| 2/20/2006 8:51:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Water bill attempts to limit new play parks
Local leaders say Salida, BV parks would be immune
by Jason Starr
Mail Staff Writer
Chaffee County’s application for a recreational water right for whitewater parks in Salida and Buena Vista should be immune to a Senate bill that will devalue such water rights in Colorado, if passed.
Senate Bill 37 contains restrictions on recreational water rights that would essentially make them a second-class right in Colorado’s priority system.
The bill, which is a revived effort from a similar bill defeated last year, passed out of the Senate agriculture and natural resources committee Feb. 9 and will be up for consideration on the Senate floor this week.
As currently proposed, the bill would not affect recreational water rights that already have been established, nor pending applications.
Several Colorado municipalities already have decreed water rights to protect flows for recreation in whitewater parks. Five applications are pending, including Chaffee County’s.
“If we are grandfathered in, we don’t have an issue,” Chaffee County Commissioner Jerry Mallett said.
But county officials will still monitor wording of the bill as it is debated in the Legislature “just to make sure something doesn’t come up that’s really going to affect Chaffee County,” Mallett said.
Chaffee County applied for an RICD water right in 2004. The application is scheduled for hearing in front of the Colorado Water Conservation Board March 21. The CWCB makes recommendations on applications to water court.
Chaffee County is currently in negotiations with objectors to the application to engender a favorable recommendation and smooth the water court process.
The Senate bill, sponsored by Democrat Sen. Jim Isgar, Hesperus, is seen as protection for irrigators and the future water needs of developers and municipal water providers.
The bill would require ongoing reports about boater use in water parks, subjecting RICD water rights to ongoing abandonment challenges if use dips.
It would also create situations where holders of water rights that are junior to decreed RICDs would not have to yield to the RICD in low flow years.
In a written statement, those opposed to the senate bill asked: “Why is the Legislature thinking of taking away the protection of the priority system from RICDs? … Why does the Legislature think it’s all right for new users to take water from an RICD but not from any other water right? … Why is the Legislature considering denying security and finality to RICD water rights?”
The Denver Post reported Friday that elected officials in Eagle County are reconsidering the idea of building a whitewater park because of the pending legislation.
Officials in many Colorado towns situated on rivers see whitewater parks as a way to attract summer tourists.
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