7936

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7936
• Author: McDonald, J. W.
• Title: A Primer On Colorado's Water Policies.
• USFW Year: 1988.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

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Policies with Regard to Federal Requirements
In the last 20 to 30 years, the federal government has,
with increasing frequency, implemented programs which can
affect the exercise of water rights and the use of the state's
water resources. This has been most pronounced in the areas of
federal environmental laws and regulatory programs and of water
rights claims of the United States.
There is inherent tension between a state water rights
system which imposes essentially no conditions on the use and
development of private water rights other than protection of
the relative priority of water rights and prevention of
material injury, and federal laws and regulatory programs which
call for various parameters and criteria to be taken into
account when federal permitting and licensing decisions on
water development proposals are being made. This is because
what could be done as a matter of state law in the use and
development of water is being conditioned and constrained by
the imposition of federal requirements which are largely
foreign to the state's water rights system.
In general, it has been the policy of state government to
resist these federal "incursions" into our water rights system
to the extent that it was thought that they were unreasonable
or would adversely impact the ability of the state to develop
its compact entitlements. It is in this area, however, more
than any other, that water policy in Colorado is in a state of
flux as the state debates how to respond to issues such as
salinity control in the Colorado River basin; water quality
program requirements in general; endangered species habitat
requirements; and imposition of conditions in federal permits
pertaining to instream flows, improvements in efficiency of
water use, mitigation of fish and wildlife impacts, etc.; and
to federal water rights claims for instream flows far various
purposes.
Water Development Agencies
An important component of Colorado's water policies has
been the policy of enabling the creation of a large number of
different kinds of special purpose governmental or
quasi-governmental entities, each tailor made to handle certain
water development programs or activities. Furthermore, it has
been the state's policy to vest considerable autonomy and
authority in these entities, thereby reducing the role of
general purpose governments in water resources development.
This reflects the historically accepted view that water
resources decisions require special expertise and deserve
special attention by entities solely devoted to that purpose.
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