8009

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8009
• Author: Natural Resources Law Center.
• Title: Restoring the Waters.
• USFW Year: 1997.
• USFW - Doc Type: Boulder, CO.
• Copyright Material: YES

Flexigility Yields Results
To meet its master plan goal, Boulder and
the CWCB negotiated a contract, signed in
1990 and amended twice since then. The
contract deeds ownership of a portion of
Boulder's senior water rights to the CWCB.
Most of these rights derived from shares in
agricultural ditch companies, dating from
1859, 1860 and 1862. The contract also
deeds use of certain other water rights
whose ownership the city retained. The
contract provides that the CWCB must use
the water for instream flow purposes and
it makes the City of Boulder CWCB's agent
for administering the rights. Consequently,
the city monitors the stream and ditches to
assure that sufficient water remains in the
stream.
After contracting for the transfer of water
rights, Boulder and CWCB filed a joint
petition for a decree from the Colorado
water court to use the water rights and
storage releases for instream flow. The
filing was contested by eight stream users,
but the City of Boulder and CWCB
received approval of the change of use and
a joint decree for instream and municipal
use after settling with seven of the eight
objectors, and prevailing at a trial over the
eighth objector.
Instream flow use of the transferred
Boulder water rights is not exclusive; the
city may use the water right when it is not
neede~~ for providing the minimum
instream flows. Further, in time of a
drought or emergency, the City of Boulder
is allowed to call the water for municipal
purposes, after first tapping all their other
available sources. Neither "drought" nor
"facilixy emergency" is defined in the
CWCB contract, but based on the avail-
ability of other water, a call on the water
due to drought is likely to occur only once
every 70 years. It is more likely that a
failure of the city's raw water piping
system would create an emergency t11at
could permit a call on the transferred
rights to dry up an otherwise protected
portion of Boulder Creek.
While the drought/emergency provision
limits the protection of instream resources,
it provides a safety net for the city's
domestic users that was instrumental in
getting the City of Boulder to donate the
rights for instream protection.
For Mlore Information Contact:
Carol Ellinghouse, P.E.
City of Boulder Water Resources
Coordinator
P.O. ISox 791
Boulder, CO 80306
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]
How much water is enough?
^ The Colorado Division of Wildlife
studied the stream reaches of
Boulder Creek and its tributaries
and designated separate summer
and winter minimum flows
ranging from 1.5 cfs at the
headwaters to 15 cfs through the
city.
^ The Boulder Creek project
recognized that use of water rights
to maintain instream flaws is a
use of water comparable to any
other use. The minimum flows
provided were not intended to
return the stream to any pre-
development, "natural" condition.
Rather, they were calculated by the
fisheries experts to meet a specific
goal -maintenance of minimum
summer and winter flows
necessary for healthy fish habitat.
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