BOARD00145 ‎(2)‎

• Board Meeting Date: 3/12/2007
• Description: Interbasin Compact Process
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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Bill Ritter, Jr. - Governor
Harris D. Sherman. DNR Executive Director

Interbasin Compact Process

Background

Colorado's growth and development as a state is
intertwined with water. Development and
management of water is complex, controversial,
and at times contentious. Decisions regarding
water have become increasingly complex as
Colorado has experienced both
. unprecedented population growth
and a greater emphasis on multiple
uses of this precious resource.

Water users,
water managers,
governmental
and non.
governmental
organizations,
and citizens
have worked
hard to help ensure that their interests
are addressed when making water. related
decisions. This dynamic has challenged us all to
identify new approaches and collaborative
solutions.

This is the backdrop behind the collaborative
Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act. This
Interbasin Compact process is based upon the
premise that Coloradans must work together to
address the water needs within our entire state.
The Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act
creates a framework to encourage dialogue on
water, broaden the range of stakeholders actively
participating in the state's water decisions, and
creates a locally driven process where the
decisionmaking power rests with those living in
the state's river basins,

Since 2003, four additional pieces of enabling
legislation have provided the necessary tools for
the Water for the 21st Century Act to succeed.
The interrelationships of these tools are
described throughout the remainder of this fact
sheet,

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Implementation

The Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act sets up
a framework that provides a permanent forum for
broad-based water discussions. It creates two new
structures: 1) The Interbasin Compact Committee
(IBCC), a state-wide committee that will address
issues between basins; and 2) The Basin
Roundtables,

Nine separate roundtables are established for each
of the state's major river basins, and a ~Metro
Roundtable" for the Denver metropolitan area (see
map below).

These Basin Roundtables facilitate discussions on
water issues and encourage locally driven
collaborative solutions, The broad-based,
collaborative nature of this process is reflected in
the roundtable membership.

To help the Basin Roundtables accomplish their
major responsibility of developing a baSin-wide
needs assessment, they have relied on groundwork
completed during the Statewide Water Supply
Initiative (SWSI)_ To further develop their needs
assessments and to support water activities in each
of the basins, SB06.179, HB06-1385 and HB06-1400
were passed by the legislature during 2006. This
legislation is summarized in Figure 1,

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Colorado's Nine Basin Roundtables

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