By Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News
Colorado, for the first time in its history, is infusing $1.5 million into a program to preserve water for streams. Until now the initiative has relied largely on the charity of others.
The money, which will be provided each year, means the Colorado Water Conservation Board can buy water outright, rather than relying on donations or staking claims to very young water rights, as it has done since 1973, when the state’s stream protection program began.
“The way you get to bomb- proof water is through acquisition,” said Amy Beatie, executive director of the Colorado Water Trust, a nonprofit that also seeks water for environmental purposes. “It’s the perfect step in the right direction.”
For more than 100 years, Colorado’s Constitution has mandated that the right to divert “shall not be denied” anyone who owns a water right. But nature doesn’t own water rights, and streams rarely benefit from diversions. They need the water to stay in place, to continue flowing for plants, bugs and fish.
Colorado has one of the oldest so-called “instream” flow programs in the West. To date, nearly 30 percent of the state’s 29,289 miles of year-round streams - about 8,500 miles - have some level of protection, according to the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
Oil boom freed funds
Much of the state’s program relies on very young water rights. But in dry years, when the water is usually needed most, these young water rights rarely are entitled to any water. It goes instead to older, more senior rights held on the streams, as mandated under state water laws.
The cash lawmakers set aside this year means the state will now be able to buy senior water rights in critical river systems where fish and wildlife are suffering.
“It opens up a bigger window of opportunity,” said Mark Uppendahl, the instream flow coordinator at the Division of Wildlife. “Some of the streams that have been over-appropriated that have species of concern have never had water available because of existing diversions. Now they’re available to an instream flow right if we can work out an agreement.”
Thanks to Colorado’s oil and gas boom, severance tax revenues rose enough this year to allow new funds for the program, said Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, who co-sponsored the legislation authorizing the cash.
“The climate was unique this year,” Curry said. “We had a more supportive staff, a more supportive (Colorado Water Conservation) board and we had available funds from the severance tax. Without that, it would not have gone through.”
The move to buy water strictly for environmental purposes comes as climate change and population growth put more pressure on the state’s hallmark rivers.
Cities are watchful
With more people vying for less water, saving water strictly for environmental purposes is tricky work.
For 150 years, Colorado’s natural rivers and streams have served as an intricate plumbing system for the state’s cities, which control vast portfolios of senior water rights. Anytime new flows are staked out for the environment, cities and other water-right holders worry that it will make their work - delivering water for humans - harder.
As a result, the new cash program is being carefully watched.
Linda Bassi, director of the instream flow program, said new rules are being written to ensure the money is spent carefully. And lawmakers will have the right to approve or reject certain individual acquisitions.
“This is a new program,” Bassi said. “We’re hopeful that once we get a couple of transactions under our belts, people will get more comfortable with what we’re trying to do.”
One goal, Bassi said, is to protect species that are at risk of being listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. Such listings, while important to protecting fish and other wildlife, also make stream management more difficult.
How much more work the state needs to do to protect stream flows isn’t clear. Bassi said efforts are under way to assess how much H2O is needed and where it’s needed most.
“We’re really glad to see the state make this commitment,” said Tom Iseman, water program manager for the Nature Conservancy in Colorado. “It’s already energized the program.”