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PART FOUR: LEGISLATIVE POLICY OPTIONS Public interest considerations have usually been incorporated into the water transfer process through negotiations involved with adversarial proceedings. The court-imposed conditions in the Arkansas River transfer illustrate this point. Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District attorney Kevin Pratt contends that litigation is used in transfer cases to create the leverage that facilitates a settlement. An objector to a transfer believes the transfer adversely impacts his private interest or violates his perception of the public interest. Current (Colorado] law encompasses concepts of injury broad enough to protect a broad range of private and public interests. By extending current doctrines and demanding strict proof by transfer proponents, many water transfers can be reformed to satisfy all parties. While some commentators assert that the traditional water law non-injury standard does not allow adequate protection from injury to the interest they want to protect, the Rocky Ford transfer case demonstrates the opportunity in existing water transfer procedures to inhibit and modify transfers for the purpose of protecting a broad range of interests.70 In supporting area-of-origin protection legislation before the Colorado Senate Committee on Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy during the 1991 session (Senate Bill 4), Senator Harold McCormick, the bill's sponsor, argued that it was not good public policy to abdicate to the judgement of individual courts the determination of public interest; he felt it was incumbent on the legislature to provide the courts with clear direction.71 (Senate Bill 4, as amended, would have empowered the courts to require revegetation of retired farmland and financial compensation for any reduction in the local tax base in the area of origin impacted by a proposed water transfer; it failed to get out of committee on a 5-4 vote.) 34