Bill Would Protect Upstream Water Users from Rec Interests

• Description: SB 01-216
• State: CO
• Basin: South Platte
• Water Division: 1
• Date: 4/19/2001
• Author: Tom McAvoy, The Pueblo Chieftain
• Title: Bill Would Protect Upstream Water Users from Rec Interests
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: News Article/Press Release

The Pueblo Chieftain Online - Thursday April 19, 2001
threat of claims on stream flows.
The San Luis Valley Republican and potato
farmer won Senate Public Policy and
Planning Committee approval Wednesday
for a bill to require a Water Conservation
Board review and recommendations before
such recreational diversion applications go to
water court.
Entz and water experts summed up the
urgency:
When the city of Fort Collins received
rights to 30 cubic feet per second to
accommodate a kayak course, it was a
worrisome water court precedent.
Then, Littleton raised the ante by
winning a water court decree for 100
cubic feet per second (each cfs being
450 gallons per minute or 636,360
gallons of water per day).
Now, Golden has applied for 1,000 cfs,
which some experts equated with "the
entire flow" of Clear Creek as it passes
through the brewery city west of
Denver.
Attorney General Ken Salazar's "huge
concern" is Colorado's river compact
entitlements, said First Assistant Attorney
General Steve Simms, testifying for Entz's
SB216.
If large in- channel diversions end up
preventing upstream users from exercising
their water rights, the water could flow
through the designated kayak or boating
runs all the way downstream until it actually
leaves the state.
Patti Wells of the Denver Water Board said
large in- channel diversions may become the
means for environmentalists to achieve their
no- growth ends.
"If you can get an instream flow, you can in
fact prevent upstream growth," she said.
Simms said Golden experiences a flow of
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