River Protection Workgroup Initial River Protection Tools/Mechanisms

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CDOW works with the CWCB to quantify amounts necessary to preserve or improve the natural environment with acquired water. The CWCB must apply to Water Court to obtain a change decree to use an acquired water right for ISF purposes to ensure that no injury will result from the change. Benefits of water acquisitions: Acquisitions can: protect ISFs where water may not be available for a new junior ISF right; restore, rehabilitate or improve the natural environment in degraded stream systems; and extend the amount of time water is legally available to existing junior ISF water rights. Acquired rights, changed by decree of the Water Court, are administered in priority. The CWCB and water rights owners can develop creative approaches to ISF protection in the acquisition process. For more detailed information on the ISF Program, go to http: / /cwcb.statc>. co. us/StreamAndLake/ . II. Colorado Law and Intergovernmental Agreements: A broad range of potential enactments and intergovernmental agreements by the State of Colorado could provide habitat protection should either the General Assembly or Colorado Executive departments believe laws or agreements are necessary. Colorado law could include the creation of state parks; Colorado Executive departments could execute endangered species recovery implementation programs, in addition to these for the Upper Colorado River, the San Juan River Basin and the Platte River and native species protection agreements in addition to the Five State Agreement regarding native fish and the multi- state agreement regarding Colorado River Cutthroat Trout could be executed. III. Conservation Easements: A conservation easement keeps land in private ownership while providing benefits to the public and the environment, by allowing for the preservation of traditional land uses and protecting open lands for future generations. A conservation easement, a legally binding agreement, restricts what a landowner may place on property in order to protect its natural, agricultural and/or open space values for the long term and limits certain types of uses and/or prevents development from taking place. In a conservation easement, a landowner voluntarily agrees to donate or sell certain rights associated with property, such as the right to subdivide. A private organization or public agency agrees to hold "in trust" the landowner's promise not to exercise those rights. In La Plata County over 18,000 acres have been conserved voluntarily by landowners working primarily with the La Plata Open Space Conservancy. In Archuleta County, the principal land conservancy entity is the Southwest Land Alliance. In other places, conservation easements have permanently protected significant reaches of river channel and riverside habitat. A conservation easement may include language that specifically recognizes the importance of all or some of the water rights associated with a property to 3