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<br />I <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />Mr. Moses: It makes water rights less flexible. To the extent that <br />things are less flexible it makes planning more difficUlt. <br /> <br />Mr. Vandemoer: As Mr. Kuiper is using the law today, we can't go out <br />and drill a well aut'in the 'dry land 0 for a house'unleao we transfer <br />some water from some irrigated right, if we are considered in the <br />South Platte basin transfers. Under this amendment here as it is <br />worded, I wonder what happens to us then. This would be a future <br />transfer, this would come up at a future time. We haven't Gone it <br />yet. I don't think we even have the law where we can do it, but we <br />hope to do it someday. <br /> <br />l-lr.,Hoses: Well of course, we get into a different area, Hr. Kuiper <br />is the one that ought to . <br /> <br />~rr..Stapleton: Mr. Kuiper is here, but nobody had a seat for him. <br />With Kuip, "ehave perfect attendance. I am sorry about that, but why <br />don't you come up a little closer to the front. <br /> <br />14r, Kuiper: This is much better, Ben. <br /> <br />~rr. Moses: As I understand the way the state engineer is implementing <br />some of these weli drilling regulations, it is that you may be per- <br />mitted to drill a well provided you either leave in or introduce into <br />the stream the quantity of water which otherwise would be removed by <br />the well. So it seems to me that kind of a technique is consistent <br />with mairitaining minimum stream flows. Again, I don't know what we <br />are goirig to do in Colorado, but I worry about what the legislature <br />is going to do. <br /> <br />As you know, we have vested righta now which permit drying up streams <br />on the lower reaches of the Arkansas at Pueblo, of any place. But <br />the practical place where they do it time and time again is on the <br />lower reaches of our basin streams, like the Rio Grande, the A~~ansas, <br />and the Platte where they appropriate or take the entire flow of the <br />stream and then downstream appropriators are supplied by return flows. <br />They have a stream actually dried up half a dozen times. There is <br />water used and reused. <br /> <br />This constitutional amendment could not take away the right of Sterling <br />No.1, or the Burlington, or the Rio Grande Canal, or the Catlin, to <br />actually dry up the stream if they need to. <br /> <br />Mr. Vandemoer: But you wouldn't be able to say whether it would make <br /> <br />-'26- <br />