9377

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9377
• Author: Colorado Water Workshop.
• Title: 16th Annual Colorado Water Workshop.
• USFW Year: 1991.
• USFW - Doc Type: Western State College.
• Copyright Material: NO

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Sara Duncan
628-6477

COLORADO WATER WORKSHOP
Gunnison, Colorado
July 22, 1991

CONSERVATION WATER RIGHTS
HB 1110

I. HB 1110 (attached) -- as proposed allows an owner of
any direct flow water right to apply for a
"conservation water right" in the same manner as any
other water right.

A. Conservation water right would be measured by
water which is diverted not water which is
consumed.

B. The amount of a conservation water right would be
that water which will no longer be needed for
diversion "at the applicant's point of diversion
because of modernization, improvement, or change
in applicant's methods of operation and which
would otherwise be lost to appropriators within
the state of Colorado."

C. Conservation water right is a conditional water
right with the same appropriation date as the
original water right.

D. Conservation water right becomes absolute "upon
completion of said modernization, improvement, or
change in the applicant's method of operation..."

E. No injury rule is incorporated into any change of
conservation water right.

II. Fundamental water law concepts which H.B. 1110 does not
account for:

A. Water right is a usufructuary right -- no
entitlement to water which is not put to
beneficial use. Navajo Development Col. v.
Sanderson, 655 P.2d 1374 (Colo. 1982). Is water
which has never been consumed and no longer needed
for diversion a water right which may be
transferred by the decree holder to another?
Colorado Constitution" Art. XVI, Sec. 5.