2-07 House Committee Lay Over Unamended

• Title: 2-07 House Committee Lay Over Unamended
• IBCC - Doc Type: Legislation

2-07 House Committee Lay Over Unamended

Page 32 of 49

Now the Northern District under the Conservancy Act has been
forced to do that on two different occasions. I can assure you it
was not a smooth process. It took a lot of time, a lot of effort, but I
think the results that came out of it were very favorable to the state
of Colorado. I think this bill represents that same type of effort.

There's not a basin in the state that doesn't have something it
needs and probably would be willing to bring something to the
table to negotiate that. Water management alternatives are needed
out there. We've all seen the results of the SWSI report and they
are somewhat alarming. Those alternatives need to be pursued and
we need to enter into Colorado's future with some certainty.

A few of the things that concern us in regard to this bill is it's
important to craft these compacts in a way that there's not a
seniority to those compacts. We've got seven basins within the
state of Colorado and there's a number of permutations of
compacts between the individual basins. We don't want to have a
first in time, first in right with regard to these compacts. So as
they're formulated I think it's very impOliant that they stand alone
and one compact doesn't affect the other compact. After all, the
concept behind compacts are really doctrines of equitable
apportionment.

That's the very reason that Delph Carpenter entered into the
negotiations in the Colorado River basin because he was scared to
death of the doctrine of prior appropriations as it may pertain to
distribution of water or apportionment of water amongst the states.
So as we go into this concept, I think it's very important to keep
that in place.

Also, as a member of the Colorado Water Conservation Board
representing the South Platt basin, I would like to see this effort
parallel the efforts that the Colorado Water Conservation Board is
doing with SWSI. I think SWSI plays a very important role, as
Director Russell said, in providing the data and the real foundation
it's going to take to move this effort forward.

I would hate to see, as is implied in some areas of this legislation,
that these basin roundtables under the authority of this legislation
do a repetition or an overview of basin needs an desires in addition
to what's been done with SWSI. SWSI was put in place to do that
and I think this type of legislation may invoke people to come to
the SWSI effort and be more forthright in what they need so that

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