This page is intended to solicit comments, and about the reasons, for the repeal of Colorado’s water law, specifically, the 1965 Ground Water Management Act, and the 1969 Water Rights Determination and Administration Act. Post comment in support, or opposition; or post comments on what YOU think Coloraodo’s water law – the most important law concerning our most precious resource – should look like… What do YOU want?
[...] Petition for the Re-write of Coloraod’s water law [...]
It might behoove us all to start looking at living within a factual balanced water budget. It should be mandatory and in reality it is. As drier conditions persist for longer periods with consumption increasing, one day the water just won’t be there. For years it has been realized that the Colorado River is at least ten percent over appropriated, there are more water rights than there is water in the river. In the past this has been masked by the wet years, years of above normal precipitation, and water rights that haven’t been exercised. When things such as making concessions to southern states this past winter, Colorado has started to look at the possibility of a call on the River. Which really means the likely-hood of an eventual call. Factors such a the Moffat and Windy Gap firming projects need to be considered in a new light. How much water will really be able to be pulled across the divide? What happens in a call scenario? Will junior rights stand the brunt? Will in stream flows take a hit? Will the more politically appealing route of all rights standing an appropriate percentage reduction happen? How will after the fact, federal mandates fit in? The ‘ol stand by is to pray for rain.
If the 1969 act was meant to integrate groundwater rights with surface rights, it is a dismal failure. According to Fred Anderson, who was president of the senate in ‘69, the intention was not to shut down thousands of wells in the state. Yet that is exactly what happened.
The legislature meant for the priority dates on our wells to mean something. That is why they exempted well owners from the postponement doctrine, which means the date of appropriation rather than the later date of adjudication determined a wells’ place in the priority system pecking order.
Apparently, Klein doesn’t understand that.
Well owners should be able to take water directly out of the river, either for direct use or for augmentation, whenever their right is in priority. It is not enough to exempt well owners from the requirement to pay back depletions to the river if those alleged depletions occur when the well is in priority.
Who in the world can predict what the call will be at any given time in the future?
In practice, a well’s priority is no better than the priority of the water used to augment it. That’s not what the legislature intended.
So let’s rewrite the law to at least let us take water directly from the river when we are in priority. It will be expensive to build pipelines from the river to the farms served by wells, but it’s better than what we have now. In some cases, ditch companies can carry the water.
But in any case it is ridiculous for a 1939 well to have get a 2008 right for taking water out of the river, it should be able to take water whenever the call is junior to 1939.
I forgot to say, if well owners could take water out of the river when their wells were in priority, there would be little if no water left for Glade to take.
Something is very wrong with water law when a creature like Glade can get water on a conditional decree which is at least three decades later in time than senior irrigation wells who cannot run at all on their absolute decrees.
Again, I really doubt this was the intent of the 1969 legislature.
It strikes me that both the 1965 and the 1969 laws have been repealed, by the water court. The original intent of the 1965 Ground Water Management Act is quite transparent, it was meant to keep and protect the use of ground water. A couple of stupid rulings by the District One Court and all that is out the window. Judge Kline chose to pursue his own view of ground water’s place in the law, over the law itself. I guess Kline’s view of Colorado water law is exactly the same as that of Ronnie Sperling, do you suppose she has pictures of Kline with a goat? He was still pretty green to water law when he destroyed the 1965 Act, I’m sure at Sperling’s urging, or maybe a phone call from Greg Hobbs, Roger Kline put himself above the State Legislature and neutered the 1965 Ground Water Management Act.
At the urging of now Justice Gregory Hobbs the State Supreme Court did an even more dastardly job on the 1969 Water Rights Determination and Administration Act. Hobbs taking an advocate’s position to the bench with him set out to do what he considered to be a correction of Colorado’s Legislature. In a triumph of ego over justice the court helped Hobbs to turn the 1969 Act on its ear and create something unrecognizable to one of the sponsors of the Act itself. The court has been advised by former Senator Fred Anderson that when he helped to write the bill the Hobbs interpretation was not the bill’s intent, Hobbs and the Court ignored Sen. Anderson.
The water courts are using these laws to create rulings that have destroyed any fairness or equity in Colorado water law. To truly make it right again I think there should be a federal investigation, with a primary focus on the Colorado Water Court. The 1965 and 1969 Acts have been perverted beyond any recognition of their original intent. Maybe the real question should be, are Hobbs and the other water court flunkies acting on a misguided ideal, or are they simply corrupt? In either case Hobbs has confused his bench with a throne, and the laws that permitted it should be done away with.
As such the 1965 and 1969 acts should be repealed, as has been suggested, by either legislative action or us of the provisions in Colorado law to amend the State Constitution. As long as these channels remain for Hobbs and his flunkies to use, they will continue to club water users in Colorado with them.
Did the judge in the Central augmentation case recently give any advice on priority?
The well priority issue is muddied, at best, right now. This is an issue that will likely go up on appeal. Simply, augmentation plans have no priority date, so the current thinking is that wells in an augmentation plan do not necessarily recieve the benefit of their priorities when in a plan for augmentation.
We still need to review Klein’s final decisions but will update when we do.
As I read the 1969 Water Rights Determination and Administration Act, any right in existence before 1969 is to be considered vested. If this is the case how has the District One Court ignored the vested rights of irrigation wells in all of the cases heard in front of it.
For example: the District One Court found that the burden of proof in the Box Elder case was on the ground water users, while few if any were junior to the 1969 law why weren’t these wells treated as vested and the objectors forced to prove injury? It looks to me as though the District One Court completely ignores this important but inconvenient aspect of the law.
These pre-69 water rights are not supposed to be subjugated to the same rigors as rights that followed them in time. How do we put a stop to such blatant arrogance on the water court? Without checks and balances the court is just another tyrant.
The judge in the Central case is deliberately silent on priority because in his view of the system priority exists in terms of surface flows only. To address priority and the wells in the same sentence he would have to admit that wells have a priority and that doesn’t help the cause of his side. Yes, I think Roger Kline has a side in this fight.
Is Kline’s decision final or are we waiting for the Boulder-Sterling cartel to appeal more mundane aspects of the ruling. Therefore running more farmers out of time, which has been the real purpose of these delay tactics all along.
This system is maybe the biggest criminal of all, to give slime like Ronnie Sperling the keys to the kingdom and destroy hundreds of lives for nothing more than her own greed and avarice. I think that even if we fix the current situation the underlying faults will rise up again and cause our sons and daughters to have to fight all over again. The solution would appear to be the repeal of the 1965 and 1969 laws. How do we do it? How do we protect the senior, and all vested rights? We now know what doesn’t work, what will, and how do we bring it about?