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<br />changing such a right." The. environmental assessment would have included "an evaluation <br />of any adverse changes which may occur in the soil, geography, and habitat of a given area <br />if water is removed." The economic assessment would have addressed "the loss in assessed <br />valuation of land after water is removed and the effect of such loss on county and other <br />local government services such as police protection, fire protection, and public schools." <br /> <br />Senate Bill 4 was recommended for consideration by an interim legislative study <br />committee that met following the 1990 session. Although the concept of basin- of-origin <br />protection received support in testimony before the committee, the comments of one West <br />Slope county commissioner suggest the need for a broader approach than contained in the <br />original bill: <br />The problem is that basin of origin legislation is typically seen as some form <br />of compensation rather than a piece of a much bigger resource management <br />picture. We are afraid that a compensation-oriented basin of origin bill is <br />premature in the absence of a comprehensive, problem-solving approach to <br />water management. . . . In order to find a solution to these problems, basin of <br />origin included, there needs to be a collaborative, consensus based process <br />that recognizes the integrated nature of the problem. 72 <br /> <br />The approach ultimately presented in the interim committee's bill went beyond <br />mitigation and included components similar to those contained in many state <br />environmental policy acts, whereby the applicant is required to prepare the equivalent of <br />an environmental impact statement. University of New Mexico law professor Charles <br />DuMars acknowledges that this approach is "attractive... (and] might be helpful but <br />probably would not go far enough. . . because it would provide no decision rule: it is one <br />thing to display impacts and quite another to decide that one or another impact justifies <br />scrubbing a project." 73 <br /> <br />36 <br />