Recent Issues

The 2007 state legislature considered several important bills addressing water issues.  Below we have highlighted a few of note.

House Bill 07-1132
One of the conservation community's top priorities in 2007 was the passage of legislation ensuring that water quality is taken into account when water is diverted from Colorado’s rivers and streams. House Bill 1132 sponsored by Representative Buffie McFadyen (D-Pueblo) and Senator Gail Schwartz (D-Snowmass Village), allows water court judges to consider potential negative impacts on water quality when changes to irrigation water rights from agricultural use to another type of use, such as residential use, are proposed. Negative impacts to water quality are measured against standards established by the Water Quality Control Commission. This bill is good for water quality and protects water right holders and their access to clean water. It also provides an extra tool for the water courts to use in protecting Colorado’s water quality. The legislation passed overwhelmingly out of the House of Representatives in January and out of the Senate in 2007, and Governor Ritter signed the bill into law in March.
To read the new law, click here.

House Bill 07-1012
Sponsored by Representative Frank McNulty (R-Highlands Ranch) and Senator Gail Schwartz (D- Snowmass Village), House Bill 07-1012 makes it easier for water right holders who wish to loan water to the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) for instream flows in Colorado's rivers and streams.  These rights are vital to increasing water flows in our rivers and streams to the levels needed for healthy fish populations and aquatic ecosystems, and for angling, kayaking and rafting and other economically-important recreational activities. Currently there are limitations to making these loans. This legislation helps to address one of them by removing a penalty that may be placed on a right holder's historic consumptive use. Historically, any water that goes unused for a period of years may cause the water right holder to lose their right to the water. Water loaned to the CWCB is currently counted against the water right holder as non-use. By removing the penalty, this bill will hopefully encourage additional water loans to the CBCB for the preservation of instream flows. Signed into law in March 2007, House Bill 1012 is an important step forward in removing unnecessary barriers to achieving adequate instream flows in Colorado. You can read this new law here.

Senate Bill 07-008
Senator Jack Taylor (R-Steamboat Springs) and Representative Kathleen Curry (D-Gunnison) introduced this legislation, which expands the water efficiency grant program administered by the Colorado Water Conservation Board to any state or local governmental entity that provides water at retail to customers. Under the grant program, the state or local governmental entity is provided funding to develop, adopt and implement a plan to encourage customers to use water more efficiently. Senate Bill 07-008 will expand the program and provide funding to smaller communities that might not otherwise be able to afford to do water conservation and efficiency planning. The bill was signed into law by Governor Ritter in June 2007. Click here to read the bill.

Past Successes

Recreational Water Rights
In 2006 CEC worked to bring together a coalition of more than 70 local governments and businesses -- along with scores of individuals -- to advocate for recreational water rights, called Recreational In-Channel Diversions (RICDs). These rights allow cities and others to appropriate water for use in whitewater parks, and to boost the recreational experience of whitewater rafting and kayaking runs. These rights also carry intrinsic environmental benefits, creating large flushing flows that clear rivers of debris and sediments and creating new aquatic and riparian habitats. This coalition worked tirelessly to support Senate Bill 05-37, which established these rights in Colorado law, helping protect our environment, recreation economy, and way of life. Read the bill here.

Stormwater Rulemaking
In early 2006 we collaborated with a group of dedicated towns and counties on the West Slope to successfully urge the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission to hold a rulemaking hearing on stormwater runoff permits. With the record-level rates of oil and gas development in Colorado, municipal drinking water supplies face increasing risk of contamination. This rulemaking pushed for high standards and best management practices to ensure that erosion and polluted run-off from oil and gas wells and drill sites do not harm Colorado's water supplies.

Clean water is an essential right for all of Colorado, and maintaining high water quality standards continues to be a priority for the conservation community. Over the past few years we’ve worked to ensure that water quality standards and regulations support protecting our precious resources. We've also continued to work to provide state funding for the Water Quality Control Division, to help the Division stay on track to fulfilling their mandate of protecting Colorado's water quality.

In January of 2006 the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission held a rulemaking meeting and agreed with conservationists and the diverse coalition that water quality standards should be upheld in the face of increased oil and gas development.  This victory helps ensure that as oil and gas development expands, our water supplies are protected.  The Commission left two issues to be addressed by the Water Quality Control Commission: first that the commission work to identify appropriate circumstances for exemptions, such as some cases where oil and gas wells are not near water sources and will not contaminate them; and second to find opportunities for increased coordination between the Water Quality Control Division and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA).