BOARD02069

• Board Meeting Date: 11/13/1968
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

the first few years in an effort to try to
bring all the wells within the adjudication
system at the least expense possible.

If somebody protests there will be a I
hearing set. This judge will travel to the
local district court to hear the cases. The
judge will be a judge from the division.
Under the present draft he will be appointed
for one year and can be reappointed. If he
can't handle the work load, additional judges
will be appointed. It is an effort here to
try and bring both the surface and under-
ground water on the basis that it is all a
part of one ball of wax within one system.

Draft Bill No. 2 is, I think, in many
areas what many of us have been looking for.
There is a great concensus throughout the
state that we need something like what is
contained in this draft. The constitution
says you can appropriate water to a bene-
ficial use. Of course, waste is the opposite
of that. Now this bill makes it a positive
duty of the state engineer to establish and
enforce regulations limiting use of water to
beneficial use consistent with the defini-
tions contained in the proposed draft with
the objective of deriving an optimum use of
waters within each division within Colorado
consistent with established rights.

We have definitions of water supply,
water supply agricultural, municipal, his-
toric supply, waste and then we also have
definitions in the act of beneficial use in
broad general terms. I want to call your
particular attention to Section 3. We have
been wrestling with this program for a long
time and there is a great difference of
opinion throughout the state as to whether
we should have an annual ceiling on the
amount of water that can be used, the v.olu-
metric concept, and Section 3 of this act
goes a long way toward the ultimate

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