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<br />- 002847 <br /> <br />environmental purposes or to enforce these water rights once they <br />are obtained. It is hard to understand why they believe that <br />federal agencies will do the job better than the State. In the <br />Sierra Club v. Block case, Judge Kane ruled that courts cannot <br />compel executive agencies to file litigation to claim or enforce <br />federal reserved water rights. The State of Colorado has an <br />established program for instream flows; the federal government <br />lacks one. <br /> <br />Our experience is that the water users and the State <br />Legislature have accepted the place of instream flows in our <br />water law system. This is not altogether a recent development <br />either. Senate Document 80 passed by Congress in 1937, in <br />connection with the Colorado Big Thompson Reclamation project, <br />specified certain minimum flow releases from Lake Granby into the <br />colorado River. <br /> <br />The State Water Conservation Board has developed <br />considerable expertise and judgment in the appropriation of <br />instream flows. U.S. agencies have no such record of experience <br />in integrating instream flow uses of water into a system of <br />multiple beneficial uses. <br /> <br />congressman Strang's bill makes sense as an addition to <br />Congressman Wirth's wilderness bill. Rather than displacing an <br />established State program, it directs U.S. agencies to utilize <br />Colorado's program, unless it is shown to be plainly inadequate. <br />Some people don't like this approach because they wish to see <br />appropriation of all the water in wilderness areas. If that's <br />the aim of wilderness legislation, our District is not interested <br />in seeing any more wilderness areas designated in Colorado. <br />Colorado and the nation's future from a water resources <br />standpoint should not be subject to a short-sighted stance by the <br />present generation. Aquatic life protection, as stated in <br />congressman Strang's bill, offers real and quantifiable <br />orotection for the environment. <br /> <br />-3- <br />