SB01-216 Senate Committee on Public Policy and Planning

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What that means is the water right applicant doesn't get to present its case in court. There's a second layer of government regulation that's created. Instead of a level playing field, the applicant's fate is determined by an appointed board. One of the problems here is the appointees often represent other water interests, which may or may not be adverse to the application. And to make matters worse, the CWCB has already indicated and voiced opposition to these kind of water right filings. So the real concern and you've heard it already today, is you're not going to get a fair shake. We believe, and I guess this is where I strongly disagree with some of the previous testimony' that there are already standards in place. There's already criteria and that the general assembly has had input. Water Courts are well equipped to handle these kind of appropriations just like any other appropriation, all the thousands of other appropriations that are handled every single year. And under the existing law, the Water Court is going to look at how much water is actually being controlled and diverted in this case. Are the diversions reasonable? Is there waste? Are the diversions efficient? Is there injury? All of that exists right now in the current statutes and that is applied to all diversions of water rights. So there is criteria already placed in the statute and that's what the Water Court applies. Now, if the General Assembly would like to impose additional criteria • on the Water Court, we could support that. I don't know what those criteria would be, because all of the criteria that's in the bill, the Water Court is already going to look at. In fact there's already statutes in place to prevent the export of water out of the state and to protect compact entitlements. So all of that is already considered. And I think the main point on this issue, is please do not take away the right to a fair trial. The Water Court can do it and there we do have evidentiary rules and there you know you're playing on a level field. The second point I wanted to make is that we strongly believe that the bill discriminates against recreational industry by treating recreational diversions as second class water rights. You're already heard testimony on that, so I'll make it real short. There are no other water rights that are required to forego their day in court. This would be a brand new precedent. The bill is also anti - recreational diversions because it limits these kind of diversions to minimum flows. I don't know what that means, but no other water right in Colorado is required to be limited to minimum flows. It's limited to the amount applied to beneficial use with efficiency [unintelligible] standard. If you limit April 12, 2001 Page 33