Water as Ecosystem Base Handout - Melinda Kass

• Title: Water as Ecosystem Base
• Date: 7/25/2006
• Author: Melinda Kassen
• Interbasin CC - Doc Type: Presentations

Source: Pow d er River Basin Council, WY

2. How has our society’s water management system incorporated the ecological
value of water ?

For the first 100 years, Colorado’s didn’t. The Colorado Constitution provides that the
right to divert water to beneficial use shall never b e denied. There is no public interest
test, no caveat for ecosystem protection.

In 1973, the General Assembly authorized the Colorado Water Conservation Board to
appropriate junior instream flow water rights to preserve the natural environment to a
reasonable degree in streams with adequate water available. As structured, the program
pr ovides some protection for healthy stream systems from future growth, but does not
restore those stream systems that became over - appropriated in the first 100 years of the
prior appropriation system’s use.

Even since 1973, the system still does not allow for protection to the ecosystem from
other adverse ecological effects of dams and diversions, such as degraded water quality.

Moreover, given that the system has never limited new diversionary appropriations
(except for injury to appropriated instream flo w rights), rivers without instream flow
rights may still face being dried up, even when they provide critical habitat to water
dependent species.

Meanwhile dams and diversions lead to the following problems with the ecosystem:

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Blocked fish migration and habitat fragmentation
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Higher summer temperatures while increased winter risk of anchor and frazzle ice
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Increased sediment deposition