The Mountain Mail
By Joe Stone - Mail Staff Writer
Doctrine of prior appropriation, transmountain water diversions, augmentation, the Arkansas River compact and litigation and ground water were among topics during the Colorado water law workshop held Thursday in Salida.
Sponsored by Colorado Water Trust, water lawyers Marcus Lock and Kendall Burgemeister presented an overview of Colorado water law.
Lock discussed the doctrine of prior appropriation, which provides the basis for Colorado water law, and provided an overview of state and federal laws that affect water rights.
Under prior appropriation, Lock said, water rights “are derived from beneficial use,” and rights that are “first in time” are senior or “first in right.”
Diverting water and putting it to beneficial use creates a water right, Lock said, but priority is determined by the date upon which an application for the right was filed in Colorado Water Court.
“Water court confirms water rights, but it doesn’t grant them,” Lock said.
Burgemeister provided an overview of methods for enhancing water supplies and optimizing water use, including changes of water right, which must be adjudicated in water court.
To change a right requires the new right holder to prove no injury to other right holders, and new use is limited to the quantity of water historically used under that right, he added.
Burgemeister also discussed exchanges, augmentation plans, imported water, in-stream flow rights, recreational in-channel diversions and groundwater issues.
Terry Scanga, Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District manager, offered an overview of events that have influenced water use in the Arkansas River basin.
He spoke about the 1948 Colorado-Kansas Compact, the 1969 Administration and Adjudication Act, the 1985 Kansas v. Colorado lawsuit, the voluntary flow management program and trans-mountain diversions.
Scanga said 126,748 acre feet, about 20 percent, of water in the Arkansas basin comes from trans-mountain diversions.
Kaylea White, senior water resources specialist with Colorado Water Conservation Board, discussed the Colorado In-Stream Flow Program.
Amy Beatie and Zach Smith, Colorado Water Trust executive director and staff attorney, respectively, discussed “hot topics,” including the Breem Ditch in-stream flow project near Gunnison and abandonment of water rights.
Fifty-three people attended the workshop, including Chaffee County commissioners Frank Holman, Dennis Giese and Dave Potts; Chaffee County Development Director Don Reimer; Salida City Councilman Jay Moore; representatives from Fremont and Custer counties and several directors of the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District.
Colorado Water Trust is a private, nonprofit organization supporting voluntary efforts to restore and protect stream flows in Colorado, including permanent water acquisitions, water leases and water conservation