A new proposal for storage in John Martin Reservoir will benefit both Kansas and Colorado, said Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District Manager Jay Winner on Wednesday
A new proposal for storage in John Martin Reservoir will benefit both Kansas and Colorado, said Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District Manager Jay Winner on Wednesday. This proposal is in line with the Colorado Water Plan. The plan was presented by LAVWCD Engineer Mike Weber. Phase I is paid for by a Water Supply Reserve Account grant supplied by the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Research by LAVWCD has determined water users which could potentially use the John Martin Reservoir Account. LAVWCD has also determined the types of water available to those entities that would be suitable for storage at JMR. Those entities include Kansas and Colorado District 67 Ditches (Fort Bent, Keesee, Amity, Lamar, Hyde, Manvel, X-Y Graham, Buffalo and Sisson-Stubbs). Amity is largest user at 49.5 percent of Colorado’s share. This would be in Phase II, if the plan is accepted at the meeting of the 2016 Colorado Kansas Arkansas River Compact. Down the line and several years in the future, other potential users of the storage in JMR might include Catlin Augmentation Association, City of La Junta, City of Lamar, Colorado Water Protection and Development Association, and water conservancy districts such as LAVWCD.
John Martin Reservoir back in the day
A permanent pool of 10,000 acre-feet is to be maintained at JMR and is to remain there as authorized by the 1976 resolution, for the purposes of recreation and not subject to a tax.
Several other projects were presented by Winner and commented upon by the Board of Directors, all of whom were present except Legal Director Melissa Esquibel. The North La Junta Water Conservancy District Project, Phase 2, will go before the Otero County Commissioners on Oct. 24, having passed the Otero County Planning Commission. A request has been made to negotiate the contract with the Pueblo Reservoir for 25 years rather than year by year. A commercial building in McClave has been purchased by the LAVWCD to locate some of its offices, notably the engineering having to do with Rule 10, nearer the location of the sites. Agreement with Water Quality through the Department of Agriculture is being sought. Another project had to do with sealing the irrigation ponds and testing for selenium in the ground.
The City of Fountain is contributing $24,000 more than their original $50,000 to the fund for cleaning up Fountain Creek. The other $200,000 is divided equally between the City of Pueblo and the LAVWCD. The money for the project is coming from the Aurora refund, said Winter.
Straight line diagram of the Lower Arkansas Valley ditches via Headwaters
You may have heard some discussion about the phrase Use It or Lose It lately. First, about how it is a guiding principle when using water under Colorado’s prior appropriation system. Then, more recently, about how it can be a misleading cliché.
It’s true that in certain straightforward situations, failure to use a water right for its decreed use will result in the loss of some or all of the water right. However, from there, it gets more complicated.
In 2015, a group of Colorado water professionals representing interests from around the state collaborated to explore Use It or Lose It’s application to water use. The discussion was initiated by the Colorado Water Institute. The Water Institute approached the concept by first identifying five areas where water users have concerns about losing their water rights.
The first three areas of concern are Maintaining a Conditional Water Right, the Continued Use of an Absolute Water Right and Abandonment of a Water Right. In Colorado a water user may obtain a conditional water right based on a non-speculative plan to use the water. If that person does not apply the water to its decreed use within a period of time, or at least maintain a diligent effort to develop the water right, it may be terminated by the water court. The water right is lost due to lack of use.
When the owner of a water right considers the risk of abandonment of some portion of a water right or the possibility of changing a water right to a different beneficial use (the fourth area of concern), the owner of the water right may consider it advantageous to divert as much water as possible — more than is needed for the applied use. The unintended consequences of doing that can range from unnecessarily taking water that could be used by water rights immediately downstream, to impacting sensitive fish and wildlife habitat, to increasing the water right owner’s own return flow obligation if the use is changed. Further, the water court doesn’t consider water diverted but not consumed as water that may be applied to a new use. So the practice of diverting more water than is needed, which is called “waste” in water administration, can actually be detrimental.
A fifth area of concern is the effect that Conservation and Sustainability Efforts can have on the value of a water right. To understand more about that area of concern and the rest of this issue, read Special Report No. 25: “Is ‘Use It or Lose It’ an absolute?” available on the Colorado Water Institute home page.
Kevin G. Rein is the deputy state engineer for Colorado Division of Water Resources.
Here’s the synopsis from Special Report No. 25 (Reagan Waskom, Kevin Rein, Dick Wolfe, MaryLou Smith):
Colorado water law is complicated and can easily be misunderstood. In particular, the component of a water right that requires it be put to a beneficial use without waste can create confusion.
It is a fact that wasteful water diversions and practices are not permissible under the state’s water law. Unfortunately, this has led to the adoption of the misleading adage “Use It or Lose It.”
This document clarifies how the use or nonuse of a water right affects its value.
