Legislator offers last-minute measure to help irrigation wells

Legislation that could provide some relief to irrigation well owners in the Central Colorado Water Conservancy District may yet make its way through the legislature before the end of this year's session.

The measure could provide 10,000 acre-feet of Colorado-Big Thompson Project water from the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District this year.

The measure will be heard in the Senate Ag Committee today at 1:30 p.m.

The C-BT water could only be used to make up for water the wells pumped prior to Jan. 1, 2003, Northern Water officials said.

Tom Cech, executive director of Central Colorado, said negotiations are ongoing on the exact wording of the measure but confirmed there "could be a substantial quantity of C-BT water for multiple years," that the district could use for its augmentation -- water replacement -- plan.

The state engineer's office shut down several hundred irrigation wells in 2002 in Adams, Weld and Morgan counties for fear pumping those wells would result in injury to senior water right holders downstream on the South Platte. Central then filed a water replacement plan with the Division 1 Water Court in Greeley. Details of that plan have not been announced by Weld District Court Judge Roger Klein.

That plan drew a number of objectors while in court last year, and the legislation is doing the same, said Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, one of the co-sponsors of the measure.

To gain approval, any measure must be introduced by today to be heard by the full legislature before the end of this year's session next week.

Brophy, a member of the Senate Ag Committee, said he couldn't understand any opposition to such a plan, adding those objections have come from many of the same entities that oppose the augmentation plan filed with the court that went under 45 days of testimony before Klein last year.

"It is just unfathomable to me why anyone would object to putting water in the river," Brophy said. With that in mind, Brophy said the measure introduced today would make any C-BT water available this year only, in hopes objections would be minimal. The bill also could be reintroduced in subsequent years.

Eric Wilkinson, general manager of Northern Water, agreed and said the proposed legislation would amend state statutes on how substitute water is used in augmentation plans. He stressed that C-BT water, which is brought over from Lake Granby on the Western Slope, would be used only if available.

It would free up water currently being used by Central to meet requirements of meeting prior depletion amounts by irrigation wells.

"This is not any new water we would bring over. It's water that is already available for us and could be used if, and only if, it was available and was used in accordance with our policies," Wilkinson said.