SB01-216 Senate Committee on Public Policy and Planning

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Sen. McElhany: Well, then aren't what we really are saying here then is for these recreational purposes, there isn't going to be a water right. That essentially you can use whatever water is there when it happens to be there for recreational purposes in these kayak runs or whatever they are, but because from what you're saying, any kind of a right there at all would interfere with moving or transferring at some point in the future. So I guess what I'm saying, I guess what we're really saying is that, I mean, I don't know that there is any great amount of judgment to be exercised here if we're going to just simply say if there's water there in a wet year, you can go ahead and use it. If it's a dry year and everybody's fighting for water, then we can guarantee it's going to be there. Mme. Chair: Representative Paulson. Sen. McElhany: I'm not saying I object to that, I don't know, but I think that's what I'm hearing. Mme. Chair: Representative Paulson. C. Paulson: Madam Chairman. No, what I'm saying is what the Conservation Board has brought before you is a process to allow for some recreational flows that might have an innovative component in terms of timing and amount different than the current system, which is first come first serve, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, whatever you want go file for it, because how can a court right now quantify whether 500 second feet or a thousand second feet is adequate. But yet those numbers have huge implications when they only occur two or three days a year and you might be able to fill a reservoir for municipal use for 50 thousand .people during those two days, but you can't exchange the point of diversion up to where the reservoir is. Think of it this way, in terms of economic terms, right now municipal water in certain spot markets is you can have to pay up to $15 thousand to $20 thousand an acre foot. We are talking here about the economic impacts of having somebody decide without any state criteria that they feel that they've got the chance to set up a water course and have no consideration of those economic impacts for the rest of the state. And whether you do it through state legislation telling the Water Court what the criteria have to be or if you allow the Conservation Board under certain criteria to allow for the filing of these recreational flows where they can manipulate the timing and the quantities given the recreational benefit, that's the policy decision that's before you. Or the one thing you know for sure is if you do nothing, there's going to be a lot of people filing on these recreational flows between now and the next time you have a chance to look at it. If you do something, what you're going to do is provide some kind of state policy April 12, 2001 Page 28