Kansas, Colorado Attorneys General Tour Arkansas River: Farmer and Miner

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r; 'No Kansas, Colorado Attorneys General tour Arkansas river BY CASEY BREITZMAN LAMAR DAILY NEWS LAMAR - Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar and Kansas Attorney General Carla Stovall, along.with engineers and mediator Joe Mazurek, a former Montana Attorney General, met Saturday morning, at the Lamar Airport before continuing on to a road and aerial tour of the Arkansas River Basin in an ongoing attempt to resolve the Arkansas River water dispute. Kansas filed a lawsuit against Colorado in the U.S. Supreme Court in ,1985 alleging. that Colorado broke the. Arkansas River Compact by using more water than allowed,, a media advisory • said. The Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that Colorado was guilty of break ing the compact. and, owed Kansas monetary damages. In June.2001,. the "Supreme Court ruled that a -state can receive money damages, including interest from another state but no .amount was specified" the advisory stated. Salazar is optimistic that Kansas and Colorado can resolve the dis- pute about .monetary damages and. is Prepared, to go., to the General Assembly to ask .for, a damage award for Kansas: . Stovall said that Salazar's lead - ership is what " has brought Colorado and Kansas, to this point in resolving the water dispute. At the end of this dispute, Stovall said that Kansas people want to be assured that they are getting the water. promised and have a means to quantify that water. Stovall "said that Kansas wants to know that Colorado will comply with the compact in the future and Ken Salazar wants: to know how much; money will be awarded, to, Kansas. Both states are committed to the process of _resolving the water dispute and are negotiating in good faith, Mazurek said. Saturday the two states learned about the history and operation of the Arkansas River and what issues are most important; Mazurek said. Mazurek wants to make sure that there is a `:mechanism in place that will resolve this problem well into the future." The State Engineer for Colorado, Hal Simpson, said that there are a lot of people involved in the, resolution including Governor Bill Owens, the state engineers and the Department of Natural Resources. There is no easy way to determine how much water is being used by Colorado, Sirppson said Currently, the states- are dependent on complex computer models. "My hope is we can prove that Colorado is innocent," Simpson said. David Pope,; Kansas State Engineer, said that the dispute has been going on a long time, and he recognizes the complexity in data collection and analysis. Right now, Kansas is trying to determine the facts and prove that Colorado isn't compliant with the standards established in the com- pact, Pope said.