Recreational Instream Flow Workshop Tanscription of Meeting Tape

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purveys the memos that have been circulated by the Conservation board staff is really totally contrary to the fundamental principles of Colorado law. Really to the contrary we feel that.municipal providers are in the best position to adjudicate and hold recreation rights and to then to make decisions on whether domestic or recreation use should take precedence in a given area. There may be times for example when the water service entity providing water to the town of Vail uh says no domestic uses should take precedence as opposed to the recreational diversion. And if they are holding both rights they can make those decisions but if the state is the one holding one ri ght and the municipal provider is ho olding the others then you have to go through a whole another laver of decision- making that is inappropriate. The fifth point is on the diversion now and there have been a lot of questions raised on that. We suggest that that is based on, should be based on two things. First of all, what is the design capacity of a given kayak course? And that in turn is dictated by water availability. Let's take the Golden kayak course as an example. This maybe different from many other kayak courses around the state that is specifically designed to be a world -class facility, I want to really emphasize this, that it was designed to be a world - class facility. Just as you may design certain swimming pools to be one thing and others to be Olympic size, well this was designed to be the best, biggest and best if not in the state, uh if not in the region, then surely in the state. That in turn, vastly increased the capital expenditures, that increases the annual maintenance costs of the facility and one of the reasons why Golden was willing to do that is because it was an integral component of an overall downtown revitalization and river walk plan. That is not going to be the case everywhere but if that is the case in a given instance then it should be applauded. Iifthe case of the Golden kayak course it talked about negotiations with upstream water users. Well they have engaged in good faith negotiations and settlements with towns such as Idaho Springs, Georgetown, the Loveland ski area, and the town of Empire. Those are the major water users upriver there. Clear Creek County holds no water rights and yet the water users within their county have been able to deal with this particular appropriation however large it maybe. Uh, really pointing out the design capacity is just a list of the type of events that Golden has sponsored since that kayak course was constructed and just a brief list shows such things as the Eddie Bauer Championship, the US Olympic qualifying rounds, the junior Olympic championships, uh it goes on and on. Well it truly it is fitting a different niche. And we suggest that the. CWCB should not be in the position of opposing or interfering with such positive public benefits. The sixth point, last point is really what I refer to is the red herrings and that's issues such as waste, administration, compact and all the others that are set forth in the memo. Because the fact is that if you treat recreational diversions like any other water diversions which is what they are, these rights present no special problems or greater impact and can be dealt with in the context of existing law. Let me just conclude briefly in saying that the effort to portray recreational diversions as some how novel and far- fetched is really inappropriate. The law is established and municipalities seeking water rights for their kayak courses fall well within the law. And again we submit that by creating artificial definitions and distinctions it's really the CWCB that's trying to change the law. These kayak courses have tremendous, recreational benefits that have collateral environmental, and economic benefits as well. My clients certainly view this effort that's been initiated by the Conservation Board as a direct attack against the State's recreation based economy. We asked are you next going to attempt to attack huge agricultural diversions? What about large hydro power diversions or large municipal diversions? If not then why not? Because the only difference between those categories of %rater diversions and recreational diversion is that the recreational diversions in all cases non - consumptive, they don't dewater significant reaches of the river such as a hydro power right, and they have no adverse water quality effects. Thank you very much. I have copies of these responses and I will set these here. Greg Walcher Glen let me ask you a hypothetical question. Let's say that some local government entity built a boat chute. Um and filed on a recreational flow right roughl% equivalent to all the remaining water in the river at the state line on all the drainages that left western Colorado. What effect would that have on the interstate compact which essentially says that Colorado is alloyed to consume a million acre more water than we are consuming right now? 13