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<br />-(. i -.~.".- <br /> <br />.. "" , ~ <br />, .. <br /> <br />"#:.. ' <br />OQ20S0 <br /> <br />develop policies and mechanisms to accomplish better water management after weighing the <br />competing resource use issues. <br /> <br />Senator Glass introduced bills in 1984, 1985, and 1986 which would have created a <br />right to sell, transfer, or reuse salvaged water (defined as any reduction in historical <br />consumptive use) resulting from efficiency improvements under tbe original priority date. <br />SB 84-161, SB 85-95, SB 86-126; see appendix . Senator Glass explained that such a <br />right might already exist with respect to a Colorado water right, but due to uncertainty water <br />users were reluctant to become more efficient, or at least had less incentive to do so. The <br />right to change a portion of the historical consumptive use of a water right while continuing <br />the full level of activity under which that consumptive use previously occurred apparently <br />has never been judicially approved. Such a plan might seem like an improper expansion of <br />use, and yet the stream would be unaffected because actual depletion before and after the <br />improved efficiency would remain the same. <br /> <br />In 1991 a different approach to encouraging improved efficiencies was introduced by <br />Representative Foster, HB 91-1110. That bill would have allowed the sale, transfer, or <br />reuse of "saved water" defined as the reduction in historical diversion rates resulting from <br />system modernization, which would otherwise be lost to appropriators in Colorado. A saved <br />water right would retain the same priority date as the original appropriation. Any use or <br />change of this saved water could only occur if it caused no injury to any downstream users. <br />This proposal would overturn the holding in Water Supply Co., ~ that a reuse right only <br />receives an appropriation date fixed by the formulation of the intent and "first step" to reuse <br />the water. <br /> <br />During attempts to move the bill out of the Senate Agriculture, Uvestock, and Natural <br />Resources Committee, an amendment limiting salvage to the Colorado River basin was <br />considered. There was substantial support for salvage in Western Colorado and return flow <br />reliance there is not as great as on the Front Range. Such an attempt to limit the statewide <br />applicability of a salvage or saved water right may raise issues of special legislation and <br /> <br />23 <br />