BOARD02257

• Board Meeting Date: 3/13/1963
• Description: Table of Contents, Agenda and Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

MR. STAPLETON:

MR. KUIPER:

MR. SPARKS:

the Game and
the agenda.
before we go

Fish Department, that is not on
Shall we complete the House bills
into the Senate bills?"

"Yes."

"This is House Bill No. 328 'Concerning
Game and Fish and Enlarging the Powers of the
Game and Fish Commission in Acquiring, Holding
and Adjudicating Waters far Fishing and other
Recreational Purposes'. I have not seen this
bill until just now and cannot give you any
briefing on it. I think Larry has done some
work on it, have you not, Larry? Could you
give us a briefing on that?"

I

"Yes. You will find copies of this bill
in your folders and there are additional copies
up here on the stage. This bill was just printed
in the Legislature and was not available at the
time the agenda was prepared.

This bill simply would grant to the Game
and Fish Department the power to adjudicate
water for fish purposes. Now, at the present
time, the authority has already been granted
by the courts to acquire a decree for the propa-
gation of fish in reservoirs so I assume that
the purpose of this bill is to permit the Game
and Fish Department to appropriate the natural
flow of the streams because the bill says that
nothing is necessary to be done for this appro-
priation except to say so. In other words,
under this bill the Game and Fish can go into
any stream in Colorado and say 'We hereby appro-
priate the flow of the stream'. Whether or not
this is constitutional, I have no idea, but the
net effect could be, of course, that there could
be no further appropriation from any stream in
the State of Colorado if the purpose of this
bill, as expressed, was carried out.

I

There are no guidelines set up in the bill
as to what they mean by beneficial purposes for
fishing purposes. VIe don't know whether that
means the minimum stream flow at a certain time