to determine the amount of South Platte River water that has been delivered to Nebraska in excess of the amount required along with possible locations for a new reservoir on the South Platte River.
- SB 16-128, which would allow specific portions of water augmentation plans or substitute water supply plans to be opened for amendments in Water Court without reopening the entire plan.
- HB 16-1283, an attempt to reduce water losses by domestic water suppliers through annual audits.