SB01-216 Senate Committee on Public Policy and Planning

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anyone wants a water right, they must go to one of these Water Courts. Issues surrounding water rights, such as the amount of use, the season of use, and so forth, are the specific kinds of determinations that Water Courts are set up to handle. The board now wants that job of making decisions about water rights. But I submit that that's the job of a judge [unintelligible] and not the job of a political board. This bill, it would be retroactive. The reason that there's this language necessary to grandfather in Golden is that the bill would effect other pending Water Court applications. It would effect any application filed after December 1, 2000, including the Eagle Valley, the Eagle Water and San District application, that of Breckenridge, perhaps that of Aspen, although the language is somewhat unclear, and a private water right filed in Division 4. It is true that the board does have some quasi-judicial function now when it makes determinations about in -stream flow rights. But there's an important distinction there. Those are the board's own water rights, the board's own appropriations. And members of the public may come before the board and present information for its consideration before it makes an appropriation. This bill is something very different . than that. This bill would give the board authority to make determinations about other people's water rights. This issue has been getting some press. For example, an editorial in the March 4 Denver Post, which reads in part "This bill", they're p , Y referring to the bill, "would let state bureaucrats dictate whether municipalities can engage in certain kinds of economic development. It would usurp local control, invite political favoritism and create a needless exception in Colorado's long - honored system of allocating water rights." I think that that's a fairly good summary. And I will end there and be happy to take questions. Mme. Chair: Are there questions for either Ms. Evans or Ms Custer? If not, thank you very much. K. Custer: Thank you, Madam Chairman. Mme. Chair: I have two people from American White Water, Jay Kenney and Shelby Katz, is that right? Jay Kenney: The names are right, the affiliations are not exactly right. I'm from American Whitewater. Ms. Katz is from the Colorado Whitewater Association. Mme. Chair: All right. [unintelligible] April 12, 2001 Page 19