BOARD01296

• Board Meeting Date: 3/29/1999
• Description: Legislation - Colorado Wilderness Act ‎(BLM Wilderness Legislation, H.R.829)‎
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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Water Rights Language from PL 103-77
Colorado Wilderness Act of 1993

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SEe. 8. WATER.

(a) FINDINGS, PURPOSE, AND DEFINlTION- (I) Congress finds that--
(A) the lands designated as wildemess by this Act are located at the
headwaters ofthe streams and rivers on those lands, with few, if any, actual or
proposed water resource facilities located upstream from such lands and few,
if any, opportunities for diversion, storage, or other uses of water occurring
outside such lands that would adversely affect the wilderness values of such
lands; and

(B) the lands designated as wildemess by this Act are not suitable for use for
development of new water resource facilities, or for the expansion of existing
facilities; and

(C) therefore, it is possible to proyide for proper management and protection
of the wildemess value of such lands in ways different from those utilized in
other legislation designating as wildemess lands not sharing the attributes of
the lands designated as wildemess by this Act.

(2) The purpose of this section is to protect the wilderness values of the
lands designated as wilderness by this Act by means other than those
based on a Federal reserved water right.

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(3) As used in this section, the term 'water resource facility' means
irrigation and pumping facilities, reservoirs, water conservation works,
aqueducts, canals, ditches, pipelines, wells, hydropower projects, and
transmission and other ancillary facilities, and other water diversion,
storage, and carriage structures.

(b) RESTRICTIONS ON RIGHTS AND DISCLAIMER OF EFFECT- (1) Neither
the Secretary of Agriculture nor the Secre~ary of the Interior, nor any other officer,
employee, representative, or agent of the United States, nor any other person, shall
assert in any court or agency, nor shall any court or agency consider, any claim to or
for water or water rights in the State of Colorado, which is based on any construction
of any portion of this Act, or the designation of any lands as wildemess by this Act,
as constituting an express or implied reservation of water or water rights.

(2)(A) Nothing in this Act shall constitute or be construed to constitute either an
express or implied reservation of any water or water rights with respect to the
Piedra, Roubideau, and Tabeguacheareas identified in section 9 of this Act, or the
Bowen Gulch Protection Area or the Fossil Ridge Recreation Management Area
identified in sections 5 and 6 of this Act. e