My WebLink
|
Help
|
About
|
Sign Out
Home
Browse
Search
By-pass Flows on National Forest Lands
CWCB
>
Publications
>
DayForward
>
By-pass Flows on National Forest Lands
Metadata
Thumbnails
Annotations
Entry Properties
Last modified
5/30/2012 2:10:44 PM
Creation date
11/1/2011 2:57:06 PM
Metadata
Fields
Template:
Publications
Year
2001
Description
Statement of Kent Hoslinger Assistant Director Colorado Department of Natural Resources By-pass Flows on National Forest Lands United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health Subcommittee on Water and Power May 22, 2001
Publications - Doc Type
Other
There are no annotations on this page.
Document management portal powered by Laserfiche WebLink 9 © 1998-2015
Laserfiche.
All rights reserved.
/
30
PDF
Print
Pages to print
Enter page numbers and/or page ranges separated by commas. For example, 1,3,5-12.
After downloading, print the document using a PDF reader (e.g. Adobe Reader).
Show annotations
View images
View plain text
I <br /> Statement of Kent Holsinger <br /> Assistant Director 1 <br /> Colorado Department of Natural Resources <br /> BYPASSING CONGRESS: THE ILLEGAL USE OF"BYPASS FLOWS" ON <br /> NATIONAL FOREST LANDS <br /> United States House of Representatives <br /> Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health <br /> Subcommittee on Water and Power <br /> May 22, 2000 <br /> Introduction <br /> We greatly appreciate Chairman McInnis' interest and work on this issue. We thank <br /> Chairmen McInnis and Calvert for holding this hearing on such an important matter. We <br /> also thank Congressman Schaffer and Senator Allard for circulating and sending letters to <br /> Secretary Veneman and Attorney General Ashcroft respectively. <br /> Everyone's heard the old adage, "Whiskey's for drinkin' and water's for fightin'." With <br /> all due respect to Mark Twain, at least in this case,we beg to differ. How do we surpass <br /> such a contentious issue as bypass flows--the topic of this hearing? <br /> The State of Colorado envisions a new era of cooperation: one of comity with the federal <br /> government that results in real environmental benefits. For this to happen,the U.S. <br /> Forest Service must abandon the ill-founded, and we believe, illegal, practice of imposing <br /> bypass flows on water providers. Instead, it must work collectively with the states and <br /> water providers to protect resource values. Specifically, the Forest Service must work <br /> within the bounds of state water laws and pursue any federal claims to water in state <br /> adjudications. <br /> Federal claims for water have always been contentious and have rarely been successful. <br /> With Congress' enactment of the McCarran Amendment in 1952, the United States <br /> waived its sovereign immunity and consented to the jurisdiction of state water <br /> adjudications. In 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court, in U.S. v. Idaho, affirmed that the <br /> McCarran Amendment subjected federal claims to water rights to state adjudications and <br /> clarified that federal claims were subject to state laws. <br /> The Forest Service must attain the secondary purposes of the National Forests by <br /> obtaining and exercising water rights in accordance with state and federal laws. Bypass <br /> flow claims contravene one of the primary purposes for which the forest lands were <br /> reserved—to secure favorable water flows for water providers. Moreover,bypass flows <br /> simply don't work. They fail to provide environmental protection and instead create an <br /> atmosphere of hostility, litigation and distrust. <br />
The URL can be used to link to this page
Your browser does not support the video tag.