U.S. Water News Online
DENVER -- The Colorado House of Representatives has approved several bills to deal with the state's water crisis, including a bill that critics said would make it difficult to transfer water to help alleviate the drought.
Rep. Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, said lawmakers are making the biggest ch ange in Colorado water law in the past 125 years after the House gave initial approval to House Bill 1146.
The measure would allow water judges to consider how a transfer of water rights would affect water quality for downstream users.
Opponents said it could tie up water transfers in the courts for years.
``Of the 700 bills that we're going to hear this session, a few of them are going to define our time here. The budget is one, and water is the other one. We are making a major change in water law in this state, unlike anything we've seen in 125 years,'' Cadman said.
``This is the worst possible time in our history to make it inflexible to move water to an area that needs it from an area that has it,'' he said.
House Speaker Lola Spradley, R-Beulah, said districts that have water suffer when that water is transferred, and water quality should be a major consideration.
The House approved on a 63-1 vote and sent to the Senate House Bill 1001, which would offer state subsidies to help cover the costs of issuing bonds and notes for new water storage or diversion projects that are sponsored by at least two governmental agencies.
It also would allow the state engineer to approve substitute water-supply plans during a drought.
Rep. Diane Hoppe, R-Sterling, said she was troubled by provisions that would allow temporary changes in the use of water for five years, with permanent changes still having to go to water court. Opponents said a lot of damage could be caused to a water basin in five years.
Hoppe said the current drought is so severe that she understands temporary remedies must be available, but if it continues, lawmakers need to consider stronger measures to protect water users.
The Senate approved 32-0 and sent to the House Senate Bill 110 to launch a statewide study of major water projects, including $500,000 for a study of the ``Big Straw'' project to reuse water from the Colorado River.
The multibillion-dollar ``Big Straw'' project, also called the Colorado Return Project, would pump at least 400,000 acre feet of water, enough for about 2 million people, from the Colorado River at the Utah border east to reservoirs like Dillon that serve metropolitan Denver.
Colorado has never taken its full share of about 3.75 million acre feet because it lacks adequate storage facilities, using only about 3 million acre feet of that total.
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