BOARD02638

• Board Meeting Date: 3/10/1998
• Description: CF Section - Requests for Approval on Loans for New Projects - State of Colorado Participation in the GASP Regulation Project
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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Colorado Statutes Concerning Water Rights

37-80-120. UDstream storage - substitute SUDDlv - historic natural deDletion. (I) In
every case in which the state engineer finds that water can be stored out of priority under
circumstances such that the water so stored can be promptly made available to downstream
senior storage appropriators in case they are unable to completely store their entire appropriative
right due to insufficient water supply, the state engineer may permit such upstream storage out of
priority, but such storage water shall be promptly released on demand of a downstream senior
whenever needed by such senior for actual use.

(2) Individuals and private or public entities, alone or in concert, may provide a
substituted supply of water to one or more appropriators senior to them, not to exceed that to
which any senior appropriator is entitled from time to time by virtue of his appropriations, and,
to the extent that such substituted water is made available to meet the appropriative requirements
of such senior, the right of such senior to draw water pursuant to his appropriation shall be
deemed to be satisfied. The rights of such senior rnay be used for effectuating such substitution
during the period while it is in operation, and the practice may be confirmed by court order as
provided for determining water rights.

(3) Any substituted water shall be of a quality and continuity to meet the requirements of
use to which the senior appropriation has normally been put. .

(4) Whenever substitute water is supplied to a senior ditch, the supplier or his assignee
may take an equivalent amount for beneficial use from water of the state of Colorado to the
fullest extent possible without impairing the availability of water lawfully divertible by others. A
practice of substitution or exchange pursuant to law may constitute an appropriative right and
may be adjudicated or otherwise evidenced as any other right of appropriation.

(S) In determining the quantity of water required as a substitute supply to replace
evaporation from ground water exposed to the atmosphere in connection with the extraction of
sand and gravel by open mining as defined in section 34-32-103 (9), C.R.S., there shall be no
requirement to replace the amount of historic natural depletion to the waters of the state, if any,
caused by the preexisting natural vegetative cover on the surface of the area which will be, or
which has been, permanently replaced by an open water surface. The applicant shall bear the
burden of proving the historic natural depletion.

37-81-101. Diversion of water outside state - aDDlication reauired - sDecial conditions-
Denaltv. (I) (a) The general assembly hereby finds and declares that the location and availability
of water in this state varies greatly from place to place and that the state as a whole suffers a
shortage of water. The general assembly further recognizes that, because of Colorado's unique
location at the headwaters of four of the nation's major western rivers and because all the major
river systems in Colorado flow out of the state, and that, in order to insure the availability of
these scarce water reSources for the use of citizens of the state of Colorado, compacts have been
entered into with the downstream states on all the major rivers originating in Colorado.