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Colorado Public Radio <br />Colorado Matters Show <br />Host Dan Drayer <br />August 28, 2003 <br />Excerpt of Interview with <br />Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobbs <br />[j oined in progress starting at approximately 19 minutes into the interview and ending <br />approximately 24 minutes of the 25:52 recording] <br />Dan Drayer: If you just tuned in, we're talking with Colorado Supreme Court <br />Justice Gregory Hobbs about his "Citizen's Guide to Colorado Water <br />Law." One of the newest features of water law here involves the <br />protection of some waters in in- stream flow. We touched on it just a <br />little bit. How is that area of the law evolving? <br />Justice Hobbs: Well, it's been very, very dramatic. In 1973 the Colorado Legislature <br />made Colorado the first state to provide within its priority system the <br />ability of a state agency, the State Water Conservation Board, to <br />appropriate water in priority, subject to senior rights, for protection of <br />the environment to a reasonable degree. That has resulted in 8,000 <br />miles of Colorado streams being protected for a use that was never <br />recognized in the traditional water law. Farmers took water out of the <br />stream; cities took water out of the stream. <br />Here is a state board that keeps water in the stream, doesn't have to <br />have a point of diversion, which every other right has to have, for the <br />use to be valid under Colorado law. Of course, that was challenged in <br />the Colorado Supreme Court after the legislature passed it in '73. <br />And in an historic 1979 decision, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld <br />the constitutionality of the state's in- stream flow law, saying the <br />legislature wants to give a state -wide board the authority to do this <br />we're not going to stand in the way. That's another example the <br />custom and values of the people evolving through their elected <br />representatives. <br />Dan Drayer: I know that when I talk to people about some stories that we've <br />reported on "Colorado Matters" and you talk about in- stream flows, I <br />Colorado Public Radio - Colorado Matters Show <br />Host Dan Drayer - August 28, 2003 <br />Excerpt of Interview with <br />Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobs <br />Pare 1 <br />